LONDON (AFP) - As British premier, Margaret Thatcher may have forged a strong "special relationship" with the US, but an early visit did not always offer a warm introduction to the nation, documents released Friday show.
Thatcher went to the United States as leader of Britains main opposition Conservative Party in September 1977 but the visit took a comic turn when she got locked in a toilet and "had to be released from bondage" at a Texan hotel.
She also displayed signs of what became her trademark strong-mindedness, "wrestling" the microphone from the host of one event so that she could speak and snubbing a journalist from television network CBS.
Roy Fox, an official at the British consulate-general in Houston, wrote to a colleague at the British embassy in Washington, Mark Russell, detailing the mishaps which befell her at a top hotel in Houston.
"The start of the visit on Friday evening was marred by the failure of the Warwick Hotel...to provide either a hairdresser or someone to press Mrs Thatchers dress," he wrote.
"The hotel in fact became a joke with the Thatcher party.
"The inside door handle of the bathroom would not work properly and both Mr Thatcher and Mrs Thatcher had to be released from bondage on different occasions.
"There were no laundry facilities on the Saturday and Mrs Thatchers secretary and mine did the laundry at the latters home on the Saturday evening."
Fox also provides early insights into the character of the woman who came to be nicknamed "the Iron Lady".
After a speech to the English Speaking Union, she "so much enjoyed the question period that she had a short wrestling match with the president for the microphone to enable the questioning to go on when he thought she had had enough."
Thatcher, who was British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, had noted of another engagement that "the Americans all seemed to want their pound of flesh," Fox added.
There was another "sharp reaction" when a CBS cameraman questioned her about the state of the British economy -- she declined to answer and later vowed not to give any more interviews to the network.
Thatcher had meetings with State Department officials and businessmen who were "impressed" with her but "she had not gone down quite so well with the Washington Post editorial board", a letter from Russell to Ramsay Melhuish of the Foreign Offices North America department said.
On becoming premier, Thatcher built a particularly warm relationship with US president Ronald Reagan, describing him as "a dear friend" in a eulogy at his 2004 funeral.
The documents were released at the National Archives in Kew, west London, under laws which allow top secret official papers to be made public after 30 years.
