The relationship between Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan excited interest at the time and continues to do so... As a member of the State Department once commented, they were ideological soulmates. They also had a great personal affection for one another. But was that personal relationship reason enough for the US to support the British during the Falklands War, a conflict over what Reagan memorably called “that little bunch of ice-cold land down there”?

The Americans wanted to remain friends with both the Argentinians and the British, and at the outset effectively declared themselves neutral... Thatcher's reaction when told that the Americans wanted to be “evenhanded” can easily be imagined. But fundamentally, they were not: they would support the British over Argentina. However, if mediation had succeeded, they would not have had to make the awkward choice.

As Sir Nicholas Henderson later pointed out, “the nature of the American Government makes it difficult to have one clear-cut and comprehensive fount of policy”. Differences between the factions were significant. The State Department was split between the Latin Americanists and the Europeanists...

The White House was not particularly interested in the dispute as such, and tried not to take too public a position. Its primary concern... was to minimise the damage done both to the domestic standing of the President and to American foreign policy interests in Europe and Latin America. Reagan had said that the US was friends equally with the UK and Argentina. This was perhaps why, according to Sir Anthony Parsons, “we never thought in terms of Reagan and where he stood. We thought in terms of Haig, Kirkpatrick, Weinberger, but not Reagan. We felt he was under the influence of the last person he spoke to and didn't think about it [the war] much one way or the other.” By early June, Thatcher and Reagan had had three increasingly acrimonious conversations.

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