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
Bobby Fischer called a legend in his own time." Former World Champion Tigran Petrosian stated that Fischer put more time into chess than the entire Soviet team. Biographers David Edmonds and John Eidinow wrote: Faced with Fischer's extraordinary coolness, his opponents [sic] assurance would begin to disintegrate. A Fischer move, which at first glances looked weak, would be reassessed. It must have a deep master plan behind it, undetectable by mere mortals (more often than not they were right, it did). The US grandmaster Robert Byrne labeled the phenomenon "Fischer-fear". Grandmasters would wilt, their suits would crumple, sweat would glisten on their