Margaret Thatcher senior member of the party and former Minister of Defence, as Foreign Minister in 1979. Although he was considered a "wet", he avoided domestic affairs and got along well with Thatcher. The first issue was what to do with Rhodesia, where the five-percent white population was determined to rule the prosperous, largely-black ex-colony in the face of overwhelming international disapproval. After the collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa in 1975, South Africa, which had been Rhodesia's chief supporter, realised that country was a liability. Black rule was inevitable, and Carrington brokered a peaceful solution at the Lancaster House conference
Margaret Thatcher mind. Upon leaving the House of Commons, Thatcher became the first former Prime Minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties. She wrote two volumes of memoirs, "The Downing Street Years" (1993) and "The Path to Power" (1995). In 1991 she and her husband Denis moved to a house in Chester Square, a residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district. Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a "geopolitical consultant" in July 1992, for $250,000 per year and an annual contribution of