The
New York Post has revealed several of President Ronald Reagan's telephone calls with heads of state, including a call to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in which the president apologizes for not letting her know about America's invasion of Granada ahead of time.
Knowing Thatcher is angry, Reagan opens the Oct. 26, 1983, conversation saying, "If I were there, Margaret, I’d throw my hat in the door before I came in."
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The tapes were discovered by author William Doyle, who received them last week after making a Freedom of Information Act request in 1996. They were recorded in the Situation Room on the White House switchboard.
Doyle released five tapes that he thought held the most historical significance. Others included Reagan trying to get Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to keep Israeli troops in Lebanon until Lebanese forces could take their place. On another tape, he keeps Syrian President Hafez Assad, father of current President Basher Assad, waiting for 13 minutes while he rides a horse.
Doyle told the Post that the tapes were intended to keep an accurate record of the conversations and did not compare to the secret recordings made by Richard Nixon a decade earlier.
"There is no evidence that I have seen that Reagan audiotaped any other closed-door non-public White House business," Doyle said.
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