Bobby Fischer Goes to War

by David Edmonds

  Eight players were now left to compete in the Candidates round for the right to face Spassky: Taimanov, Korchnoi, Geller, Petrosian, Larsen, Uhlmann, the brilliant, highly strung Hübner—and Fischer. He was drawn in the quarter-finals with Taimanov, the match to be played at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

  Until this match, Mark Taimanov had lived an enviable double life, conducting his chess in tandem with a career as a highly respected classical pianist. He performed duets with his wife, Liubov Bruk; their work together has earned them a place in the record collection Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century. Their pianist son, Igor, would join them on the concert platform. Taimanov made occasional forays into journalism and led an otherwise normal existence. To the Soviets he appeared, in many ways, to be a model citizen.

  Then forty-four years old, and so a relative veteran, Taimanov had come across Fischer several times in tournaments over the years. Like many others, he was astonished by Fischer’s single-minded devotion: “I swear that I never saw him without a chess set.” Despite Fischer’s evident promise from a young age, Taimanov had been one of the few to be skeptical that he would achieve the breakthrough to the superleague. For all the American’s maturity at the chessboard, Taimanov thought the adolescent Fischer suffered from a weakness. He was “too deeply convinced that he is a genius. Self-confidence that borders on a loss of impartiality in assessing one’s potentialities is a poor ally in a difficult contest.”

  If overconfidence was a failing, it was not one Fischer ever attempted to rectify. He saw himself as the firm favorite in the Taimanov match. He was not alone; the noncommunist press was of the same mind. Only Taimanov insisted he could win, dismissing Fischer as a mere computer. Even the Soviet Communist Party daily Pravda must have been pessimistic, failing to print this self-assured forecast.

  Taimanov prepared hard, helped by former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, who handed over his enormous Fischer file in its entirety. This had been compiled a year earlier, in 1970, as negotiations dragged on for a Botvinnik vs. Fischer match supposed to take place in the Dutch town of Leiden. The plans had been aborted after Fischer insisted the victor would have to win six games, draws not to count. For the organizers, this had major financial implications since it meant that, in theory, the match could go on forever. It was not a risk they were willing to take.

  Botvinnik’s analysis of Fischer’s play was full of fascinating, detailed insights. Through a painstaking deconstruction of all of Fischer’s published games, he claimed to discern certain themes and patterns that Fischer consciously or unconsciously adopted. The Russian drew a number of conclusions—for example, that Fischer had a penchant for long moves with his queen, and that in the endgame he preferred a knight to a bishop. Also in the endgame, observed Botvinnik, his king was often dispatched on deep forays across the board. Taimanov was grateful but felt that ultimately “it didn’t help me—in the Russian saying, this straw was not for the right horse.”

  In addition to the file, Taimanov was backed by the thorough organization of the Soviet chess machine. He was supplied with three grandmasters: Aleksandr Kotov led the team, supported by the highly thought of, but young and relatively inexperienced, Yuri Balashov, and by Yevgeni Vasiukov, an old sparring partner. It was not Taimanov’s ideal squad. “I wanted Tal. He was a friend of mine, and in case of defeat I would rather have had Misha with me.” But Botvinnik thought he was too bohemian and that his fondness for drink might render him incapable of the long hours of sober analysis required of a second. Puritan sports apparatchiks in the Central Committee also disapproved of Tal’s three divorces.

  By contrast, in terms of the actual chess, Fischer was without assistance. He had hoped to bring grandmaster Larry Evans along as his second, but Evans refused because of Fischer’s twin demands that he abstain from journalism and leave his wife at home. Colonel Ed Edmondson, however, was there to help with the arrangements and with resolving any disputes.

  The game started several days late, this time because of an objection by Fischer’s opponent. To Taimanov’s annoyance, the organizers had attempted to preempt a Fischer tantrum about the spectators by setting the board in a cramped room at the back of the campus library. Taimanov, used to playing the piano in front of a large and appreciative concert audience, said it was too stuffy. After some haggling, they compromised on the student cinema, which seated 200. Victory would go to the player who racked up five-and-a-half points; there would be a maximum of ten games.

