Bobby Fischer Goes to War

by David Edmonds

  Spassky’s reaction triggered a plethora of meetings in hotels around Reykjavik, at all hours of day and night. Spassky wanted an apology as well as an appropriate sanction imposed on Fischer. Even after a three-hour meeting between Fischer’s and Spassky’s representatives, the matter remained unresolved.

  Victor Jackovich, later a U.S. ambassador, was the only American diplomat in Iceland who could speak Russian. He was brought in as an interpreter:

  None of us in the embassy was familiar with the rules or with FIDE. This could be a fiasco, we thought, if the Russians walk out and claim a forfeiture of the entire match. And maybe that’s where we’re headed. The Soviets were tough customers, and understandably unhappy about the circumstances. We were having to interpret what Fischer was trying to do, and what he was trying to do was anyone’s guess. Afterward, discussing the episode with colleagues, we said, Well, maybe the Russians missed a beat there; maybe it would have been expedient for them to have walked out.

  Paul Marshall’s view was that the Soviets’ emotional involvement in the match gave him a bargaining edge:

  [It] allowed for an odd combination of tactics; fun, joyful tactics, because they were so damned serious about it all. It was like a bad movie with a load of snarling Russians. It wasn’t that hard to negotiate if one took a position that they didn’t like. You could make fun of them, and knowing that the fun would be publicized really helped a lot.

  The organizers were not having much fun. They had to deal with the Soviet claim that Fischer forfeit the first game. All knew the latter was out of the question for Fischer. “The situation is critical,” Euwe declared. “I don’t know if the match will be played at all.”

  Schmid concedes that the Russians were within their rights to demand the first game, but when he and Euwe met Spassky, “I tried to make a joke of it and said, ‘How about a pawn head start in game one instead of a point?’” This raised a rare Soviet smile. Schmid reminded them that in other competitions the Russians had arrived a day late because of travel hitches—even once for a tournament in Reykjavik—and they had been allowed a postponement. This, he maintained, set a precedent.

  A grueling second meeting between Thorarinsson, Euwe, and Spassky’s seconds was held late in the evening at the Saga. This time Thorarinsson took the role of white knight:

  Dr. Euwe fought with them for a long time. I tried to be neutral and didn’t say much. When it came to three or four in the morning, both Schmid and Euwe were becoming very, very tired. Suddenly Dr. Euwe gave in. He said, “I see there is no other way. I declare the first game lost.” And they all stood up. For me it was clear it was all over, there would now be no match. I banged my hand on the table and said, “This is impossible, and it’s my fault. Because according to the laws of chess, you can’t lose a game by forfeit unless the clock has been started. We are the organizers, and we failed to start the clock.” It was a drowning man grasping at something. And the Russians all sat down.

  This moment of inspired casuistry immediately terminated the forfeit debate but was not enough to rescue the match; there were still the required expressions of contrition. On 5 July, the Soviet delegation issued a statement, read by Geller at a press conference. Hastily translated, it complained that “an unprecedented in the history of chess situation [sic]” had arisen when the world champion was made to wait. This was also the infringement of FIDE rules. The absence of the challenger at the opening and his three-day delay were insulting. This breach had been “taken under the protection” of Euwe. There followed a proposition with which few could quarrel: “All that have [sic] happened were enough to B. Spasski [sic] to discontinue the negotiations and leave for home. The only thing that is keeping him hitherto from taking this step is his understanding of the match meaning [sic] for the world of chess and for hospitable Iceland.”

  Decoded, the statement added an extra condition for the survival of the match. As well as Fischer’s apology, the Soviets now required Euwe’s condemnation of Fischer’s behavior and an admission by the president that he had violated FIDE rules by postponing the match.

  Earlier, Fischer’s team had gone a short way down the apology route, offering a terse handout written by Marshall: “We are sorry that the world championship was delayed…. If Grandmaster Spassky or the Soviet people were inconvenienced or discomforted, I am indeed unhappy, for I had not the slightest intention of this occurring.” Geller rejected it at the press conference as entirely inadequate—it had been mimeographed and was unsigned.

