Bobby Fischer Goes to War

by David Edmonds

  Euwe’s sigh of relief had barely been exhaled before he received the news that Fischer, holed up in New York, was refusing to acknowledge the Moscow pact. He repeated that he wanted to compete in Belgrade or on American soil.

  Desperately, the FIDE president sought a way out. On 14 February, he offered a compromise: to stage the first half of the match in Belgrade, the second in Reykjavik. It was a middle way that suited neither city. In Belgrade, there was resentment that Iceland would host the climax of the match. In Reykjavik, the concern was that one player might secure such a commanding lead in Yugoslavia that by the time the championship moved to Iceland, it would be as good as over. Fischer accepted the compromise. In Moscow, anger and frustration had erupted again. Ivonin described the atmosphere there as a madhouse. In his diary, he noted, “Protest to the very end.”

  However, in his talks with the Soviets, Euwe had a major advantage: The world champion was impatient for the match to go ahead. At some point between 2 and 5 March, Spassky decided to let the two-city verdict stand, insisting that all the arrangements must be laid out in a comprehensive contract. The Soviets couched their face-saving retreat in altruistic terms. They would reconsider their attitude, they wrote in a letter to FIDE dated 5 March, for the sake of the millions of chess fans around the world and in view of their friendly relations with the Yugoslav chess authorities.

  To finalize the details, representatives of the United States, USSR, Icelandic, and Yugoslav Chess Federations were summoned to a meeting in Amsterdam in late March. Euwe must have been confident that the imbroglio had been resolved, for he was off on a goodwill tour of chess federations in the Far East; the deputy president of FIDE, N. Rabell Mendez, a Puerto Rican, stood in for him. Euwe was surprised and hurt by Soviet criticism of his absence.

  In spite of Fischer’s rejection of his last undertaking, Ed Edmondson acted as Fischer’s delegate. Negotiations lasted a few days. By 20 March, every aspect of the conduct of the match had been hammered out; the final session lasted until three in the morning. The rules were designed to cover all the minutiae, from the drawing of lots to determine who would begin with the white pieces to the question of exactly how late a player had to be (one hour) before the game was forfeited. The process was long and tiresome, but the atmosphere was relatively amicable. It appeared to be all wrapped up.

  With Fischer, things could never be that simple. Two days later, the occupant of room G6 in upstate New York’s Grossinger’s resort hotel fired off a telegram.

  Littered with spelling and typing errors, it was addressed to the head of the Yugoslav Chess Federation and to his Icelandic counterpart, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. In ninety words, Fischer repudiated Edmondson’s agreement and threatened not to appear unless the financial arrangements were changed so that all the income from the match, less expenses, went to the players.

  To his credit, the Icelandic official sent back a courageously curt, handwritten reply: “Re your cable 22 Marz [sic]: any changes of the financial agreement in Amsterdam are out of the question. G. Thorarinsson.” From Grossinger’s there came a one-line response. Fischer refused to play at all in Iceland. The conditions were “unexceptable [sic].”

  For the Yugoslavs, the match was becoming too much of a gamble. They now refused to host it unless they received a deposit of $35,000 from the United States and USSR Chess Federations as surety against the match not going ahead. The Soviets unwillingly agreed, even though they thought Spassky was allowing himself to be humiliated. The Americans—for whom this constituted a far greater risk—did not agree.

  Perhaps Fischer understood that for Euwe an ultimatum was, in the American writer Ambrose Bierce’s phrase, the last warning before making concessions. Nevertheless, FIDE sent Fischer an ultimatum: He must confirm by 4 April that he was prepared to play under the Amsterdam conditions. Back from the U.S. Chess Federation came the soothing—if confusing—response that “Mr. Fischer is prepared to play at the agreed times and venues. Paul Marshal] will finalize negotiations in friendly fashion on our federation’s behalf.”

  Working for Fischer now was a Manhattan-based show business attorney, Paul Marshall. Marshall had first met Fischer in 1971 through a client, the British entertainer David Frost, and over the next few months would be active on the challenger’s behalf at critical turns in the story. As a highly successful lawyer, he was used to getting his own way, though the combination of Fischer, FIDE, and the Soviets was a challenge for which no amount of time in Hollywood could have prepared him.