  Fischer won an epic first game in eighty-nine moves. He won the second and the third games. Taimanov blundered badly in the second. After a postponement, taken on Taimanov’s request on health grounds (he was diagnosed with high blood pressure), Fischer won the fourth game, then the fifth, again after a shocking Taimanov howler. And then Fischer won the sixth. It is difficult to portray to non—chess players the magnitude of such a shutout. A typical result between well-matched players might be, say, six wins to four, with nine draws. Fischer had just beaten a world-class grandmaster six games to none, with no draws. The British chess player P. H. Clarke wrote that “this performance by Fischer may be the best, in statistical terms anyway, ever recorded in a single competition.”

  Taimanov’s defeat turned his hitherto settled life inside out. This pillar of the Soviet chess establishment suffered the wrath of a system that felt betrayed and disgraced—even scared—by the scale of his rout. In his account of this episode, I Was Fischer’s Victim, Taimanov writes about his “civic execution.” “If on the eve of the match I was officially and popularly reputed to be ‘an exemplary citizen’… I suddenly fell into the flames of ruthlessly destructive criticism by the authorities at all levels.”

  His “civic execution” began on 5 June 1970, on his return from Vancouver when he was passing through Soviet customs at Moscow’s Sheremet’evo Airport. He had done this dozens of times before, always without incident. Now he found himself thoroughly searched, on the orders of the senior customs official on shift, named in the report of the incident as Comrade Dmitriev. Taimanov’s suitcase had been delayed, but in his hand baggage the officials discovered a copy of The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. They also found a large sum in dollars, Taimanov’s prize plus unused subsistence money. Taimanov then told Comrade Dmitriev that in his suitcase was a letter containing 1,100 Dutch guilders that he had failed to declare on entry. Taimanov had been asked by Max Euwe to take this letter to grandmaster Salo Flohr—the money was payment for articles Flohr had published in Dutch periodicals. “Since I was asked by the president of FIDE, a person who enjoys respect in our country,” Taimanov would explain, “I did not consider it appropriate to refuse him.” To a suspicious mind, it looks as if the customs officers knew in advance what they would hit upon.

  Taimanov was in effect put on trial by the Sports Committee—hauled before them for these two customs offenses, bringing in both undeclared currency and a book that the minister Sergei Pavlov told him was too repulsive even to pick up. “By the expression on their faces,” Taimanov wrote, “I might have robbed the Bank of Canada and smuggled millions of dollars into the country.”

  Taimanov’s importing of a foreign edition of Solzhenitsyn’s novel was potentially a serious offense. In 1969, the author had been expelled from the Writers Union for “conduct anti-social in nature and fundamentally at variance with the principles and tasks formulated in the charter of the Writers Union,” and could not be published in the Soviet Union—his last work was published there in 1966. He had opposed the publication of his work abroad but his books were still accused of “being used by Western reactionary circles for anti-Soviet aims.”

  In his letter of explanation, Taimanov protested, unconvincingly, that the Solzhenitsyn book was essential reading because foreign journalists were always interrogating him about the USSR’s most famous author. He had not read any of Solzhenitsyn’s books before, and “I thought that it would be expedient to familiarize myself with at least one of them. Of
course I intended to dispose of the book afterward… but I forgot to do so.” He went on, “I consider this mistake to be a serious misdemeanor on my part, which can only be explained by a state of shock caused by what I had been through.”

  Of course, he knew—everybody knew—that the real charge was what Pavlov, in his secret report to the Central Committee on 21 June, called “the unprecedented defeat of a Soviet grandmaster.” In the minds of the officials, a Soviet grandmaster’s losing six to nil to the representative of U.S. imperialism was equivalent to an act of intentional ideological sabotage. Taimanov puts his treatment down to the fact that “I was the first. And they thought something lay behind it, something political.”

  Today, the broadcast journalist and chess specialist Naum Dymarskii insists that Taimanov’s “offense” was possession of the forbidden book. “But if Taimanov had won, the customs would have ignored it.” Indeed, Taimanov tells how at Sheremet’evo the customs official had asked, “Why did you lose? If you had beaten Fischer, I would have carried all the volumes of Solzhenitsyn’s books myself to your taxi.” Taimanov managed to retain a sense of humor through the ordeal, laughing at a joke “by my friend the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich that Solzhenitsyn had been arrested for carrying one of my chess books.”

