Posted on 07/02/2011 4:40:08 AM PDT by naturalman1975
He was the former actor loved and loathed for fighting the unions and championing 'Reaganomics'. .
But all eyes in London on Monday are more likely to be on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher than Ronald Reagan’s new $800,000 (£500,000) statue.
The frail Iron Lady, who rarely appears in public, is ‘determined’ to attend the unveiling with around 2,000 people on Independence Day.
Baroness Thatcher, 85, declined an invitation to April’s Royal Wedding and could not attend her 85th birthday party last October because she had flu.
But her crucial partnership with Mr Reagan, who died in 2004, is seen by many as the reason for the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Union.
She called him 'one of the greatest men of our time' and he once told an aide: 'Isn't she marvellous?'.
Around 40 per cent of funds for the statue came from UK private donors.
Former U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice will give the keynote address at the ceremony, which is part of a European tour celebrating what would be Mr Reagan's 100th birthday.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Baroness Thatcher’s Scottish Secretary, said Britons were at first concerned about Mr Reagan as the thought he lacked experience.
But he told MSNBC that many were won over by his ‘good judgement, good instincts and guts’ and the British ‘respect his achievements’.
The 10ft bronze monument was sculpted by Chas Fagan, of North Carolina, and will stand near statues to other former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.
It will be unveiled outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, and a plaque will recognise Mr Reagan’s efforts in the Cold War.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Will Maggie make it? Frail Iron Lady 'determined' to attend Reagan statue unveiling on Independence Day
From Dutch to Douchebag in one generation .
..and Sarah Palin meets Iron Lady days later.
We love you Maggie.
How I miss the Gipper...
We shall not see their like again I’m afraid.
I doubt it, trying to self invite yourself somewhere is not cricket with the Brits.
I will be surprised if she attends, but it will be terrific if she does.
I've been wondering whatever happened to Rice. She just seemed to disappear. I believe she said she voted for Obama, so it's surprising they didn't keep her around for propaganda purposes.
I hope she makes it.
It is hard to watch as a great generation turns the reins of Government, over to a younger generation, that can’t pour pee out of a boot with the directions on the heel.
Leftist propaganda again replaces facts!
He's the President who did more for non-Communist and non-thug unions than any other.
He was the American President of the Screen Actors Union who drove out the Communist puppets of Stalin & his Comintern and defeated their strategic effort in the 40s and 50s to control Hollywood.
He was the President who allied with anti-Communist labor leader George Meany - and PM Thatcher & Pope John Paul - to actively support and supply the non-Communist Polish labor union Solidarity in their defiance of their Communist master - to ultimately defeat Communist totalitarianism in Eastern Europe.
He was an enemy of Communist & thug unions only - not truly free and voluntary unions. That's why those unions of today, who's leaders come from the radical Left of the 60s, who support Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez unionism, do definitely "loath" Reagan.
The two classiest politicians of our times.
I balled like a baby when she spoke of Reagan.
Dr. Rice is an expert on the Soviet Union so she will probably explain why it was so important to defeat communism.
This about a guy who ran the largest state in the union and not a peep about Odumbo who never ran anything but his mouth.
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