Tuition For Envoy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 19

Tuition For Envoy

“The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, June 17. The Ambassador-desig-nate to Italy, Mr A. D. Mclntosh, is about to undertake a crash course in the Italian language. | Although he is now Secretary for External Affairs and has a longer career in the diplomatic service than any other present officer of that department, he speaks no Italian—nor any other foreign language. Mr Mclntosh, did, however, study Latin for several years at university for a degree in classics. He proposes to set about getting himself “reasonably coherent in Italian by every means at my disposal” including private tuition. He believes he can do

it by October, when he will retire from his present post and take up the Rome assignment. Ability to speak the language was reported by officials recently to have been one of the main criteria applied to potential appointees for the post The search for someone fluent in the tongue, it was said, was partly responsible for the delay in naming the new envoy. Mr Mclntosh confirmed this yesterday. “But” he said, “although that is a general test usually applied and was certainly one of the earlier considerations in this case, other criteria have apparently outweighed it “Certainly, it is important But it is not the main consideration.”