by Peter Murphy
‘Exactly. In the West, professional chess players spend more time writing books and articles, acting as referees and arbiters, perhaps teaching occasionally, than they do playing. It is necessary, to make a living. But it means that they don’t have the experience of playing in the big international tournaments. Harry Golombek and Leonard Barden are good examples, as am I, except that I found my own individual way of doing things. Most of our stronger players do their best to combine chess with a career, fitting in the odd tournament here and there when they can, and having relatively little time to study the game – which you have to do constantly to compete at the highest levels. Hugh Alexander is a good example of that. So is Jonathan Penrose, who is probably the most naturally gifted player Britain has produced so far. But I don’t think he will ever take chess up full time as a professional. You have one or two men – Peter Clarke, and Bob Wade, a New Zealander – who are giving it a go, but it is a hard life, with no guarantee of making enough money to live.’
The waiter brought their coffee, set it down, and walked quietly away.
‘You said “in the West”,’ Ben observed.
‘Yes. The Soviets do things very differently. Chess is a national obsession in Russia, for one thing, so there is a much bigger market. But it’s not just that. The Government has adopted chess as a national project. They set out to dominate the game, and they have. But, of course, they have done it by sponsoring promising young players, bringing them on from an early age, giving them the opportunity to study chess as a discipline in its own right, teaching it in schools alongside history and physics. They allow the best players to compete regularly in tournaments, both in Russia and abroad.’
‘That must be an expensive project,’ Ben said.
‘It is. But they don’t care about the expense. It is a form of propaganda for the communist way of life. Success comes from following the Marxist-Leninist path, which offers a combination of discipline and creativity. The State sponsors the art of chess as a statement about what communism can achieve.’
‘And, as a result, they have a lock on chess at the highest level?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Is there any chance of a western player competing with the Russians, perhaps being a realistic contender for the world championship?’
Wood shrugged. ‘There are those who think Bobby Fischer has the ability. But the question is whether he will get enough support to overcome the Soviet machine.’
He took a long drink of his coffee.
‘But you haven’t come to Birmingham to listen to me going on and on about the Soviet domination of chess.’
He paused.
‘I am sorry about this business with James,’ he said. ‘How is he holding up?’
‘Quite well, in the circumstances,’ Ben replied.
‘Good. I have been following it in the papers, of course,’ Wood said. ‘From what I have read, he seems to be quite insistent about suing Hollander.’
‘He is,’ Ben replied. ‘It’s a very serious libel. He can’t let it pass unchallenged.’
‘No, of course.’ Wood looked away, across the lobby to the main entrance, and back again. ‘Don’t answer this if you don’t think you should, for any reason, but does he have a strong case, would you say?’
‘Very strong, as far as we can see,’ Ben replied. ‘So far, Hollander has not produced a shred of evidence to support his claim that James was working for the Soviets and, as far as we know, James has never been under suspicion.’ He smiled. ‘I hope you are not about to disillusion me.’
Wood laughed. ‘No, I don’t think so. I certainly hope not.’
He reached down by his side and picked up a worn brown leather briefcase, from which he took four sheets of paper with handwritten notes, and a black hard-backed book. He scanned the notes.
‘When we spoke on the phone, you mentioned three names to me, including James,’ he said. ‘First, Professor Francis Hollander. I’m afraid I know very little about him. You probably know more than I do, certainly about his academic record. As a chess player, there is very little to say, really. He is a reasonably strong player as an amateur, but nowhere near the standard of the American élite, Bobby Fischer, Sammy Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, Arnold Denker, and the rest. I understand he speaks fluent Russian; in any case, he accompanies their teams and players to certain events to act as interpreter and generally lend a hand with arrangements on the ground. That’s about all I can say.’
Ben nodded. ‘What about Viktor Stepanov?’
Wood handed Ben the hard-backed book.
‘You will find a short biographical note in here, together with one or two of his games,’ he said. ‘You are welcome to keep it. I have several copies lying around the office, and if I ever want more, all I have to do is ask. This is an excellent example of chess as propaganda, as you will find if you delve into it.’
‘Thank you,’ Ben replied. He looked at the cover. ‘A Survey of Soviet Chess.’
Wood laughed. ‘Yes. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, which in itself tells you what to expect. It is actually quite an informative book, and it does provide access to quite a number of published games which you might not find very easily anywhere else. But it really is the most shameless piece of propaganda. The biographical note on Stepanov is not terribly detailed, and this was published in 1955, several years before his death, but you may find something of interest in it.’
Wood drained his coffee cup.
‘My impression of Stepanov is about the same as the impression you are likely to get from the book,’ he continued. ‘Moderate strength grandmaster, very useful player, capable of beating anyone on his day, but not destined to scale the heights of the world championship. His main claim to fame is that he represented the human face of Soviet chess.’
‘Meaning …?’