  In the absence of an American financial guarantee, the Yugoslavs dropped out, leaving FIDE’s two-city arrangement in tatters. Once again, Gudmundur Thorarinsson seized the opportunity—offering to host the entire match if the opening could be delayed until 1 July. Acting unilaterally, Euwe agreed: If Fischer failed to show up in Iceland, later in the year Spassky would play for the title in Moscow with Tigran Petrosian, the losing finalist in the Candidates match.

  Although Euwe was now advocating Spassky’s preferred location, the Soviets were nonetheless seething at what they perceived to be the FIDE president’s bias. Fischer had effectively ignored the 4 April ultimatum, yet Euwe had continued to seek a solution, one acceptable to Fischer. A secret document—with serial number 14279, dated 29 April 1972, drawn up for the Central Committee of the Communist Party—alleged that Max Euwe was “under the thumb of the American grandmaster.” “The pretender sets a precedent and is followed by the president,” was the bitter summary by the Soviet news agency TASS.

  President of the Icelandic Chess Federation Gudmundur Thorarinsson. He believed it was not the match of the century. It was the match of all time. ICELANDIC CHESS FEDERATION

  On 8 May, Euwe received a telegram that finally appeared to resolve matters: “Bobby Fischer agrees to play in Iceland according to the program sent to him—but under protest.” The signatures on the telegram were those of Edmondson and Marshall. According to Euwe, the text was drafted by these two and read to Fischer over the telephone. Only when he agreed to it in their hearing was the telegram sent.

  Fischer himself had signed nothing. However, Edmondson sought to reassure Euwe that the absence of Fischer’s signature had nothing to do with his intention to play. But what did the phrase under protest imply?

  10. BOBBY IS MISSING

  People indulge Fischer’s caprices. The very mention of his name on the radio or in the newspaper fills me with a feeling of disgust and indignation. If I were B. Spassky, I would consider it beneath my dignity to play against such a type.

  — VERA MAKAROVA, SOVIET PENSIONER—IN A LETTER TO TASS

  Fischer trained for the most important match of his life almost completely in isolation.

  What chess support he received came from two sources. Ken “Top Hat” Smith was a chess master and world-class poker player who always wore a flamboyant black silk top hat during card games. Slightly too small for its owner, the hat had been acquired in an auction and was alleged to have been discovered in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the night that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated there. Whenever he won the pot, Smith would slam this hat on the table and shout, “What a player!” He always drew a crowd. Such a valued customer was he that the Hilton hotel in Las Vegas would send a private jet to pick him up from his home in Dallas. “No-limit Texas hold-em” was his game, and he was good at it, winning tens of thousands of dollars.

  From Dallas, Smith ran Chess Digest magazine and, later, a chess publishing business. For two years, he had been supplying Fischer with chess literature from around the world: books and magazines on openings, the middle game, endings, analysis of all kinds, the moves from games played in topflight tournaments. To feed Fischer’s unquenchable thirst, Smith would fly in with suitcases crammed full of material. Player and supplier were never intimate, and if Smith wanted to get in touch with Fischer, he would have to do so through one of Fischer’s other contacts, using a complicated coding system. (After Fischer went to Iceland, Smith traveled to Reykjav
ik with yet more literature.)

  Fischer’s other aide was Bob Wade, a kindly, accommodating, New Zealand-born international master, a resident of south London and owner of a vast chess library. He had a more specific task: at Ed Edmondson’s request, he had sent Fischer copies of all the games he could find that had been played first by Taimanov, then by Larsen, and then, at the Candidates final stage, by Petrosian. Now Edmondson gave him the same brief for the world championship.

  With infinite pains, Wade researched and compiled all of Spassky’s published games; some were well-known, others were located in obscure journals. The folder ended up at over a thousand games and over a thousand pages. He dispatched it to Fischer via Edmondson, who had it bound in red velvet. Fortunately, it reached its destination, for the work had been done by hand and there was no other copy.