  He was not the only scapegoat. Aleksandr Kotov, the head of Taimanov’s delegation, was also attacked for showing a marked failure of leadership. Kotov admitted that Taimanov had played like a machine that had completely broken down. He, Kotov, was then accused of being disrespectful to Comrade Dmitriev, the customs official. He denied this: “We talked in the politest manner.” In his “explanatory letter” to Pavlov and the Council of Ministers Committee for Physical Training and Sport, Kotov wrote that he had actually thanked Dmitriev for teaching them a lesson well learned. The panic is palpable; so is the humiliation.

  At the time, the repercussions for Taimanov were sobering—he thought that they were meant as a caution for the world champion. He was thrown out of the USSR team and forbidden to travel for two years. He was banned from writing articles, was deprived of his monthly stipend, even stripped of his title, honored USSR Master of Sport. (The title was eventually reawarded in the last days of the Soviet Union.) As if this were not retribution enough, the authorities prohibited him from performing on the concert platform. From being an elite member of Soviet society, with a comparatively comfortable lifestyle, Taimanov was now a discredited figure facing financial ruin. His marriage was also affected. He wrote later that his “unpredictable fate” had “shattered the family unity.”

  Few of Taimanov’s friends and colleagues were brave enough publicly to come to his defense, though many privately sympathized with his plight. There was, however, one exception—Boris Spassky. In the postmortem, the world champion put a rhetorical question: “When we’ve all lost to Fischer, will all of us be dragged on the carpet?” Spassky also showed his irreverent side. Baturinskii wanted to know if a physician should have been sent to help Taimanov. “Yes,” interjected Spassky, “a sexologist.” “I see, Boris, that you are in a jovial mood,” was Baturinskii’s irritated response. Taimanov remains grateful to Spassky that the world champion also backed him publicly. “Everybody criticized me, and Spassky was one of the few who openly defended me to the press by saying, ‘Whatever the result, as a match it was very interesting.’ How they dared to print it I don’t know.”

  Fischer’s next match was against Bent Larsen. Fischer was again the favorite, but Spassky predicted a tight struggle. “Larsen is a little stronger in spirit.” The Dane had been the only other Western player to pose a challenge to Soviet hegemony in the previous decade. He had also beaten Fischer twice. After bids were taken to host the contest, the players settled on the U.S. city of Denver as the venue.

  Larsen believes that accepting this was his fatal mistake. Accustomed to the gentle summer breezes of northern Europe, he found himself sweltering in a Colorado heat wave. “I couldn’t play. I just couldn’t play. And I couldn’t sleep. They had the hottest summer since 1936. It was so hot that people who worked in offices were allowed to stay at home.”

  The first game got under way on 6 July in the playing hall of a women’s college, Temple Buell. Fischer won. He won the second game and then the third and the fourth. After the fourth, Larsen complained of feeling ill and exhausted, and the doctors ordered a break. Fischer then wrapped up proceedings with two more wins in a row.

  Recall that Fischer had swept majestically through the last seven games in the Interzonal. With the victory against Taimanov by six games to zero and now Larsen by the same score, he had achieved nineteen consecutive wins against outstanding opposition, a feat in chess that had never been equaled. One hypothetical parallel would be a tennis player taking the Wimbledon title without dropping a single game throughout the tournament.

  Although chess was still confined to the back pages, public interest in Fischer was now gathering momentum. President Nixon sent Fischer a letter:

  I wanted to add my personal congratulations to the many you have already received. Your string of nineteen consecutive victories in world-class competition is unprecedented, and you have every reason to take great satisfaction in your superb achievement. As you prepare to meet the winner of the Petrosian-Korchnoi matches, you may be certain that your fellow citizens will be cheering you on. Good luck!

  The winner of the Petrosian-Korchnoi duel was the forty-two-year-old former world champion Tigran Petrosian. The result of his match with Fischer would determine the challenger to Boris Spassky. The Fischer juggernaut seemed unstoppable.

