Prime Minister Helen Clark says former Prime Minister David Lange always had the gifts that would eventually propel him to the top in politics.
Lange's memoir, My Life, has just been published and details his life before, during and after politics.
Clark says she had a complex relationship with Lange and did not vote for him as Labour party leader, supporting Russell Marshall instead.
But she says Lange was a born communicator who could hold an audience spellbound and his supporters clearly recognised the value of his gifts in politics.
Clark says she later sided with Lange over planned asset sales and economic liberalisation.
The Prime Minister has also defended the role she played in cabinet during the fourth Labour government's second term.
In My Life Lange details cabinet infighting as cabinet ministers and state bureaucrats pushed for state asset sales. He says he was virtually isolated by cabinet - with then Housing Minister Helen Clark "putting her head down" and avoiding the firestorm.
Clark says she had no power at number 17 in the cabinet and was one of only four ministers who supported Lange.
She says she fought for, and succeeded in saving, state housing from privatisation.
Last week Lange had elective surgery to amputate his right below the knee at Auckland's Middlemore hospital, two weeks after being admitted to hospital for complications of diabetes.