‘The Soviets tend to think that because they dominate the game in terms of playing strength, they can throw their weight around and order people about when it comes to organising international tournaments and laying down the ground rules for the world championship. Needless, to say, that attitude tends to alienate everyone else. Eventually, they seemed to realise that a little cooperation would go a long way, and they brought in Stepanov as a kind of diplomat. He spoke excellent English, and two or three other languages, and for a Russian he was very charming. He reminded me of Andrei Gromyko, their ambassador in London, in that respect. Stepanov poured oil on troubled waters, and he was very good at it. I met him a number of times, and I have to say he was very impressive.’
Ben nodded. ‘Is it likely that he had connections with the KGB?’
Wood laughed loudly. ‘That’s a bit like asking whether Cardinal Angelini has connections with the Vatican,’ he replied.
Ben joined in the laughter. ‘I’m sure it is a very naïve question,’ he admitted.
‘The real question,’ Wood said, ‘is what you mean by “connections”. No Soviet chess player would be given permission to leave the country to play in a chess tournament without convincing the authorities that he is a loyal member of the Party. If there is one thing the Soviets fear even more than losing the world championship to Bobby Fischer, it is the spectre of grandmasters defecting to the West. That would really put a dent in the image of Soviet chess. So you have to conform, or at least appear to conform. There are some, like Botvinnik, who are genuine Party men through and through. But most of them are not too interested in politics. They just want to play chess. And some, especially the grandmasters from the Baltic Republics, like Paul Keres, have no reason to feel any affection for Moscow. For them, any loyalty to the Party is no more than skin deep. Be that as it may, the KGB is a part of their lives. Every Soviet team or group of players going abroad for a tournament has a complement of minders, who keep them on a tight leash.’
He looked up at the ceiling, then down again.
‘I am quit
e sure that there are those the KGB can call on for particular purposes,’ he added, ‘and I think Stepanov would have been ideally qualified for the job, with his diplomatic skills and his gift for languages. But whether he actually had that kind of connection with the KGB is anyone’s guess.’
He paused.
‘The third name you gave me was Sir James Digby.’
* * *
‘I’ve known James for a very long time, of course,’ Wood said. ‘We have crossed swords many times over the years, most recently just last year. I won a tournament at Whitby and I beat James in the second round. He was off form. He seemed rather preoccupied with other things, and didn’t place very high.’
‘What can you tell me about him generally?’ Ben asked.
Wood reflected on the question for some time.
‘That’s a hard question to answer,’ he replied. ‘I would not say we are close, exactly. You don’t get close to people you play against in chess tournaments. You tend to be too focused on chess. But I did spend a couple of weeks in his company once, years ago.’
‘Oh?’
‘We were both members of the British team at the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, with Hugh Alexander, Harry Golombek and Stuart Milner-Barry. The tournament was cut short on the outbreak of War. The Government ordered us back immediately. They wanted some of us – Hugh mostly – for secret work, code-breaking and the like.’
Ben nodded. ‘James was involved in interrogating suspected spies,’ he said.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Wood said. ‘I remember that now. But I lost touch with him during the War. It was during our stay in Buenos Aires that I got to know James, really. We all talked a great deal, especially during the voyages to and from Argentina, and we came to know each other quite well at that time.’
‘What was your impression of James?’
‘Very favourable, I would say. He struck me as a very modest man. There was no suggestion of superiority because of his title or his family, or even about being a barrister. He was there as a chess player, he was very approachable, and he treated everyone he met in the same way, courteously and fairly. He was quite happy, for example, to take the reserve spot on the team. He had no airs and graces at all. But he did believe in himself. By that I mean that he had enormous confidence in himself as a player. And …’
‘And …?’
Wood hesitated. ‘I’m not sure this has any relevance,’ he said, ‘but James did have something of a chip on his shoulder about the plight of the western chess player. We all do, of course. It’s something we all live with. But James seemed a bit obsessive about it sometimes. He could go on and on about the injustice of it all, and how the Soviets had set an example of how things should be – you know, chess as an art form and art being a contract between the State and the artist, the State supporting the artist and the artist putting his art at the service of the State, and so on. I remember he cross-examined Harry and myself about how we proposed to support ourselves as chess players. He was particularly interested in what I was doing. But I had only just got Chess underway at the time, and none of us could give him any satisfactory answer about how we were going to do it. I remember thinking it was rather odd in a way, because he was a barrister, and presumably he was going to do well for himself. But it seemed to me that he wanted someone to wave a magic wand and magically make it possible for him to become a professional chess player. It was almost as if talking about it would somehow make it happen.’
‘Was he good enough at that time,’ Ben asked, ‘to play professionally, I mean?’
‘If he had been supported and nurtured, Soviet-style, from a young age? He would undoubtedly have been grandmaster material,’ Wood replied, without hesitation. ‘A number of us would. But that wasn’t the world we lived in. It might have been a world we sometimes dreamed of. But it wasn’t real.’
‘And yet James did quite a lot of work as a chess journalist, didn’t he?’
Wood looked at Ben as if unsure how to respond.
‘Yes, he did,’ he replied eventually. ‘And that was something else which was a bit odd.’
‘In what way?’
