Bobby Fischer Goes to War

by David Edmonds

  He considered the champion to be balanced. Their only meeting with Spassky came at an embassy reception, and Zharikov was impressed: “A very clever young man, maybe a bit solemn—a person in whom psychosis would not develop easily. He was very self-possessed and liked to show off, like to talk.” The professors assured Ambassador Astavin there was nothing to worry about. They repeated that view in the official document to the Sports Committee: “We wrote a short report dismissing the speculations and confirming that the participants in the match were in an absolutely proper condition.”

  Soviet paranoia was by no means one-sided. The second secretary at the Soviet embassy, Dmitri Vasil’iev, has a recollection of Fischer complaining of KGB men in the hall trying to hypnotize him. It was the expression of what Victor Jackovich described as Fischer’s anti-Soviet mind-set.

  Fischer was convinced the Soviets were listening in, were watching somehow. He thought they were playing with him in a variety of ways—that there were people sitting in the front rows of the audience somehow affecting his concentration, perhaps with electronic devices. His paranoia was pervasive. It was part of the reason why going to the U.S. base at Keflavik was such a comfort for Fischer—part of our trying to make him feel more comfortable in terms of “Look, this is a military U.S., NATO base. You’re safe here.” If someone would say something about the Russians, he would perk up immediately and would shoot a question about it. I just had the sense that if you really wanted to get his attention, you just mentioned the Russians.

  The tension was such that it even got to the New York lawyer Paul Marshall. He recalls how his and his wife’s passports were missing from their hotel desk and then suddenly appeared back in their room. “And we started to feel the same pressures, thinking, ‘That’s odd.’ This and several other things made us believe that Bobby’s idea of Russian trickery may have some merit.” However, the atmosphere could also be used to provide some wholesome American fun. He and his wife, Bette, were in the public entrance to the hall when Nikolai Krogius was passing. Bette called out: “‘Grandmaster Krogius, friends and contacts in America wanted me to give you these papers.’ And Krogius turned and ran.”

  With the probability of a KGB watcher loitering there, who could blame him?

  However, Spassky and Geller were not completely mistaken. Outsiders did try to influence the proceedings.

  What we now know is that the KGB was active during the match—active in investigating possible attacks on the world champion, active in attempting a preemptive propaganda coup against the Americans, working with the connivance of the Moscow chess authorities, perhaps active too in spreading a rumor that Spassky was planning to defect.

  Soviet grandmasters of the era assumed that the KGB was involved in chess, as in all pursuits deemed important by the state. Chess players sized up one another. Which of them had a role beyond chess? Which of them was receiving an extra stipend—had a so-called side job? Which of them was informing? Who was holding a chess position while actually a KGB officer?

  To this day, many in the former Soviet Union will contend that the KGB’s work in defending the state was an honorable undertaking—so there was no dishonor in collaborating with them. The KGB was the real travel authority, lurking behind all the committees of Party faithful who had the task of initially vetting applications to travel. Through its informants, the KGB was tipped off as to what was going on in chess circles and would “suggest” to the authorities who should be encouraged, who should be discouraged, who should be banned from leaving the Soviet Union, who should be allowed to go abroad. It was a common practice to suggest to would-be travelers that their passports might be more readily available if they agreed to act as the eyes and ears of the organization.

  Some even claim that the KGB had an office in the Central Chess Club in Moscow—though an officer is more likely. Yuri Averbakh professes ignorance of any such thing: “I had an office there, and if so, I did not know about it.” Nonetheless, he fully understood how the system operated, even if his deeply embedded instinct—or perhaps superstitious habit—is to avoid speaking directly of the KGB. “In the Stalin era, usually if a team were traveling, an obvious representative of this organization was sent along. This person would observe the participants. In 1952, I played in the Interzonal tournament, and there was such a person there. In 1953 at the Candidates tournament in Zurich, there was such a person. In 1955, when Spassky traveled to the World Junior Chess Championship—I was his coach at the time—there was also a representative of that organization with us. After 1956, for about three years, no one was sent. This was the time of the thaw. Then, at the beginning of the 1960s, such people began to appear again. In Curaçao, for example, a KGB person accompanied us.”

