help bot wrote:
On May 4, 4:34 am, wrote:

You can argue this one either way. In June of 1974, when FIDE wouldn't
agree to his match conditions, Fischer wrote the letter resigning his
"FIDE title." In September of 1974, Karpov won the final Candidates
Match. In that sense, Kennedy's quibble is correct. However, in May-
June 1975, FIDE held another meeting and agreed to _almost_ all of
Fischer's conditions. They then sent Fischer a request to play, more
or less ignoring the "resignation" letter. When Fischer refused to
rely, Karpov was declared the winner by forfeit. Looked at that way,
Evans's account is fairly accurate -- by declining to play, Fischer
"gave" the title to his (known) opponent.


In 1975, Bobby Fischer was not in possession of
the FIDE title, so he was in no position to do any
such thing. The FIDE title, you see, is controlled
by *FIDE* (go figure), and it is *they* who do the
giving (or not). There is a thing called a "world
championship cycle", and so you see, the old
days wherein a single person gives "his" title or
refuses to defend it, are over and done with.

The real reason the Larry Evans account tries to
involve Anatoly Karpov is self-evident; Mr. Evans
has for decades been bashing AK as a supposed
villain; he seems to know only the mystery-
suspense-thriller genre, and no other. (IMO, this
was more of a Dr. Strangelove style tragi-comedy.)


-- help bot


FIDE apparently didn't think so. In June of 1975, they asked Fischer
to play Karpov _as World Champion_. Fischer's refusal to play that
match -- as he and everyone else knew -- had the _effect_ of making
Karpov World Champion. There are plenty of reasons for criticizing
Evans, but harping on this semantic quibble is just making you look
silly. Well, sillier.