Bobby Fischer Goes to War

by David Edmonds

  Davis later blamed the media for thwarting his client’s desire to be veiled from the public gaze. Others suspected darker motives for his turning the flight to the championship into a flight from the championship. Some theorized that the cause was not the paparazzi, but a stalemate over Fischer’s latest financial stipulations. In Davis’s briefcase were demands for a better TV deal, the loser’s share of the money in Fischer’s hand at the outset, and 30 percent of the gate. The New York Times found that hard to believe: the amounts were trivial compared with the fortune he could make on becoming champion.

  June 30. Fischer at John F. Kennedy Airport. Then he ran dawn the corridors, looking for a way out. ASSOCIATED PRESS

  A second hypothesis held that Fischer was deliberately conducting a war of nerves against his opponent. With the challenger still absent, the press claimed the champion was “on the edge already.” A Washington Post reporter visited Fischer in Douglaston and put this to him. “I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves,” the challenger rejoined.

  To add to the Icelanders’ woes, Fred Cramer had arrived on 27 June and offered a foretaste of his part in the drama. He had presented a list of expected requirements about lighting and other arrangements, then thrown in an unexpected demand—a new arbiter, a non—chess player. The experienced and respected German grandmaster Lothar Schmid was apparently unacceptable as chief arbiter. This was curious if only because, when a teenager, Fischer had stayed with Schmid in his family home in Bamberg. Passing off the underage chess genius as his nephew, Schmid had taken him to a casino in Bad Homburg, a suburb of Frankfurt am Main, where he observed that Fischer was not a risk taker. The quietly spoken, patently decent Schmid had also refereed Fischer’s last match in the Candidates round, against Petrosian. The manner in which he carried off that task had marked him out for the final. Chess was not Schmid’s only interest. His family-owned firm, Karl-May-Verlag, published the writer of westerns, Karl May—after Goethe, Germany’s best-selling author.

  While Fischer hunkered down in the Saidys’ house, the impasse between Icelandic officials and his lawyers pushed the U.S. presidential nominations down the front page. With Fischer’s attorneys haggling over the financial terms, it did not escape the reporters that Dr. Saidy’s father, Fred, was coauthor of Finian’s Rainbow, the musical about the filching of a pot of gold. Contributing to Dr. Saidy’s stress was the fact that his father was seriously ill and needed hospitalization. Fischer told Anthony not to worry: Fred’s illness would not disturb him.

  On the day of the official opening, Saturday, 1 July, The New York Times covered the story on its front page: “Bobby Fischer’s erratic posture toward the World Chess Championship has touched off a wave of debate and discussion in New York and Moscow as well as Reykjavik, Iceland.” TASS, the Soviet state press agency, wrote that a “disgusting spirit of gain” motivated Fischer. Ed Edmondson said, “He’s putting on some kind of act—for what I don’t know.” He, Edmondson, thought that the odds were two to one that Fischer would not play. When the match was delayed, a reporter noted: “Everyone hated Bobby. He put himself in the hot seat, and every man in the room would have gladly pulled the switch. But nobody could afford to let the son of a bitch burn. So what did they do? They stopped the world. Now if we all fall down on our knees, Bobby might be willing to get on.”

  Icelanders accused Fischer of extortion. In Reykjavik, rumors circulated as in wartime. Among the most popular were that Fischer was in hiding after his arrival in the country a week earlier on a United States Air Force jet or alternately after being smuggled ashore in a rubber dinghy from a U.S. Navy submarine.

  Already chilled by the prospect of the whole project’s collapsing, the organizers now faced a problem for which no preplanning could have prepared them. In the absence of the challenger, should they go ahead with the opening ceremony of the match? Absurd though it might be, there seemed no other plausible answer than yes. To proceed as though the match would, at some stage, commence was the surest way to ensure that it did actually commence. That, at least, was the theory.

