Bobby Fischer Goes to War
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As for the Americans, we know that Henry Kissinger made two calls to Fischer, but his almost day-by-day record of his time as national security adviser, The White House Years, contains no reference to them. There is no mention of the match in Nixon’s equally detailed Memoirs. The Soviet ambassador to Washington, D.C., Anatoli Dobrynin, told the authors that in his frequent contacts with Kissinger, the match never came up. Neither Fischer nor Spassky is cited in his book, In Confidence, even though Kissinger appears to have rung Fischer when he and the Soviet ambassador were the president’s guests in California, working and relaxing together while Fischer was threatening to fly home to Brooklyn.
In an interview for this book Dr. Kissinger reflected, “It was not the biggest decision I had to make in those days, but I thought it would help create an atmosphere of peaceful competition.” Indeed, what could be more competitive or more peaceful than a World Chess Championship? Yet the former national security adviser insists that, unlike most members of the public, he did not see the match as an aspect of the cold war or democracy versus communism.
By the end of 1971, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in its Strategic Survey of that year, compared 1971 to 1947 in that it marked a point where “the international system as a whole formed into a visibly new pattern.” One of America’s foremost strategic thinkers, Samuel P. Huntington, summed up geopolitics of the early 1970s: “All in all, the skies were filled with planes bearing diplomats to negotiations, and the air was rich with the promise of détente.” In its Strategic Survey for 1972, the IISS announced that the cold war was dead and buried.
In the White House Map Room (left to right), the president’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, with the Soviet ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin. THE WHITE HOUSE
The broad period of the championship saw three successful summits, when Nixon visited Beijing and Moscow in 1972 and when Brezhnev visited Washington in June 1973. A torrent of talks, suggestions for talks, the promise of future agreements, and actual agreements cascaded into the diplomatic desert. These included the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures with Respect to Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I), and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Eventually, 150 agreements were signed and 11 joint commissions established. A handshake in space in 1975 could be seen as the culminating moment.
The essential difference between détente and the previous era, Dr. Kissinger argues, is that Nixon believed that negotiations were still possible and desirable with the Soviet regime as it was. Previous U.S. administrations held that any meaningful dialogue with the Soviets would have to await a fundamental transformation in the Soviet political system. Nixon turned this thinking on its head. He maintained that if international stability could be created over a long enough period, the monolithic Soviet system would be unable to resist change.
What was Brezhnev’s view of détente? Essentially that it was a mechanism for dealing with problems between governments and that this foreign policy was distinct from and not applicable to domestic affairs. Or, if there was a connection, it was a matter of preserving the Soviet system, not liberalizing it. Indeed, in the Soviet Union, repression stiffened in the détente years.
For the Kremlin, importantly, détente also meant America’s acknowledgment that the USSR was a military superpower and a political equal. As the Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko said in 1971: “There is no question of any significance that can be decided without the Soviet Union or in opposition to it.” To Brezhnev, recognition of equality was of greater consequence than SALT. The Soviet leader could reassure himself and the Soviet people that the so-called correlation of forces in the world was tilting toward communism; the Soviet Union was riding the wave of history that would wash capitalism away. An article in Komsomolskaia Pravda justifying the policy was entitled “A Triumph of Realism.” Détente did not mark the end of global political competition. On the contrary, now was the time to step up the struggle; at this juncture in history, the circumstances were exceptionally favorable to the onward march of socialism. (Kissinger saw Brezhnev’s sensitivity on political equality as showing his psychological insecurity: “What a more secure leader might have regarded as a cliché or condescension, he treated as a welcome sign of our seriousness.”)
Détente also offered immediate practical and material payoffs for the adversarial superpowers. The Soviets wanted trade to avoid root-and-branch economic reform. The United States hoped détente would give the Soviets a stake in stability and temper their adventurousness abroad.
Thus, there was necessarily a contradiction at the heart of détente—between cooperation and competition. Rivalry between the two superpowers remained intense—as seen in the long list of Nixon’s reactive measures against perceived Soviet threats. The administration took action to counter the construction of a Soviet naval base in Cuba (U.S. spy planes had photographed a football field being set out when the Cuban national game was baseball), the movement of Soviet surface-to-air missiles to the Suez Canal, the Soviet role in the Indo-Pakistan war, and Brezhnev’s aggressiveness and apparent readiness for military intervention in the Arab-Israeli war.
Both sides worked on improving their weaponry and extending their influence. And both sides had problems with allies and client states whose interests did not align with theirs, or who felt their interests were subordinated to those of the superpower. For example, during the first days of Fischer-Spassky, the Egyptian president, Anwar al-Sadat, expelled the 20,000 Soviet advisers and technicians based in his country, together with Soviet combat and reconnaissance aircraft. Angered by Moscow’s refusal to give him advanced weapons, Sadat initiated secret contacts with the Americans.
When the match was over, some of the press picked up these opposing themes—suspicious antagonism against peaceful competition. On the one hand, Fischer and Spassky represented their countries, and the match, according to the broadsheets, embodied East-West confrontation, particularly given the Soviet claim that its chess supremacy was the outcome of its superior ideology. On the other hand, no nationalist rivalry had been sparked off. Many Americans had supported Spassky, and many Russians had quietly rooted for Fischer. All in all, concluded The New York Times, the match had a unique political importance in terms of improved U.S.-USSR relations.