  Euwe was in the audience, which had now gone quiet. In what Lothar Schmid called “a great gesture by a great man, saving the match,” he immediately rose to do his part in meeting the Soviet conditions. The USSR embassy interpreter, Valeri Chamanin, jotted down Euwe’s words on his own copy of Geller’s statement. The president admitted breaking FIDE rules “for special reasons,” for which he apologized; he condemned Fischer’s behavior, and he accepted that Spassky could not be expected to play within the next four days.

  The press conference spontaneously erupted in applause, although they also greeted with ridicule Euwe’s assertion that Fischer did not intend to cause trouble. The Washington Post commented that everybody thought Fischer and his companions were the villains. A Los Angeles Times article filed from Iceland was headlined BOBBY FISCHER AS THE UGLY AMERICAN. However, the Soviets too came in for criticism. The British papers reported an attack by Ed Edmondson. If the Soviets claimed victory because of Fischer’s failure to appear, they would be “showing themselves in their true colours as grasping, greedy, deceitful nonsportsmen.” Edmondson added, “I do not intend this to be a personal attack on Spassky because we all know that he is being guided—I should say misguided—by the Russian Ministry of Sport.”

  Immediately after Geller’s press conference, Fred Cramer called one of his own. Concessions were out of the question. If any apologizing was to be done, Cramer said, Dr. Euwe should apologize to the Americans. He had broken the rules in favor of the Russians. As for Fischer, he “felt he hadn’t violated the rules.”

  Dr. Max Euwe, president of FIDE. Apologies all around. ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Meanwhile, Tremblay had met Lombardy and Marshall for what the chargé called a strategy session “aimed at getting the contestants to the chessboard and reversing the propaganda trend that had been heavily pro-Spassky.” The Washington Post depicted Fischer’s entourage as part of the problem: Lombardy and the lawyers were professionally closemouthed, Cramer the opposite. The Post remarked: “All in all, the Americans add up to a great team—for Spassky.”

  The outcome of the meeting was a new letter of apology by Fischer to Spassky. Fischer, in one of those sudden, unexpected, and inexplicable U-turns that had dotted his career, now decided on an act of abnegation. He scrawled a note in which he proposed giving up every cent of the prize money and competing simply for the love of chess. Horrified, Marshall and Darrach worked on the text through the night, finally persuading Fischer to delete any reference to relinquishing the prize. Marshall was quoted as having described his task as “feeling like a cop trying to talk a jump case off a ledge.”

  The letter was delivered to Spassky’s hotel room in the early morning while he slept. Fischer offered “sincere apologies” to Spassky and apologies to Euwe and millions of chess fans for his “disrespectful behavior in not attending the opening ceremony.” He also confessed that he had been carried away by his petty dispute over money. However, the hand of the lawyer is plain. After the opening paragraph of soft soap, the next paragraph carefully argues the case against a forfeit of the first game, casting doubt on the Soviets’ motive in demanding it, especially when they had apparently accepted a postponement. Anyway, the apology goes on, surely Spassky would not want an unfair advantage? Then, following best public relations practice, it concluded with an appeal to Spassky’s honor: “I know you to be a sportsman and a gentleman, and I am looking forward to some exciting chess games with you.” In the circumstances, it was a psychological mast
erstroke. How could the champion not be disarmed? The U.S. embassy released the letter to the press before the Soviets had a chance to react.

  It worked. Opinion swung toward the American challenger for the first time. The match was back on.

  On 7 July, lots were drawn. Again Fischer was late, leaving the Russian to sweat it out once more. When the American arrived at the playing hall, according to Darrach “bursting out of the cab in a glitter-green slubbed silk suit with wide pointy shoulders,” he at first failed to notice Spassky. The world champion “stood staring at the broad green back, his smile crumpled and his tan two shades lighter. Big and vital and overdressed, Fischer looked every inch the arrogant superstar. In a sweater that had lost its casual flair, Spassky looked like a guy who had asked for an autograph and been told to buzz off.” The Moscow evening paper Vecherniaia Moskva recorded the draw:

  Spassky did what even a chess beginner would do: he squeezed a pawn in each hand, made several loops around the stage with them, then approached his rival and stretched his hands in front of him. Fischer pointed at the hand containing the black pawn.

  Spassky would start with the white pieces.

