Michael of Rumania
Sir: I am the first to recognise that Taki's light-hearted contributions add a good deal to the gaiety of nations and the pleasures of those of your readers hungry for gossiP about the highest international income groups – and their groupies. But I was rather disappointed by the ignorance of his comment about ex-King Michael of Rumania, great-grandson of one king of Greece, grandson of another, nephew of three more and first cousin of a sixth. In the Rumania of his day, there were no Ruritanian uniforms of the kind popular ised by Maurice Chevalier in Ernst Lubitsch's Love Parade and by Dick Nixon in the opening numbers of his White House show. The worries of King Michael's boyhood and youth were more serious than any dreamed of in the philosophies of the Gstaad Palace playboys. Possibly Taki himself is too young to recall how well deserved was King Michael's US Legion of Merit, the citation of which, signed by, and possiblY even written by, President Truman, spoke without exaggeration of his 'outstanding service to the cause of the Allied Nations In their struggle against Hitlerite Germany. • • although his capital was still dominated by German troops, he personally, on his ow.0 initiative, and in complete disregard for his own safety, gave the signal for a coup d'etat by ordering his palace guards to arrest the dictator (Antonescu) and his chief ministers and proclaimed to the nation his decision r° release Rumania from the Nazi yoke and called upon his Army to turn on the Germans aid to kill, capture or drive them frail' the country. In a few days the German line was pushed back over 500 kilometers.' ,
For some years thereafter he reigned over a Communist country until the Soviet Union thought it safe to dethrone him and
send him into exile. While Taki is all sys. tems go in the mountains, King Michael, like the rain in Spain, stays mainly in the plain with his family, a taciturn man of many parts and no parties. One of his hobble?,
besides aviation and electronics, is
astronomy and he is a frequent and welcome visitor at Jodrell Bank. That is his onlY form of High Life and the Black Holes he best understands are not the smoke-filled discos more familiar to Taki. He is, all in all, a good guy.
Alastair Forbes 1837 Château d'Oex, Switzerland
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