So Reykjavik was a cold war confrontation in this sense: It illustrated the tension within détente and the strains that led to the policy’s breakdown within three years. Fischer-Spassky smacked of both the continuing divide in politics and society and the suspicion and enmity that infused relations across the Iron Curtain. The separate territory kept to by the Soviet team, with all their customary watchfulness and suspicions, their lack of experience in dealing with the press, the go-go aggression of the Fischer staff, the tendency of the Western officials and Americans to make unilateral decisions and then to present them to the Soviets, the stereotyping by Western journalists of the Soviet team—all these reflected the cold war and directly affected the match.
Our two heroes also dramatized the contradictions of the era. For Spassky, Reykjavik was supposed to be a feast of chess, a celebration to be shared with friendly rivals. As for Fischer, in victory he had no doubt about the implications of his win. He said he could crush anyone the Soviets threw at him: “The Russians are wiped out.” He was delighted to have seized the title from the Soviet Union. “They probably now feel sorry they ever started playing chess,” he told the BBC. “They had it all for the last twenty years. They talked of their military might and their intellectual might. Now the intellectual thing… it’s given me great pleasure… as a free person… to have smashed this thing.”
Of course, as it turned out, news of the cold war’s death was greatly exaggerated. But if Fischer had not been so anti-Soviet and mercurial, if he had been as convivial as Spassky, the match might even have gone down in history as symbolizing détente.
22. UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN
Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won.
— DUKE OF WELLINGTON
Fame is when you stop signing and start autographing.
— BILLY WILDER
With the match over and Fischer wrapped in triumphalism, the organizers were still unable to relax. His absence at the opening ceremony had been a catastrophe; now they worried that the new world champion would ignore the final dinner. Worn down by two months of Fischerism, Gudmundur Thorarinsson was almost reconciled to this. Fred Cramer fed the doubts. He thought his man should be crowned in his hotel room: “I cannot see Bobby sitting quietly through a load of speeches.”
Euwe, Schmid, and Thorarinsson met for a drink at the hotel Esja before the ceremony. A journalist asked Schmid whether he would arbitrate another match. “I would have to have a long think about that,” was the cautious response. Euwe thought the best thing about the match was that it was over. Corriere della Sera completed its coverage of Fischer-Spassky as though it had been a fairy tale: “Good night, Fischer; good night, Spassky; good night to the enchanted island of Iceland.”
China’s newly appointed ambassador to Iceland, Chen Tung, was one of many delighted that the match was finally over. Chen Tung had a long-standing booking of the presidential suite in the Loftleidir, expecting the match to have concluded. So as not to cause a diplomatic row, the hotel had approached Cramer, wondering whether, in view of Chen Tung’s prior reservation, Fischer might be willing to move to another suite. “We are not prepared to discuss anything but chess at the moment,” the panjandrum shot back. “Bobby cannot be bothered with the problems of the Chinese ambassador.” For Chen Tung, there was always the option of the other main luxury hotel in town, the Saga. But that was where the representatives of China’s ideological foe—the Soviets—were quartered.
For the closing dinner at the Laugardalsholl on Sunday, 3 September (price $22 a head), a Viking theme had been chosen. The waiters wore plastic Viking hats. Guests could feast on barbecued suckling pig and spitted mountain lamb, washed down with Viking’s Blood, a potent concoction unknown to Vikings and containing wine, cognac, orange juice, and lemonade. The meal began on time at seven P.M. Spassky was there, as were Schmid, Thorarinsson, Euwe, the minister of finance Halldor Sigurdsson, and over 1,200 other people. In a reprise of the opening ceremony, Fischer’s place was vacant.
Virtually an hour late, at 7:55 P.M., as the band on stage was striking up the chess federation’s anthem, the guest of honor finally appeared, garbed in a violet velvet suit. Harry Golombek wrote that it “must have been made of samite, mystic, wonderful….” A standing ovation greeted the new champion. He took his place to the right of Max Euwe; Spassky was on Euwe’s other side. The FIDE president rose to deliver one of several speeches that night. Fischer promptly shuffled into the vacated seat, reached into his jacket, took out a pocket chess set, and showed Spassky the adjourned position from their final game. It must have been the last thing the weary ex-champion wanted to see, though he maintains today that he was unperturbed by Fischer’s behavior. In any case, he dutifully followed the analysis, from time to time adding comments of his own.
At issue was whether Spassky could have survived with a draw by sealing an alternative move before the adjournment. Fischer thought not.
A crowd gathered around their table. Fischer finally noticed them and turned to his friend and bodyguard. “Hey, Sammy, get these guys outta here.”
It was Thorarinsson’s task to hand over the checks. For the victor, this was a sum of $76,123—two-thirds of $125,000. An equal amount awaited transfer from the United Kingdom—Jim Slater’s money, the donation that had saved the match.