  There is now an interval in the drama, a breathing space for the harried actors. The first game has been rescheduled at the Soviets’ request (or ultimatum) for 11 July. Spassky relaxes over a salmon fishing expedition. Gudmundur Thorarinsson rests. Paul Marshall returns to his less troublesome clients in New York. Lothar Schmid has to fly back to Germany briefly to tend to his son, who has fallen off a bicycle while pedaling downhill and is suffering from a head injury. Fischer can slip into his routine of sleeping by day and bowling and eating U.S. steaks by night at the Keflavik military base.

  12. RAGE RULES

  Ajax, heavy with rage.

  — SOPHOCLES

  When the curtain goes up again, Fischer is in the playing hall. But a new character is on stage and in frustrated turmoil: Chester Fox, an ambitious, young, would-be filmmaker with bushy sideburns, tightly curled red hair, and dressed to impress in a wide-lapeled trench coat. He speaks some Russian. When he smokes in times of trouble (from this point, almost continuously), he forgets to puff and the cigarette burns until it melts the filter between his fingers. Fox is agitated. “Tell me, do I look like a rapist?” he asks a journalist. “Am I in here to rape somebody? All I want to do is make a deal.” Fox’s lawyer, Richard Stein, does his best to curb his client’s outbursts.

  Although of limited experience, Fox had been granted exclusive rights to film and to photography inside the sports hall by the Icelandic Chess Federation. The deal was for Fischer and Spassky to receive 30 percent each of the revenue, with the other 40 percent being split evenly between the ICF and Fox. Fox was recommended by Paul Marshall, who claims that he could not find another filmmaker interested in the job. Aspects of the deal bewildered Thorarinsson. The Icelander was surprised that a one-man business was apparently the sole contender for the contract.

  We got no money up front. It became clear later that they had a special agreement with Chester Fox behind our backs, and probably Fox paid the Americans something to secure the agreement without our knowledge.

  For Fox it was potentially a big break. With the unprecedented international interest, with TV stations hungry for pictures, having the monopoly must have seemed like having the key to the bank.

  When the drawing of lots had taken place, Fischer had raised no complaints about the arrangements in the hall. The British chess master Harry Golombek, a vice president of FIDE who stood in for Euwe, complimented the Icelanders on “the best playing conditions in the history of chess” closed-circuit television throughout, 15,000 square feet of red carpet, 1,000 green chairs at ground level, 6,000 feet of curtaining to keep out the daylight.

  Nervous officials waited in the hall night after night for a Fischer visit, but he kept deferring an inspection. When he eventually showed up, some forty hours before the first game, only the thirty-two pieces and a familiar swivel chair, especially flown in from New York, met his approval. The hand-carved lead-weighted chess set was made by an English company, John Jacques & Son. As for the leather-bound chair, it was designed by Charles Eames, originally for use in the lobby of the Time-Life Building in New York, and had been found at a shop on 600 Madison Avenue. The Michigan manufacturer of the chair Herman Miller had given the Icelandic organizers a $50 discount as “a token of our friendship and respect” for the Icelandic people. The official price was $524.

  No matter what they had heard about the challenger, the naturally courteous Icelandic officials must have been disconcerted by what followed. The table, the chessboard, the lighting, the proximity of the seating to the stage, and the cloth-swathed towers in which the cameras were hidden—all were declared unsatisfactory. The $1,200 custom-built mahogany table should have its legs shortened, the sumptuous chessboard changed, the front rows of seats removed, the camera towers pushed right back to a point where filming would be nigh impracticable, the lighting brighter—no, less bright; no, brighter than that. Above the board was a four-meter-by-four-meter fluorescent fixture containing many bulbs. The Swedish-trained lighting engineer Dadi Agustsson was patient and sympathetic.

  I liked Fischer. He learned very quickly. If I gave him one explanation about the lighting, I would not have to explain it again. Of course he was difficult, but he was not unfair. He just wanted the lighting a certain way, and it was quite clear what he wanted. He wanted it to be such that he didn’t notice it—not too hot, he didn’t want shadow, he didn’t want glare. Spassky wasn’t interested. I’ll always remember what Spassky told me. He said he used to study chess in his mother’s kitchen with a tiny table lamp. After that he never thought about lighting. “Leave it to Fischer,” he said.