  “Such people” were scarcely secret. Garry Kasparov’s former coach Aleksandr Nikitin records, “From the first time Garry went abroad, he had a companion who was not a professional trainer. He was a KGB lieutenant colonel, Viktor Litvinov. Litvinov kept an eye on Garry and his mother wherever they went.” Even Karpov was “protected.” “From 1975, Vladimir Pichtchenko, a prominent KGB agent, followed Karpov like a shadow on all his foreign trips.”

  Nikitin wrote that these agents fulfilled a useful role: “Today everyone is in the habit of condemning this organization. We should not, however, think that people who worked in the KGB were monsters. Those with whom we dealt were cordial and competent, and of high intellectual caliber. The organization operated within all the sport federations. Sport as an aspect of culture had to reflect the success of our system….” The high level of intellect is accurate: the KGB creamed off the brightest for its ranks.

  Given the official view of Spassky’s political “immaturity,” given his earlier brushes with the KGB in Leningrad, given this was a U.S.-Soviet contest on an island with a major American air base, it would have been little short of a miracle if there had been no KGB operatives there. Nikolai Krogius allows the possibility: “As far as I know, official representatives of the KGB were not present. There were rumors that there were two or three KGB workers. But they simply watched, of course. Nothing more.” Nei thought there were many. Now only recently retired from the Russian Foreign Ministry, then second secretary in the Soviet embassy, Dmitri Vasil’iev remembers two or three such persons inside the hall in Reykjavik, watching the match: “I can’t be sure they were KGB, but they were a bit strange. You know, these people, CIA or KGB, they were always a bit strange.” Members of these secret organizations—whether CIA or KGB—were dissimilar, of course, but something about them made identification easy. To an observer, in the Russian idiom, they were “men with identical shoes.”

  The Soviet embassy was already swollen beyond normal requirements for a sparsely populated island; during the two months of the match, there were an unusual number of Russian “tourists.” Some reports name an embassy official, Viktor Bubnov, as the head of the KGB in Reykjavik. But he was actually from Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, and so had quite different priorities. We can assume no shortage of KGB officers and informants in Reykjavik. And we now have reason to believe that some among them were not there simply, as Nikolai Krogius would have it, “to observe.”

  In Moscow, at the end of July, apprehension over Spassky’s performance was running at a high level.

  On 27 July, when the champion played his worst game to date, game eight, Viktor Baturinskii was summoned to the Central Committee to explain what was going on and in particular why Spassky did not react to Fischer’s late appearances at games. Present were the acting head of the Propaganda Department, Aleksandr Yakovlev; his deputy head, Yuri Skliarov; and the head of sports, Boris Goncharov—who apparently had not the least interest in sports. They discussed how they might help Spassky and how they might identify and neutralize the psychological pressures on him.

  It was the beginning of a period that finds an array of senior KGB figures passing through Ivonin’s office. (Of course, this was also the run-up to the Olympics.) They included Viktor
Chebrikov, deputy chairman of the KGB and a protégé of Brezhnev’s. Brezhnev had appointed him in 1968 under Yuri Andropov, following the Kremlin power struggle that saw Pavlov go to GosKomSport. Chebrikov would go on to become KGB chairman in 1982. Even more senior, the first deputy chairman of the KGB, appointed in the same reshuffle as Chebrikov, Semion Tsvigun, also turned up. There were visits from the deputy head of the KGB’s Fifth Directorate (which dealt with ideology and so covered sports), Major General Valentin Nikashkin. One of his staff, KGB agent Viktor Gostiev, will come into the story. He too worked in the Fifth Directorate of the KGB. Later, while remaining a KGB officer, Gostiev became deputy chairman of the Dynamo Sports Society, which provided physical training for the KGB and those employed in the Interior Ministry.

  The senior rank of the KGB participants has probably more to do with Ivonin’s ministerial status than with the importance accorded Reykjavik. Viktor Ivonin is unable to recall anything of these visits. His normally unfailing memory for people and events lets him down when confronted with these KGB names. While his tone becomes decidedly more guarded, his mind is a blank.