Fischer made no speech of thanks, no graceful comment on the hard work that had gone into the long contest, no tribute to his defeated opponent. Taking his prize, he immediately tore open the envelope and closely scrutinized the contents for several minutes, checking the figure. Satisfied, he then returned to his seat.
Chester Fox came into his own at last, filming everything in sight, probably motivated as much by one-upmanship as profit. There was dancing until one A.M. Fischer boogied awkwardly with two young Icelandic women, Anna Thorsteinsdottir, eighteen, and her friend Inga, seventeen—the papers the next day called them “beautiful Icelandic blondes.” Palsson had arranged their tickets. (He and Fischer had been eating in a restaurant when he had seen them gawking at Fischer and invited them to the banquet. The two women had even been back to the American’s room late at night to listen to rock music.) They denied rumors that there was any romance. “He has been very nice to us, but there is nothing in it. You couldn’t interest him in girls because he’s married to chess.”
You were lost whatever you did. CHESTER FOX
CHESTER FOX
To end the formalities, there was still one final reception, given by the government at the president’s official residence. Palsson drove Fischer there: this time, amazingly, they were early. “When Bobby saw that the ministers were arriving after him, he took me to one side and said, ‘Saemi, how did you manage to get me here on time?’” Iceland’s rock ‘n’ roll policeman had cracked it. While Fischer was in the shower, he had put the wall clock, the clock on the table, and the champion’s wristwatch all forward by an hour. “‘Oh,’ Bobby said, ‘that was a great move!’ Sometimes you could say or do anything. But if he’d been in a bad mood, he could have erupted, maybe left, maybe gone straight back to America.”
At that reception, Fischer chatted amiably with officials from the Soviet embassy, and he and Spassky tentatively agreed to go swimming the following day. Spassky later rang to cancel: He was leaving for home early the next morning and he had to pack and so forth. Fischer was annoyed and told Palsson he would not bid good-bye to his opponent. Palsson recounts how he became angry in turn and told Fischer that he should at least write a farewell letter. The Life photographer Harry Benson had given Fischer a cheap camera. As Fischer did not want it, the Icelander suggested he present it to Spassky. Fischer replied that it was too cheap. “‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not the point, it’s a token.’ So I took it to the Saga to hand it over, and Spassky was so emotional. I’ve never seen a man so pleased. It was one of the best things I did during the match.”
In 2000, looking back at his time as world champion, Spassky remarked to the Irish Times, “I was a king in Russia.” Yet his period of office had been so uneasy that we can imagine his mixed feelings on watching Fischer, whom he had so admired, take his place. David Spanier of The Times sensed “that in some deep and hidden part of himself, he wanted Fischer to win.”
After the debacle of the third game, Spassky had fought hard. When it was all over, he commented that Fischer had started the match as a sprint but instead it had become a marathon; he had expected the American to crack at any time. He met Fischer only once after the closing ceremony, at the presidential reception, and asked the new champion whether they could have a rematch.
“Maybe,” replied Fischer.
“When?”
“Maybe in a year—if the money side is okay.”
The former champion reflected on the fate that awaited his successor: “It will be a hard time for him. Now he feels like a god. He thinks all problems are over—he will have many friends, people will love him, history will obey him. But it is not so. In these high places it is very cold, very lonely. Soon depression will set in. I like him, and I am afraid what will happen to him now.” These somber words were also about himself.
By the end, Spassky was far from the figure of radiant well-being who had arrived in Iceland so full of confident anticipation. Larisa Spasskaia remembers also being affected: the healthy woman who went to Reykjavik returned with stomach pains and was not herself for six months. Boris, she recounts, was in a bad way, drinking more than usual and needing psychotherapy to deal with the trauma of the contest.
Trauma was to be expected. “I do not know which is worse, before the match or after,” Spassky said
. “In a long match, a player goes very deep into himself, like a diver. Then he comes up very fast. Every time, whether I win or if I lose, I am so depressed I want to die. I cannot get back in touch with other people. I want the other chess player. I miss him. Only after a year will the pain go away. A year.”
There were material compensations. Spassky had his share of the prize money, $93,750. The USSR chess authorities had made no provision for dealing with such staggering winnings, and Spassky simply kept the money for himself; the authorities never asked for it. In the Soviet Union, it made him at least the equivalent of a millionaire in the West. Tigran Petrosian remarked, “Normally you could buy a car with your winnings, but when you could purchase the whole car park, that was something else.” (In future, Soviet participants in world championship matches would be obliged to hand over half their bounty.) He could also parade around in a new Range Rover four-wheel-drive car, sold to him at cost by his dealer friend, Sigfus Sigfusson, who had arranged for the latest model, in white, well equipped with spares, to be sent to Reykjavik and shipped on to Leningrad. Larisa’s prize possession was a new Icelandic winter coat. (The car was sold after two years of hard labor on Soviet roads; the winter coat lasted much longer.)
After leaving Reykjavik on 7 September, Spassky and his wife stayed in Copenhagen for a few days before returning to Moscow to face the music. Was he not the Soviet who had surrendered the crown to an American, and with it Soviet hegemony? Would he not be seen as having failed to live up to the spirit of the great motherland? Perhaps visions of Taimanov’s reception after his defeat by Fischer haunted his dreams.