  Petrosian and Fischer had met eighteen times previously, with three victories apiece and twelve draws. Petrosian was known as the maestro of the draw. He had a unique technique, which, despite being highly effective, had not endeared him to the millions of chess fans around the world. He shunned complexity, taking preemptive defensive measures whenever possible. He would lull his opponents into a false sense of security, often inveigling them into overreaching. Then he would grind them relentlessly down with deadly strategic precision, pressing home the tiniest positional advantage (an apparently inconsequential move of the queen’s rook’s pawn might baffle spectators; eight moves later it would invariably turn out to be on the perfect square).

  Athens, Belgrade, and Buenos Aires all bid for the match. Petrosian wanted to play in Greece, Fischer in Argentina for two reasons—they were offering the most money, and they had the best steak. Lots were drawn to settle it, with Buenos Aires triumphant.

  Fischer fever may not yet have circled the globe, but its arrival in Argentina was unquestionable. Buenos Aires was a chess city—host to over sixty clubs. The organizers had offered $7,500 for the winner, $4,500 for the loser. The match would take place in one of the most prominent theaters, the San Martin, at the center of the capital’s cultural life. It was situated on the equivalent of Broadway, the Avenida Corrientes. Chess was now “entertainment.”

  Tickets went on sale at nine A.M. (the games began at five P.M.), by which time several thousand people were already lining up. The regular audience was one and a half thousand, a very high number for a game not previously regarded as much of a spectator sport.

  Everywhere he went, Fischer was mobbed by adoring, star-struck crowds, from teenage girls to old-age pensioners. They had a very different conception of personal space from the solitary American: they tried to shake his hand, grab him by the arm, or pat him on the back. He would wrench himself away in horror. He got into the habit of slinking out through back doors, walking against walls, hoping to outpace his fans with his huge strides. Buenos Aires foreshadowed the Reykjavik media circus; the local and international press sought out off-board details such as Fischer’s favorite snack (a grilled kidney sandwich).

  The opening ceremony was on 29 September. Fischer was tardy, as usual. His opponent was asked, “Do you think that Fischer’s lateness is a battle of nerves?” Petrosian thought not: “It is a question of upbringing.”

/>   In a letter Fischer wrote afterward—it is unclear whether it was ever sent—he admits that he was nervous before the Petrosian match kicked off but claims that he was reassured by how scared the Armenian looked. And, avers Fischer, Petrosian had good reason to be fearful. When world champion, he had been the instrument through which the Soviets lied about Fischer’s character and ability at chess. So Petrosian’s moment of truth had arrived. This accusation was most unfair. The Armenian had been editor of the Moscow chess magazine 64, which had been critical of Fischer, but he had always been respectful of the American’s ability.

  Apparently, even Petrosian’s expression was too much for Fischer to live with. The two players had been booked into the same skyscraper hotel, Fischer on the thirteenth floor, Petrosian on the tenth. Fischer soon asked to be moved. He explained to the chief arbiter, the German grandmaster Lothar Schmid, that when he met Petrosian in the elevator, the former world champion’s face was so sad, he could not bear seeing him.

  Fischer had laid down a host of conditions about the lighting, the table, the chairs, the clock—none of which unduly disturbed his hosts. Also at Fischer’s request, the first three rows of seats in the theater were kept empty. Rona Petrosian, small and plump, who each match day would prepare a flask of coffee for her husband, had a reserved place in row four.

  Although the organizers had done everything they could to satisfy Fischer, this did not stop someone throwing a stink bomb at the back of the hall (the stench did not reach the platform), nor did it prevent the finely calibrated lighting from breaking down. And it did not stop Fischer from complaining to the arbiter about the way Petrosian walked out of view after his moves.

  The relative serenity owed much to the presence of both Colonel Edmondson at Fischer’s side and Petrosian’s team leader, Viktor Baturinskii. Additionally, both players knew and trusted the chief arbiter. Lothar Schmid had been plucked from playing in a tournament in Berlin as the only arbiter acceptable to the two sides. He was among the few foreigners ever to be at the receiving end of a grin from Baturinskii, in public an iron-faced archetypical Stalinist. Schmid knew that Russians kissed each other on meeting, so on first seeing Baturinskii, he threw his arms around him; the Soviet former colonel was startled into smiling.