  By this stage, Fischer was in seclusion at Grossinger’s, in the Catskills in upstate New York. In the so-called borscht belt, Grossinger’s was an institution, popular with the Jewish middle class: a former farm, it had been converted into a huge hotel complex complete with tennis courts and bridle paths. Many famous people had stayed there, including Eleanor Roosevelt. It was also a favorite retreat for sportsmen, such as baseball legend Jackie Robinson and the undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion, Rocky Marciano, who had Grossinger’s emblazoned upon his robe.

  For over thirty years, Wade has kept the letter that came back from Grossinger’s on receipt of his meticulously prepared material. There was not a word of thanks. Instead, he was greeted by a torrent of abuse for failing to abide by Fischer’s preferred method of displaying the moves. Wade had written them across the page rather than down the page. “Can’t you follow even the simplest instructions?” He was rebuked for having “cut corners.” There was nothing for it but for Wade painstakingly to copy out each move again, working almost from scratch. “The tone reminded me,” says Wade, who was a chess coach for many years, “of how a teacher might speak to his schoolchildren.” Wade was paid £600, £200 of which was considered “a bonus” for his conscientious labors.

  For Fischer, this dossier was to be his constant companion until July 1972. At Grossinger’s, he would take his meals in the dining room accompanied only by the dossier. If he ventured out, he would take it down to a local restaurant. He tended to eat Chinese or Italian dishes. (The waitresses were never pleased to see him because he took up two tables.) For the rest of the time, he was in his hotel room, absorbing the contents of the red file, trying to discern patterns and identify weaknesses. As always, he would rise late and then work deep into the night. Journalists who knocked on the door of his quarters—a white villa—were told to “go away.” One or two chess colleagues went to visit him. Larry Evans says, “We would play over Spassky’s games—usually in the wee hours of the morning. We would have rock radio blasting.” But essentially Fischer worked alone. Evans explained to The New York Times. “I probably have more influence on him than anybody else, and that’s exactly zero.”

  Fischer stayed at Grossinger’s until 5 June and then went to California for tennis; he wanted to improve his fitness. He also attended a service of the Worldwide Church of God. His flight to Reykjavik had been scheduled for Sunday, 25 June, in good time for the official opening on Saturday, 1 July and the first game the next day.

  He flew back to New York on Tuesday, 27 June, and moved into the Yale Club as a guest of his New York lawyer, Andrew Davis. It was four days before the official opening of the match.

  The Soviet party had arrived in Reykjavik on 21 June to settle in and acclimatize. In Iceland at that time of year, there was practically no darkness, only “white nights.” Spassky was thoroughly comfortable with this; it was the season of merrymaking in his home city, Leningrad. The Soviets took up residence in the best hotel in Reykjavik, the Saga, with Spassky occupying room 730— the presidential suite at the secure end of a corridor. With its wide views, Empire-style furniture, and gold-plated taps in the bathroom, his accommodation no doubt made a pleasing change from Moscow. The champion played tennis with Ivo Nei up to eleven o’clock at night, while Geller and Krogius prepared for the chess battle ahead.

  A comparison of the two players’ teams is instructive. Spassky had arrived with Geller, Krogius, and Nei—chess players all, two grandmasters and an international master. Lined up on Fischer’s side were thirty-nine-year-old attorney Andrew Davis, educated at Yale and Oxford, and Fred Cramer, a past president of the United States Chess Federation, who had taken over from Edmondson as the challenger’s emissary. Fischer also summoned Paul Marshall to his side. A journalist for Life magazine, Brad Darrach, attached himself to the Fischer squad and later wrote an exuberant, blow-by-blow account of the whole experience.

  Fischer had not yet chosen a second; grandmaster William Lombardy took the position at the last moment. Lombardy was strikingly different from the rest of Fischer’s team. He was a chess player of high class: in 1958, he took the World Junior Chess Championship with a perfect eleven victories, no draws, no losses—a truly remarkable accomplishment—and he went on to become U.S. champion twice. Unlike Fischer, he had beaten Spassky. This victory, in twenty-nine moves, came when he led the United States to first place in the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad. But chess was only a part of his vocation: he was a Roman Catholic priest, possibly the greatest chess-playing cleric since Ruy Lopez in sixteenth-century Spain, originator of the eponymous opening that was Fischer’s favorite.

