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Denis Healey’s brilliance as a linguist Denis Healey’s brilliance as a linguist
(about 20 hours later)
One quality of Denis Healey that hasn’t been touched upon (Obituary, 5 October, Letters, 7 October) was his brilliance as a linguist. I remember one occasion in the late 60s when, as defence secretary, he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC on the modernisation of Nato air defences. Four of us from Bush House went to see him in Whitehall and interviewed him one after another in English for the World Service and in French, Italian and German for the European language services (each time for about seven minutes). Not only was he completely familiar with the military terminology in the three foreign languages, but he spoke fluently, off the cuff, in idiomatic, well-accented Frenthe external services of ch, Italian and German – not only for the recorded interviews but also in friendly chats afterwards. I am not aware that any one of his successors as defence secretary would have been capable of a similar feat.Harry SchneiderLondon One quality of Denis Healey that hasn’t been touched upon (Obituary, 5 October, Letters, 7 October) was his brilliance as a linguist. I remember one occasion in the late 60s when, as defence secretary, he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC on the modernisation of Nato air defences. Four of us from Bush House went to see him in Whitehall and interviewed him one after another in English for the World Service and in French, Italian and German for the European language services (each time for about seven minutes). Not only was he completely familiar with the military terminology in the three foreign languages, but he spoke fluently, off the cuff, in idiomatic, well-accented French, Italian and German – not only for the recorded interviews but also in friendly chats afterwards. I am not aware that any one of his successors as defence secretary would have been capable of a similar feat.Harry SchneiderLondon