Interpreters were recruited and examined by the respective countries in which the official languages were spoken: the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, as well as in special cases Belgium and the Netherlands. Many were former translators, army personnel, and linguists, some were experienced consecutive interpreters,[5] others were ordinary individuals and even recent secondary school-graduates who led international lives in multilingual environments. It was believed, that the qualities that made the best interpreters were a broad sense of culture, encyclopedic knowledge, inquisitiveness, as well as a naturally calm disposition.