ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996                 TAG: 9604120089
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE

SOME OBJECT TO AWARD HONORING THATCHER

The choice of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to receive the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation's first statesmanship award has raised some hackles.

``I think it was a questionable choice,'' Peter Onuf, chairman of the history department at the University of Virginia, said Thursday. Onuf, whose position is endowed by the foundation, said many in the history department had questions about Thatcher's selection.

``There are a lot of people who hate Margaret Thatcher in Britain and in Ireland,'' said Nicholas Edsall, a professor specializing in modern British history. ``I would have thought that the award would go to more of a consensus builder.''

Thatcher's detractors complain that she ran roughshod over opponents in England and Northern Ireland in her quest to privatize the country's economy.

Others, however, claim that Thatcher, along with then-President Reagan, brought about the end of the Cold War through a hard-line stance against Communism. Many also credit Thatcher with strengthening the British economy.

- Associated Press

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