Bobby Fischer light of day during that period, and that the staff had ignored his complaints about constant tobacco smoke in his cell. Tokyo-based Canadian journalist and consultant John Bosnitch set up the "Committee to Free Bobby Fischer" after meeting Fischer at Narita Airport and offering to assist him. Boris Spassky wrote a letter to US President George W. Bush, asking "For mercy, charity", and, if that was not possible, "to put [him] in the same cell with Bobby Fischer" and "to give [them] a chess set". It was reported that Fischer and Miyoko Watai, the President of the Japanese Chess Association
Interregnum of World Chess Champions Anatoly Karpov after Bobby Fischer), the Interregnum currently remains the only period in the history of modern chess in which there was no World Champion. There was a similar interregnum of the Women's World Chess Championship, between Vera Menchik's death in 1944 and Lyudmila Rudenko winning the championship in 1950. Interregnum of World Chess Champions The Interregnum of World Chess Champions was the period between March 24, 1946 (the date of Alexander Alekhine's death) and May 17, 1948 (when Mikhail Botvinnik won a special championship tournament). When Alekhine suddenly died in 1946, the title of World Chess Champion became vacant