WASHINGTON, SEPT. 13, 2005 -The United States and Great Britain have a long "special relationship." As British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher played a key role in strengthening that enduring alliance.

To carry on her legacy of spreading freedom and opportunity, The Heritage Foundation today announced the formation of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. The Center was made possible by a generous $3 million gift from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. "Lady Thatcher considers the U.S. a beacon of freedom and opportunity for the rest of the world," said Frank Swain, Trustee of the Thatcher Foundation. "We're pleased to join forces with The Heritage Foundation to spread Lady Thatcher's message in America."

The Center will work to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Britain by focusing on five major goals:

• Protecting and improving relations between the U.S. and Britain.
• Advancing American and British interests in Europe.
• Preserving American and British sovereignty against threats from the European Union and other organizations.
• Promoting American and British joint leadership in the global war on terror.
• Defending the Anglo-American free-enterprise system and promoting why it as the road to future prosperity and economic democracy.

"This will be Lady Thatcher's most significant legacy in the United States," Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner announced. "We at Heritage are honored that she would entrust that responsibility to us, and we will work tirelessly to promote the ideas she represents."

The Center will support a Margaret Thatcher Fellowship. Each Thatcher Fellow will spend up to two years studying, writing and speaking about issues critical to the Anglo-American alliance. The Center will consider government officials, academics and policy experts as potential fellows.

The Thatcher Fellow will also focus on advancing the importance of the rule of law and economic freedom, limiting the role of unelected international institutions such as the U.N., and promulgating the larger themes of freedom and national sovereignty-all ideas central to Lady Thatcher's legacy.

Another key component of the new Center will be the Barbara and Bernard Lomas Fellow. Bernard Lomas was president of Albion College in Albion, Mich. from 1970-1983 and has been counselor to The Heritage Foundation president for 25 years. Dr. Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Lady Thatcher, will be the first Lomas Fellow. Gardiner is currently Heritage's Fellow in Anglo-American Security Policy.

With the opening of the Thatcher Center, The Heritage Foundation becomes the first organization with fellowships dedicated to both Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese holds the Ronald Reagan Fellowship. Feulner says that's a fitting tribute to these two great world leaders and to the alliance they worked to strengthen and expand.

"American and British troops are fighting side-by-side to spread freedom and democracy in Iraq," Feulner noted. "We also worked together to defeat Nazism and to win the Cold War. The Thatcher Center will find ways for us to work together to face future threats as well."