  What might they have discussed?

  The theme of these comings and goings is less how to undermine Fischer and more how to prop up a rattled Spassky. (In this period, there is a proposal to send the champion Kogitum—a medicine against nervous tension—and some exasperation at his refusal to take it.) First, this requires investigating stories of possible interference with his playing. One report to have reached the KGB was that Fischer was being assisted by a computer (in Russian called an IBM—a Soviet tribute to American big business) and a device in his chair. (Whether the two are linked, a computer in Fischer’s chair, is unclear.) There have already been reports in the Western press of Fischer being computer aided, reports derisively dismissed in Reykjavik by Spassky, Geller, and Krogius. Back in Moscow, the KGB does not believe silicon-based shenanigans are any more practical. A Comrade Lvov, a KGB technical officer and a constant caller on Ivonin at this time, explains to the deputy minister that Fischer would have needed a full year to develop the requisite computer program and would have to have a portable receiver and a membrane in his ear to receive the signals.

  Lvov is also the bearer of other shadowy news: he reports the possibility that Spassky has had a letter threatening his family if he returns to Moscow a winner. This is investigated, and no proof of its existence is found. The provenance of this letter is unclear; today, Spassky says he had no knowledge of it.

  Other means of defending Spassky are afoot. As July turns into August, an unnamed forensic psychiatrist takes part in a meeting with Lvov and Gostiev. Lvov is all set to organize a check for radiation from radio waves and X-rays “on the spot”—presumably in the hall.

  Throughout this period, the possibility of Spassky’s being the target of hypnosis and telepathy is being discussed. There is a hint that sending a psychiatrist to Reykjavik is Gostiev’s brainchild. The psychiatrists Vartanian and Zharikov are primed, and Gostiev arranges the logistics of their visit.

  Then there is the alarm over Spassky’s refreshments—that on 15 August he drank some juice and was overcome with lethargy. Once more, the KGB and Gostiev are involved. Once more, Gostiev springs into action, ensuring a sample is sent to Moscow. KGB scientists check the sample. Later, Gostiev’s superior, Nikashkin, tells Ivonin that nothing untoward was found.

  However, the KGB is not content to play a purely reactive role. The organization’s idea of a helping hand also involves taking the initiative, instigating its own rumor that Fischer is cheating through a device hidden in his chair—a device, so the rumor goes, that is impairing Spassky’s performance and/or benefiting Fischer. This idea is canvassed toward the end of July. It must have sounded convincing. As Ivonin listens to the “comrades” talking, he finds himself wondering whether there might really be something to it. On 29 July, Boris Goncharov, of the Central Committee, reports to Ivonin that the rumor has been “launched.” The rest is silence.

  Given the launch date, it is a mystery whether there was any connection between this rumor and Geller’s statement to the press three weeks later, on 22 August, protesting about dirty tricks being used to influence Spassky, though Geller asserted that “letters had been received.” The story of the scenes that followed this statement has already been related. In Moscow, Major General Nikashkin informed Ivonin that the episode had received a lot of publicity; that Icelandic experts had checked everything and nothing had been found.

  Was Geller obeying KGB orders? Had he been told the full details of the KGB plotting, or was he himself a victim of the plot, inveigled into believing and then publicly conveying the allegations of American high-tech machinations? Within Spassky’s chess team, Geller, who was ultrasuspicious of the West, acted alone. Krogius did not sign the controversial declaration, and today he categorizes the action as “unsuccessful and clumsy.” He attributes it entirely to “Geller’s tendency to act spontaneously.” Nei says he refused to put his name to the statement because it was evident to him that Geller had issued it under political instruction from Moscow. Ivonin declares that the first he heard of the letter was when news of it came from Reykjavik. Spassky now remembers that a letter before the match had warned about the chair and “this letter was fished out.” Perhaps, nearing the end of the contest, desperate to account for his failure to find a breakthrough at the board, he and Geller consciously or subconsciously cast about for non-chess explanations. Still ignorant of the KGB scheme, Spassky continues to believe that Fischer’s black leather swivel chair might have had something in it; he says he was not at all embarrassed by Geller’s pronouncement.