  So, almost as though everything were in order, the dignitaries gather at Reykjavik’s National Theatre for the scheduled event. The seat next to Spassky’s is empty. As befits the magnitude of the occasion for their country, Iceland’s president, Kristjan Eldjarn, and the mayor of Reykjavik, Geir Hallgrimsson, are both present, together with the city councillors. So too are the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, and the finance minister, Halldor E. Sigurdsson, who has guaranteed the cost of the project up to five million Icelandic kronur. The heads of the Soviet and U.S. embassies are in their places. Max Euwe, the president of FIDE, has flown in from Holland. Chief arbiter, Lothar Schmid, has arrived from Germany. They are aware that this event may be a charade. The public bonhomie conceals anxiety and a smoldering sense of grievance.

  However, the most embarrassed and fraught figure of all is the man responsible for the match’s being held in Iceland, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. This should be his moment. He is down to make the opening speech, winning plaudits from the Icelandic establishment to launch his political career. Instead, he is seized by panic, sweating and fearful of being late. He has been in the Loftleidir hotel since ten o’clock, listening, he says, to “demands and demands and new demands.” At 4:50 P.M., with little progress made, Andrew Davis stands up and says, “Forget it. Fischer won’t come and there’ll be no match.” There are ten minutes to go before the opening, and Thorarinsson finds himself racing to the National Theatre. Knowing that Fischer has no intention of leaving New York, he will have to appear on stage in front of his country’s president. Worst of all, he is still dressed in his working clothes.

  The drive to the National Theatre is spent in frenzied internal debate: Should he tell the audience it is over or simply open the match with his fingers crossed? He arrives at 5:15 P.M., fifteen minutes late, and begins the longest walk of his life, to the rostrum:

  A high official at the Foreign Ministry came running to me when I came through the door, and he said, “What kind of a man are you? This is the height of rudeness. Everybody is waiting and you come dressed like this.” He took me by the arm and he said they’re waiting and the rostrum is there. So, I went alone, fifteen meters or so to the rostrum. I looked at the balcony, where the president of Iceland sat. He was an elderly, experienced man. I think he guessed what kind of a dilemma I was in. We looked at each other, and about a meter from the rostum I made a decision. I will open the match. Then I won’t close any doors. I can always tell them later that it’s over. But if I say now it’s over, it’s really over. Somehow I got through a speech, one I hadn’t prepared. And I opened the match.

  The president of Iceland makes no speech. The government’s welcome is given by the minister of culture magnus, Torfi Olafsson. The mayor then talks pointedly of an ongoing chess game. “It is obvious that human beings do not for long wish to be pawns on a chessboard, even if they are in the hands of geniuses.” Euwe’s speech is half explanatory, half apologetic, expressing the hold Fischer has over the officials. “Mr. Fischer is not an easy man. But we should remember that he has lifted the level of world chess for all players.” At the cocktail party after the ceremony, Thorarinsson comes in for criticism from his Icelandic colleagues. “‘Keeping the government waiting is something one doesn’t do. If you’re going to organize this world championship, you’ll have to change your habits.’ I couldn’t let on; it would have been all over the world press. I just said, ‘I’m sorry, I shall try to do better. It won’t happen again.’”

  In fact, government ministers have more to worry about than Thorarinsson’s working clothes. Iceland’s economy is wholly dependent on fish, and they are preparing to announce the extension of the country’s fishing limits from twelve to fifty miles, confirming a threat that had been made a year earlier. The new rules will come into force on 1 September 1972. With Great Britain’s fishing industry already suffering from an earlier extension, London’s rejection of
the move is inevitable, meaning that this tiny nation, whose entire air force (one helicopter) had recently been incapacitated, is heading for a showdown with one of the mightiest military forces in the world. (In the event, with American backing and a devastating weapon, a wire cutter that traps and cuts trawl ropes, causing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage through lost catches and, worse still, lost nets, Iceland will secure its extension.)

  Left to right: Soviet ambassador Sergei Astavin, Boris Spassky, U.S. chargé d’affaires Theodore Tremblay. A vin d’honneur for being there. ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Fischer’s aide Fred Cramer dismisses Fischer’s absence from the ceremony, describing it as “a musical concert with speeches in Icelandic which he wouldn’t have understood.” Meanwhile, one man seems to have guessed what is going on. Spassky chats amicably with Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, telling him that he is looking forward to a two-month vacation, and then will return to Moscow to play Petrosian.

