Thatcher suffers series of strokes, curtails public appearances

(LONDON) - Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has suffered a series of small strokes and is retiring from the public lecture circuit, her office said Friday. <br><br>Thatcher, 76, canceled a speaking

Friday, March 22nd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(LONDON) - Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has suffered a series of small strokes and is retiring from the public lecture circuit, her office said Friday.

Thatcher, 76, canceled a speaking engagement at her doctor's instructions Tuesday night after falling ill that morning.

``Over recent months, Lady Thatcher has suffered a number of small strokes,'' her office said.

``After thorough investigation involving a number of tests, her doctors have told her that these can neither be predicted nor prevented. They have therefore told her to cut back her program at once and in particular to avoid the undue strains that public speaking places on her.

``With great regret she has decided to abide by this advice and to cancel all her speaking engagements.''

A spokesman added that she would not give another speech _ ``ever.''

She was resting at her home in London on Friday, her office said.

Earlier this month, she turned down an invitation to travel to the Falkland Islands to mark the 20th anniversary of the war between Britain and Argentina because of her husband's poor health.

She was to have been guest of honor at the celebrations on June 14 but said the journey would be too much for her 86-year-old husband, Denis.

Carol Thatcher disclosed in January that her mother had suffered a minor stroke during the Christmas-New Year holidays.

The Times newspaper reported that the incident came during a 50th anniversary celebration in Madeira with her husband, and that she had been treated at a hospital.

Thatcher, who was prime minister from 1979 to 1990, had stirred new controversy this week with the publication of a book, ``Statecraft,'' in which she called for Britain to withdraw from key institutions of the European Union.

In excerpts published in The Times newspaper this week, she said the euro was destined to fail and denounced the currency as ``nothing more or less than an instrument for forging a European superstate.''

She described the creation of the European Union as ``perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era'' and wrote that that most of the 20th century's greatest problems _ including Nazism and Marxism _ originated in mainland Europe.

Her bluntness caused some political discomfort to her successor as Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who opposes close ties with Europe but has tried to de-emphasize the issue, a proven vote-loser.

One senior Conservative, Francis Maude, complained Thursday that the party was unfairly characterized as narrow and bigoted.

``This kind of caricature can too easily be reinforced by rumbling from our hall of fame,'' Maude said, clearly referring to Thatcher.

``We do not believe it was wrong for Britain to join the EU, we do not believe that mainland Europe has been the source of all evil,'' Maude said.

Thatcher, a grocer's daughter who became Europe's first female prime minister in 1979, transformed her country during 11 combative years in power.

She earned the sobriquet ``Iron Lady,'' by dismantling the socialist policies of the Labor Party, crushing the once-mighty labor unions, defeating Argentina in war, and serving as the No. 1 ally to President Reagan and the first President Bush.

``We have raised Britain in the respect of the world from what it was _ broke, bankrupt, unwilling to defend itself properly,'' she declared in 1987. ``We have, I think, transformed Britain.''