At the height of the Cold War in 1986, Sir Brian Kenny, one of the British generals in charge of defending Nato’s “front line” on the border between East and West Germany, found himself in the middle of a potentially awkward diplomatic situation. Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister, had come on a visit to the British Army of the Rhine and had been joined by Helmut Kohl (obituary, June 17), the Chancellor, on the tank firing range at Hohne to observe how the British Challengers compared with the West German Leopards. Kenny was the “host”.
With her hair wrapped in a scarf and her safety goggles on, the prime minister slipped easily into a Challenger turret, fired the gun and hit the target more than