  As Thorarinsson pondered his next move, Fischer was still in Douglaston, immured in Sabbath observance. His demands were still on the table, and there seemed no question of his boarding a plane. Out of sight of the world’s press, he was refusing to respond to letters, take calls, or answer the door.

  With the match in a quagmire, there now came two attempts at its rescue: the first from the heart of Nixon’s White House, the other a true deus ex machina from one of the richest men in Britain, whose decision to intervene came as he was in a car driving through London.

  The Icelandic government might have played a part in securing the first intervention. Although it had no direct role in the match, national prestige was at stake, and the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, was deeply concerned at the possibility of failure. He and Thorarinsson were in the same political party, the Progressive Party, a center-left farmers movement. And Gudmundur Thorarinsson decided he had to ask him for assistance.

  He, Thorarinsson, had been searching nonstop for a way ahead. Could he persuade Spassky and Fischer to talk to each other directly? The champion was refusing to call his challenger but readily agreed to take Fischer’s call if the American rang. Fischer, however, seemed unlikely to respond to a request to phone Spassky. Spassky then summoned the Icelander to a meeting at his hotel.

  He said, “Gudmundur, this is a very serious situation. This can only be solved at a higher level.”

  I looked at him and said, “Well, yes, maybe that is the way. We’ll solve it at a higher level.” And after we shook hands I went to see the prime minister. I said, “We’re in serious trouble, and I think you should come into the picture. You have to phone the White House and ask them to use their influence on Fischer.”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no,” he said. “You’re a young man, and things don’t happen that way.” Then he thought about it and said, “If you’re quite determined, I’ll do what I can.” And he phoned the American embassy.

  But the Russian and the Icelander were at cross-purposes. Thorarinsson was so focused on bringing the American to the match, it did not enter his mind that Spassky might need help himself. The prime minister then called in the U.S. chargé d’affaires Theodore Tremblay. Would the American government lend a hand?

  Tremblay was intensely irritated with Fischer. At the opening ceremony, his wife had been sitting next to the empty chair, on the other side of which sat Spassky. But he was inclined to help. Uppermost in his mind, in a fragile phase in U.S.-Icelandic relations, was the U.S. base at Keflavik. The Icelandic coalition government—the only NATO country with communist ministers—was considering its future. Closure could have strategic consequences for the Western alliance. Iceland’s geographic position, midway between the United States and the Soviet Union, made this desolate island an invaluable ally. The Soviets were pressing on with a new blue water naval strategy, and Iceland served as a critical forward observation post, monitoring Soviet ship and submarine movements.

  As well as protection, Keflavik had brought employment and wealth. Yet many Icelanders felt resentment rather than gratitude: the base led to anxiety that Icelandic culture was threatened by the alien presence of so many foreigners. The ambiguity toward America was nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century, a visitor depicted the American whaler “dashing ashore in his civilian dress, and flinging his dollars everywhere, drinking, roistering, catching the ponies, and scampering off, frightening the Icelander out of his wits.” And in his 1948 novel, The Atom Station, the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author Halldor Laxness catches this dissonance in the image of two small boys playing chess while the radio blares out American music. The heroine reflects: “I contemplated once more the civilized peace of the chess game amongst the din from the American radio station.”

  Over and above the geopolitical considerations, Tremblay was also fond of the Icelandic people. “I hated to see this thing blow up in their face because of Fischer’s ignorant attitude.” He recalls the prime minister telling him how much Iceland had laid out for the match and asking, “Is there any way we can get him here?”

  Back at the U.S. embassy, Tremblay sent a telegram addressed to the secretary of state, William Rogers, and copied to the National Security Council and the CIA. It recited that the chargé had been summoned by Olafur Johannesson to express concern at Fischer’s nonappearance: the United States government was not accountable for the imbroglio, but Fischer’s actions, he said, were an insult to Iceland, and cancellation would cost seven million kronur. “Everyone knows that Fischer erratic [sic] and not susceptible to control by USG but actions were bound to hurt US image.” The prime minister had asked Tremblay to relay this concern to the White House. “While he realizes it might not do any good, he would appreciate an immediate attempt to persuade Fischer to live up to his agreement.”

