Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Margaret Thatcher's visit to President Jimmy Carter in 1977 was marred by a faulty doorknob that left her locked in the lavatory of a Texas hotel, according to documents in the U.K. government archive.

The incident, which took place two years before Thatcher became prime minister, is catalogued in 30-year-old files made public for the first time today. The papers also show Prime Minister James Callaghan worrying about how to respond to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's plan to attend Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee celebrations, and France threatening to derail nuclear arms talks unless Concorde was allowed to land in New York.

Thatcher, who served as Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was leader of the opposition at the time of the incident. The visit was designed to raise her international standing. While most of the trip was judged a success by diplomats, she encountered problems on arrival at the Warwick Hotel in Houston on Sept. 9, 1977, two days before her trip to Washington.

``The inside door handle of the bathroom would not work properly, and both Mr. Thatcher and Mrs. Thatcher had to be released from bondage on different occasions,'' British Consul General Roy Fox wrote in a memo to his superiors. Since there was no laundry service at the hotel, Fox's secretary took the future prime minister's clothes home to wash them herself.

The Warwick Hotel, since renamed Hotel Zaza Houston, didn't respond to requests for comment.

`Overtly Political'

The British embassy in Washington had decided early on that Thatcher's visit was ``going to cause some problems of handling'' because she was likely to be ``overtly political,'' other documents indicate.

The files on her visit, which are two inches thick, show officials negotiating about whether she could have her photograph taken with Carter. In the event, ``her interview with President Carter, which went on longer than the allotted time, was very cordial,'' according to the file.

In Houston, Fox reported, ``the hosts and those who spoke made it quite plain that she would get 90 percent of the votes of those who had come to hear her. She so much enjoyed the question period that she had a short wrestling match'' with her host when he wanted to end the session.

Small Entourage

Thatcher traveled with her husband Denis and two staff, an entourage so small that the Fox suggested the four of them could travel to NASA headquarters with him and his wife in his Oldsmobile 98, an idea vetoed by the Foreign Office in London.

The trip was also notable for providing Thatcher with a chance to meet Alan Walters, then working at the World Bank. Later, he would become her economics adviser. Seeing his name on her itinerary, Callaghan's office asked the embassy to investigate who he was.

More than a decade later, Walters would find himself at the center of a political storm when his public criticism of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism opened a rift with then Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. Lawson resigned in 1989, and Thatcher was forced out by her own party a year later.

Her successor, John Major, adopted the fixed exchange-rate system as the centerpiece of U.K. economic policy in 1990, only for sterling to be ejected by currency speculators including George Soros two years later. The debacle left the reputation of his government in tatters.

At the time of Thatcher's talks with Carter, the U.S. and France were locked in a dispute over the Anglo-French supersonic airliner Concorde. British Airways and Air France, then both state-owned, were suing the New York and New Jersey Port Authority after it blocked the airplane from landing, citing noise concerns.

Anti-American Feeling

In a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Owen in London, French Foreign Minister Louis de Guiringaud said he had summoned the U.S. ambassador in Paris to warn him of ``a wave of anti-American sentiment in France'' if Concorde was rejected, according to Foreign Office minutes. He said there would be ``the possible loss to the Americans of $10-12 billion.''

As a final threat, de Guiringaud then said a continued New York refusal ``would also stultify what President Carter might want to do over non-proliferation'' of nuclear weapons. Carter would go on to sign the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty two years later.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia, Miami and Dallas had offered themselves as alternative destinations. ``We should have offered Concorde to Miami and waited for New York to approach us,'' an unidentified British official wrote in the margin of one letter.

30-Year Rule

Today's disclosures are being made under U.K. laws that keep most official records private for 30 years. Thereafter, they are transferred from government departments to the National Archives for public inspection.

Notes scrawled in the margins of other papers reveal Callaghan's frustrations with the machinery of government. In one memo about problems with the planned celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the queen's accession, he comments ``bloody nonsense'' next to one item and ``pernickety bureaucracy'' next to another.

One concern was the threat by Uganda's Amin that he would try to attend the Jubilee celebrations, along with a summit of leaders of British Commonwealth countries to be held in London at the same time.

Delegation of 250

``When I come to London, I shall be accompanied by a delegation of 250 people including dancers of the heartbeat of Africa,'' Amin wrote in a Feb. 23 cable, sparking telegrams back and forth with leaders of other former British Empire countries to assess whether it would be acceptable to block his visit.

Robert Muldoon, then prime minister of New Zealand, said the attendance of Amin, whose regime had killed tens of thousands of people, would be ``an abomination.''

Amin didn't come in the end, to the relief of British officials who had read his proposed agenda.

``I shall be able to point out frankly the weakness of the British government and give some advice on the current chaotic economic situation in Great Britain, which has been brought about by the fact that the British economy is now controlled by British Asians and Zionists,'' he wrote in a Feb. 23 cable. ``With Highest Regards, Al-Haji Field Marshal Dr. Idi Amin Dada VC, DSO, MC, Life President of the Republic of Uganda.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net. Thomas Penny in London tpenny@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 28, 2007 09:35 EST