  It remains an open question whether a KGB operative actually planted something in Fischer’s chair for the X-rays to pick up, part of an inept attempt to rescue the champion’s reputation, perhaps even to have Fischer disgraced and disqualified. Strikingly, even the American Don Schultz, an IBM engineer by profession and president of the USCF from 1996 to 1999, is suspicious. During the X-ray process, Fischer’s team sent Schultz along to act as an observer. He still has the contemporaneous notes he took, including a sketch of the object with the loop that he saw in the first X-ray. At the time, in public, he laughed off the Soviet allegations. But later he too admitted to doubts: “Everything wasn’t fully explained.” What puzzled him was the discrepancy between the two X-rays. He was there as the second set of X-rays was developed and saw that the looplike object, the “anomaly,” as he calls it, had disappeared.

  I’ve thought long about this. The only plausible thing—and it really sounds radical, and I didn’t want to mention it at the time, as I thought nobody would believe me—but I think there is a slight chance that some crackpot Russian agent—and this is really wild—some crackpot Russian agent had a plan to try to embarrass the U.S. by planting something in the chair and then making a complaint and having it found. And their security forces found out what he did and thought it was a crackpot idea, and somehow they got it out.

  This, he says, is “a very disconcerting possibility. I am convinced this is what had to have happened.” Of course, once the alarm was raised, the Soviets and the Icelanders might each have had their own reasons for ensuring nothing was found. Don Schultz was startled when Icelandic officials announced the all clear before the results from the second set of X-rays had been reported.

  Whether or not the KGB did implant a device, what is clear is that Krogius is right to call the entire exploit clumsy and unsuccessful. The Icelandic organizers dismissed the accusation, the American media ridiculed it, and the Soviets were left humbled.

  The possibility of a spy in the troubled Soviet camp also raised its head. The challenger’s unforeseen departure from a lifetime of opening predictability had thrown Spassky; that Fischer was the better prepared is indisputable. But Geller was convinced that Spassky’s prematch analysis had been leaked.

  From Don Schultz’s contemporaneous notes. DON SCHULTZ

  To suspicious So
viet minds, if there were a fifth columnist, who was the likely culprit? In the written record of the postmortem on the match, there is no direct accusation against any member of the Spassky team, but the wording of a comment by Viktor Baturinskii points a finger. Spassky had cited Ivo Nei as the weak link in his team. Evidently angry and on the defensive, the former prosecutor lashed out: “Here mention has been made of Nei, who proved to he all hut a spy. I objected to the inclusion of Nei in the training group, but Boris Vasilievich [Spassky] insisted on it. To cite Nei now as one of the reasons for his own performance is at the very least unscrupulous.”

  In the minds of the Sports Committee, Nei had no real business in Reykjavik. From the moment Spassky’s team was first assembled, Nei was referred to as the champion’s “physical trainer.” Nei insists that he played a full part in the chess analysis, working at night alongside the rest of the team. He also spoke fluent German and some English, and in Reykjavik he interpreted for the chief arbiter, Lothar Schmid, and for Max Euwe, president of FIDE. He knew the president well.

  No doubt it was a combination of Nei’s command of chess and his position as an “insider” that commended him to Paul Marshall as the possible author of a book on the match. Marshall recognized the market for such books—especially one written from inside Spassky’s camp. Nei says that as well as royalties, Marshall offered him anything he wanted from America. Nei then approached grandmaster Robert Byrne to be coauthor. This former U.S. champion was in Reykjavik as a commentator for a Dutch television station. Nei had been getting out and about, hobnobbing with match officials and the American visitors. The Soviet ambassador had not vetoed his extramural activities, but he advised Nei to be cautious in his contact with U.S. citizens. As Spassky’s coach, says Nei, his meeting the Americans was beneficial for Spassky: He was able to give his team some insight into how the U.S. camp was thinking.