Foxy Ferdy
Sir: Dr Cosgrave, reviewing a life of Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria (1 September), mentions that his successor, Boris, was 'destroyed by the second world wars, but clearly does not know how or why. All the most promising items in the relevant file at the Public Records Office have been retained by the Foreign Office under the Public Records Act of 1958. Those telegrams of 1943 which have been released report variously that Boris was shot at Kalichane station by a railway employee; that he caught double pneumonia in the mountains and succumbed to angina; or that he died of heart failure induced by depression or over-excitement after visiting Hitler. The Romanian Military Attache in Istanbul told his British counterpart there that the Germans had shot or poisoned Boris to prevent him appealing for Russian protection, on pan-Slav grounds, to avoid dismemberment by Greece and Yugoslavia. I wonder, after 36 years, whether any of Your readers can throw light on what actually occured. R. P. T. Davenport-Hines 3 Pembridge Square, London W2
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