  It was nearly three A.M. before Fischer got around to looking at the chessboard. “There are just too many spots in the stone. It needs to be clear.” At the request of Thorarinsson, Gunnar Magnusson had designed the table and board. The table was a rich mahogany with a matte varnish. There were two lower ledges for water. The chessboard itself was green-and-white marble. One of the nation’s best masons, Thorsteinn Bjornsson, had worked the stone. The factory had never made a chess set before—they specialized, among other things, in tombstones. Icelandic officials now yanked Bjornsson out of bed at six and told him he had thirty-six hours to make another board. “What do you mean, another board,” he shouted. “We made three already. What’s wrong? Is he crazy?” Later, Bjornsson had his men cut the two-and-a-quarter-inch squares, binding them together with crushed marble and transparent glue.

  As for the camera positions, once Fischer had gone, the Icelandic officials and Cramer thought that they could find a compromise behind his back—a little shift away of the towers and one row of seats removed. Cramer checked his notes to see if there was anything else his boy might object to. “I’ve been through it all,” he said. “As far as I can see, the only thing left is the air.”

  Six minutes after the scheduled start of the first game, Fischer appeared to the applause of the audience. At last, the championship was under way, and with a game that left grandmasters openmouthed.

  Spassky played the opening and middle game with great caution and the first two hours were devoid of thrills. The queens came off at move eleven, a pair of knights at move sixteen, a pair of bishops at move eighteen, a pair of rooks at move nineteen, the two other rooks at move twenty-three, and the two other knights at move twenty-eight. That left six pawns and a bishop each. Most players would agree to a draw immediately upon reaching such a lifeless, evenly balanced position. There was no scent of victory for either side. There seemed to be no possibility of stirring up the position. Fischer had plenty of time to make his moves and was ahead of Spassky on the clock.

  Then, on move twenty-nine, Fischer did the unthinkable. Picking up the remaining black bishop in the long fingers of his right hand, balancing it with his thumb, index, and middle fingers, he stretched out his arm and in one movement
plucked off the rook pawn with his two smaller fingers while installing the bishop in its place.

  This was inexplicable. In playing Bxh2—bishop takes the king rook pawn—Fischer had fallen into a standard trap. At first glance, the undefended white rook pawn looks as though it can be safely pinched by the black bishop. At second glance, one sees that if the pawn is taken, white’s knight’s pawn will be advanced one square, leaving the black bishop helplessly stranded. White can capture it with nonchalant ease. Even for the average club player, the recognition of such a danger is instinctive.

  Inexplicable.

  Fischer was the chess machine who did not commit errors. That was part of his aura, part of the “Bobby Fischer” legend, a key to his success. Newspapers reported a gasp of surprise spreading through the auditorium. Spassky, who had trained himself not to betray emotion, looked momentarily startled. Those who later analyzed the match were equally dumbfounded. “When I saw Bobby play this move,” wrote Golombek, “I could hardly believe my eyes. He had played so sensibly and competently up to now that I first of all thought there was something deep I had overlooked; but no matter how I stared at the board I could find no way out.” Nor could Robert Byrne and Ivo Nei, who analyze the game in their book on the match: “This move must be stamped as an outright blunder.” The British chess player and writer C. H. O’D. Alexander’s verdict is similar: “Unbelievable. By accurate play Fischer had established an obviously drawn position… now he makes a beginner’s blunder.” A television pundit on the U.S. Channel 13 reckoned it would go down as one of the great gaffes of all time. The Los Angeles Times thought it could be explained only as a “rare miscalculation by the American genius.” In Moscow, the correspondent for the Soviet state newspaper Izvestia, Yuri Ponomarenko, located the move’s source in sheer greed. Bondarevskii commented that the move was “a vivid example to smash the myth of [Fischer] as a computer.” Anatoli Karpov, the twenty-one-year-old Soviet star in the making, had a psychological theory involving both players: Spassky was afraid of the American and had sought to prove to himself that he could always draw with the white pieces. Fischer, annoyed, at tempted to disprove this. “So he sacrificed a piece without rhyme or reason.”