Margaret Thatcher tendency to override collegiate opinion, contributed to discontent within her party. Thatcher removed Geoffrey Howe as Foreign Secretary in July 1989 after he and Lawson had forced her to agree to a plan for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain joined the ERM in October 1990. On 1 November 1990, Howe, by then the last remaining member of Thatcher's original 1979 cabinet, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister, ostensibly over her open hostility to moves towards European Monetary Union. In his resignation speech on 13 November, Howe commented on Thatcher's openly dismissive attitude to
Margaret Thatcher rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War ever was". She went on a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 and met with Gorbachev and Council of Ministers Chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov. Thatcher became closely aligned with the Cold War policies of US President Ronald Reagan, based on their shared distrust of Communism. A disagreement came in 1983 when Reagan did not consult with her on the invasion of Grenada. During her first year as Prime Minister she supported NATO's decision to deploy US nuclear cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, permitting the US