  Rotund, with small eyes peeping out of a podgy face framed by sharply razored muttonchop whiskers and a vestigial mustache, Lombardy tended to divide opinion in Reykjavik. Some thought him approachable, affable, gregarious, and humorous. Others found him insufferably stiff and pompous. Some reported that he was loyal and dependable. Others, such as the writer George Steiner, regarded him as scheming and “sinister.” Certainly, one of the sights of the match was Father Lombardy holding a press conference in clerical garb.

  Both Davis and Marshall were accustomed to Fischer’s unpredictability, and each had already resigned once over his repudiation of agreements they had negotiated for him. Yet, in common with so many other acquaintances of Fischer’s, they were prepared to forgive what in other clients or friends would have been unforgivable. Marshall was “amazed” when Davis telephoned suddenly, seeking his help on Fischer’s behalf as though there had been no breach. However, he took his client back on, traveling and acting for him without billing his time or expenses—a New York lawyer taking pro bono to extremes. He reflected on his client in terms appropriate for Charles Dickens’s Tiny Tim: “Bobby never made any money in his life. Everyone who dealt with him when he was fourteen, fifteen, used him. If there was any money to be made, they took it. They’d call him up and say, ‘Come on out here, we’ll pay your bills and we’ll give you a couple of bucks on the side.’ And when it was over, they’d stick him with a huge hotel bill. Here’s a fifteen-year-old kid with an enormous bill, no money, all alone, crying.”

  Of course, by 1972 Fischer was no longer a child, and by rights there should have been no further negotiation on money. The financial arrangements appeared to have been settled. The winner would receive $78,125, the loser $46,875, and the two contestants would each take 30 percent of TV and film rights. But Fischer’s approach was always to agree to nothing, sign nothing, confirm nothing. With only days to go before the scheduled start, he now argued that the pot should include 30 percent of the gate receipts—estimated to total $250,000. The Icelanders balked: the venue, the exhibition hall, could seat some 2,500, and they were depending on this revenue to cover their costs.

  Although Fischer was in New York on 27 June, and so already twenty-four hours late for his timetabled appearance in Reykjavik, his imminent arrival was still expected. And if he did not arrive? The Icelandic Chess Federation press spokesman, Freysteinn Johannsson, had no press statement ready for such a contingency.

  On 28 June, Fischer was booked onto another flight from John F. Kennedy Ai
rport. All the arrangements were in place, including a supply of fresh oranges that he insisted should be squeezed in front of him for fear the Soviets had tampered with his juice. Although the challenger’s financial demands had not been conceded, his lawyers were cautiously optimistic that he would be on the plane. Marshall, who was overwhelmed with work at his practice, was quoted in the press:

  I received a call from Andy [Davis] from the limousine taking the two to the airport. It had just passed over the 59th Street Bridge when I spoke to Andy, and I said to him, “Congratulations.” He said, “Don’t congratulate me yet—it’s a little early.” We both laughed and signed off. I was a happy man…. I wouldn’t have to see Bobby for two and a half months, I thought. I went home and my wife congratulated me. I kissed my kids for the first time in weeks. I slept well, went to the office, had a good morning and went out for lunch. I picked up a paper and saw—oh, no, he hadn’t gone yet. I grabbed a quick drink.

  Davis himself had boarded the plane. But amid the airport passageways, in scenes worthy of a Marx Brothers film (starring Greta Garbo), Fischer stopped to buy an alarm clock, caught sight of the hordes of cameramen waiting to record his historic departure—and bolted.

  He took refuge in the Tudor-style family house of a childhood companion, Anthony Saidy, in Douglaston, in the New York borough of Queens—2 Cedar Lane. A medical doctor from a Lebanese family, Saidy had once won the U.S. Open Chess Championship. Fischer felt at home with the Saidy family, relishing the Lebanese cuisine prepared by Anthony’s mother.