  Given that these events unfolded over a weekend, it remains unclear whether Tremblay’s telegram produced any result. We can simply observe a chain of events: Johannesson’s request preceded Tremblay’s action, which was followed by a call to Douglaston made by the national security adviser, Dr. Henry Kissinger.

  In an interview with the authors, Dr. Kissinger rejected any idea that this call was made in an official capacity. “It was not a big political thing. I did not have a big staff paper to say you’ve got to do this. It somehow came to my attention.” Kissinger makes no claims for his own chess expertise. “I am a rank amateur.” He refused to play the Soviet ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, a keen player, in case it gave his adversary an insight into the way his mind worked. The opening words of Kissinger’s conversation with Fischer have entered chess lore: “This is the worst player in the world calling the best player in the world.” He recalls, “There was a difficulty in the operation, an upset. I just wanted Fischer to know that his government wished him well. I wished him well.”

  Thorarinsson learned from the “American attorneys” about Fischer’s reaction.

  They were in the room with Fischer when Kissinger phoned. Kissinger had said to Fischer, “America wants you to go over there and beat the Russians.” And Fischer changed, becoming like a young soldier going to war. When they asked him later, why did you change your mind, he said something like “I have decided that the interests of my nation are greater than my own.”

  No doubt the attorneys felt suitably humbled at so selfless a display of patriotism by their client—and puzzled by his continued failure to leave his Douglaston foxhole for the battlefront.

  After his call, next move Fischer. THE WHITE HOUSE

  Meanwhile, in Reykjavik, the American team was pushing Thorarinsson for financial concessions in ways he had never experienced and thought utterly unreasonable. He felt that if he yielded to one of their demands, he would simply open the door to many more. “So we very stubbornly said, ‘This is our offer. We will live up to it, but this is all we can do and we’re not changing it.’” Almost admiringly, he recollects their tactics. “They would always say, ‘This is nonsense. We’re against it. We are telling you this as a friend: To
save the match, you have to do this and this. Otherwise there will be no match.’ There was no hostility. They were just giving me advice! They came with papers and they said, ‘There’s no problem, you just sign here.’” The Icelander was in culture shock:

  These lawyers were different kinds of people from what we knew in Iceland. It seemed to me that money was the driving force and that everything that was legal was allowed. We didn’t see it like that. In Iceland it’s more about ethics than the law. And when they said the word money, the sound of their speech changed, and the look on the face changed. Money! Money! Money!

  Money, however, mattered to the Icelanders, too. They were at a disadvantage. If there were no match, they would lose their whole investment, and for a tiny country, this represented a large sum. Thorarinsson has not forgotten how Andrew Davis rubbed this in: “He said, ‘You’re losing everything. You just have to give us the gate money and this and that, and we shall make sure Bobby is here.’” The Icelander was under attack from all directions. The journalist Brad Darrach accused him of wanting to hand the match to the Soviets. The local press charged him with damaging Iceland’s international reputation. One editorial griped, “Why can’t he negotiate? He seems impotent.”

  Thorarinsson was not the only one on the receiving end. Tremblay informed the State Department by telegram that his mission was dealing with a “large number of financial and facultative requests from Fischer’s reps….” He wanted to put on record demands he had not granted. For example, Davis had asked the U.S. government to guarantee Fischer a sum of $50,000 on the grounds that his bid for a percentage of the ticket proceeds had been turned down. Davis’s argument took some lawyerly chutzpah: the U.S. government should help out, he argued, because of the risk that his client would be responsible for a breach in U.S.-Icelandic relations. Tremblay wrote, “This was rejected as exaggerated. Icelanders regard Bobby Fischer as a unique individual, and while his antics may not aid the US cause, it is highly unlikely that public or official blame will accrue for the delay or possible cancellation.” Cramer had also requested on Fischer’s behalf diplomatic number plates—and was told this was unnecessary. At two A.M. on Sunday, 2 July, Darrach woke Tremblay to insist that four marine guards were required around the clock to ensure Fischer’s security.