Wood shook his head. ‘It’s difficult to define. James didn’t generally cover tournaments for the main newspapers. Hugh, Harry and I have done quite a bit of that for the Sunday Times, the Telegraph, and so on. So has Leonard Barden, for the Guardian. But James seemed to cover chess mainly for publications which didn’t have serious chess columns. All right, he would place the occasional piece with a mainstream paper or a chess magazine; and his material was good – I ran several pieces he sent me over the years, as did the British Chess Magazine. But…’
‘But why is that odd?’ Ben asked.
Wood thought for some time.
‘He did a lot of travelling for a reporter on that level,’ he replied. ‘Chess journalism is not exactly highly paid. You have to be careful about your expenses. If you are writing a standard chess column, you can get reports of the games from any given chess tournament – especially something as big as the Soviet championship – quite easily, from any number of sources. There is no need to travel to all of them, and it wouldn’t be economic to travel to all of them – not for what he would be paid for the kind of reporting he did. All of us have to be careful about that. We have to ration ourselves.’
‘Perhaps, as a barrister, he had the money and just liked to travel to chess tournaments?’ Ben suggested. ‘Perhaps it made up for not being a player?’
Wood shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied emphatically. ‘Nothing made up for not being a player. Not for James.’
16
Tuesday, 13 April
Ben waited anxiously for Barratt and Jess to arrive for the consultation with Bernard Wesley and Sir James Digby. When he had returned to chambers from Birmingham the previous day, he had had every intention of tracking her down, even going to Barratt’s office on some pretext, if he had to. That would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette – any such contact should be made through his clerk – but she was still not returning his calls, and he was feeling desperate. But Merlin had whisked him away to the Marylebone Magistrates’ Court in the late afternoon, to represent a sales representative who was in danger of being disqualified from driving for repeated offences of speeding and ignoring automatic traffic signals. The situation had remained unchanged overnight: he was unable to contact her. Barratt and Jess proved to be the last to arrive, minutes before the consultation was due to begin, and she avoided his eyes. If Bernard Wesley sensed that anything was wrong, he gave no indication of it.
‘Now that we are all here,’ he began briskly, ‘let me remind everyone of where we are. We issued a Writ for libel and served our Statement of Claim on the 15th March. We received a Defence from Hollander’s solicitors dated the 29th March, which contains only one defence, namely justification. You all know what that means. Hollander proposes to prove that what he said in his article is not libellous because it is wholly or substantially true. If he were to succeed in that defence, our claim would fail and we would be ordered to pay his costs.’
‘If he were to succeed in that defence,’ Digby said, ‘my life would be over.’
‘Yes,’ Wesley agreed. ‘So, the question becomes where we go from here. Herbert, I understand that we have still not received any indication from the other side that Hollander has any evidence to support his defence.’
‘No indication at all,’ Harper confirmed. ‘The concern, of course, is that they have something they are not telling us about.’
Wesley nodded. ‘We cannot allow the situation to remain as it is, for obvious reasons. We must avoid being ambushed at, or just before, trial by evidence we have not seen.’
‘Well,’ Digby said, ‘in the Chancery Division we would ask for further and better particulars of the Defence. We are entitled to notice of the facts he intends to rely on. Then
, if those particulars are not forthcoming, we would apply to strike out the Defence; and if the judge won’t do that, we would object to the defendant adducing evidence at trial to prove facts which should have been disclosed.’
Wesley smiled. ‘We are every bit as sophisticated in the Queen’s Bench Division, James, I assure you,’ he replied. ‘That is exactly what we are going to do. Ben is in charge of that.’
‘I will be sending the Request to Herbert for service on the other side very soon,’ Ben confirmed.
‘Good,’ Wesley said. ‘But obviously, we have not just been sitting back waiting for Hollander to show his hand. We have also been making certain inquiries of our own. Jess, I recall that we had delegated Professor Hollander to you. What can you tell us?’
This invitation to report gave Ben a legitimate reason to look directly at Jess, something he had carefully avoided up to this point. Jess returned his look briefly, and gave him what might have been the suggestion of a smile. Ben was momentarily heartened, but she looked away quickly and seemed unusually subdued as she produced her notes and began to speak.
‘Professor Francis R Hollander was born on the 11th June 1933, in Savannah, Georgia. After high school in Savannah, he attended the University of Georgia, where he received his Bachelor’s degree, majoring in politics with a minor in American history. He went on to Yale to do his Master’s degree and stayed on for his Doctorate, both in political science. He joined the Yale faculty almost immediately afterwards and is currently an associate professor. He is a keen chess player, as we know. Sir James knows about him in the context of chess, so I didn’t delve into that. But I did look into his academic interests and writings. I must thank Mr Harper for opening some doors for me and getting me into the libraries of two London University colleges, King’s and LSE. I’m not sure where I would have found some of the materials in this country without his help.’
Harper nodded and smiled. ‘My pleasure. I’m glad some of the money I have given my alma mater over the years has finally produced some benefit.’