On the sum of two closed subspaces

If U,V$U,V$ are closed subspaces of a Fréchet space, then E$E$ is the direct sum of U$U$ and V$V$ if and only if E^′$E^{\prime }$ is the algebraic direct sum of the annihilators U^°$U^{°}$ and V^°$V^{°}$. We provide a simple proof of this (possibly well-known) result.