by Frank Brady
Most of the residents started out wishing for Fischer’s victory, but after the numerous false starts, threats, and general difficulties Bobby caused, sympathy began to swing to the gentlemanly Spassky. Fischer wasn’t satisfied with the financial arrangements. The winner was to receive $78,125 and the loser $46,875. Beyond that, each was to be given 30 percent of all television and film rights. Fischer, though, demanded 30 percent of the gate receipts in addition, arguing that paid admissions might amount to $250,000 and that he and Spassky should receive a share.
The Icelandic chess officials—who weren’t at all sure how they were going to fill the three-thousand-seat Laugardalshöll, the site of the match, game after game for as many as twenty-four sessions, not counting adjournments—argued that gate-receipt income should go entirely to them to cover their outlay for the stakes and the arrangements.
Fischer canceled his flight to Iceland at the last minute, on the evening of June 25. The airline had reserved a full row of seats just for him and had stocked the plane’s refrigerator with oranges so that Fischer could have fresh juice “squeezed in front of him,” as he’d requested, during the four-hour trip across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, talks continued between Bobby’s lawyers, Paul Marshall and Andrew Davis, and the Icelandic Chess Federation concerning the matter of the gate receipts. Both sides stood firm. During the ensuing week, additional flights were booked and then canceled by Fischer as headlines began to question whether he’d appear at all. Icelandic papers were asking HVENAER KEMUR HINN DULARFULLI FISCHER? (“WHEN COMETH THE MYSTERIOUS FISCHER?”) A few days after Fischer’s first flight was changed, Bobby and Davis drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport, apparently to board a Pan American flight. But, strangely, Fischer paused to buy an alarm clock and was seen by reporters and photographers (there were more than a hundred members of the press waiting to interview and photograph him). He fled the airline terminal and missed the flight. Later, he was observed at a nearby Howard Johnson’s restaurant, having dinner. When, indeed, would Bobby goeth to Iceland?
Although money was the focal point of the controversy, it wasn’t just about dollars (or kroners); rather, it was about Bobby getting his way. In this case, he was pretty confident he could receive what he demanded. As an editorial in The New York Times suggested: “If he plays in Reykjavik and wins—as he has an excellent chance of doing—his prospective earnings would make the amount he is arguing about now seem infinitesimal.” Fischer knew that. He also knew that the world was clamoring for the match and that if he held out a little longer, more money might be forthcoming.
The world press was, to say the least, not amused. Foreign papers reflected the outrage of their readership. RUSSIANS DISDAIN FISCHER FOR CONCERN WITH MONEY, blared a headline in The New York Times, and Tass, the Soviet press agency, editorialized: “Whenever the matter concerns Fischer, money comes first while sports motives are relegated to the background. Characteristically, his confidants are not chessplayers, but lawyers to whom he [entrusts] all his chess affairs.” The leading German Sunday newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, reported: “Fischer has dragged chess down to the level of a wrestling match. We’ve never known of such arrogance and snobbism.” The London Daily Mail stated: “Bobby Fischer is quite certainly the most ill-mannered, temperamental and neurotic brat ever to be reared in Brooklyn. As far as the international prestige battle goes, the Soviet Union has won the opening round 10 to 0.” What the press—and seemingly everyone else—failed to understand was that it was Bobby’s shrewdness in protecting his financial interests, rather than temper tantrums or neuroses, that was making him hesitate. He knew instinctively that the longer he waited, the more swollen the prize fund would become.
Bobby felt that journalists weren’t really interested in how or why he moved the chess pieces, but rather in the scandal, tragedy, and comedy of his life. To him, the press was a puzzle that he could never quite solve. He felt that he couldn’t lie if asked a direct question, and yet if he simply refused to answer, the assumption was that he was hiding something crucial.
Whispers had been bandied about as far back as 1958, when he played at Portorož, that he was an anti-Semite, but privately, he categorically denied it when playing at Netanya, Israel, in 1968. One of Bobby’s closest friends, Anthony Saidy, said that he never heard Fischer make an anti-Semitic remark until at some point after the 1972 championship.
During the match, Bobby didn’t issue any statements that were either anti-Semitic or anti-American—on the contrary, he appeared deeply patriotic and included many Jews among his friends, lawyers, and colleagues. But Wilfrid Sheed, an American novelist and essayist, penned a comment just before the match ended that many would later regard as prescient. In his The New York Times Book Review of a work by Ezra Pound, Sheed likened Bobby to Pound, the infamous anti-Semite and anti-American who was indicted for treason by the United States for his fascist broadcasts. Sheed wrote: “Of Ezra Pound, as of Bobby Fischer, all that can be decently said is that his colleagues admire him. There is no reason for anyone else to.”
By the time the opening ceremonies took place at Iceland’s National Theatre on Saturday evening, July 1, less than twenty-four hours before the beginning of the scheduled first game, reporters and spectators were making reservations to return home, in the belief that Fischer wouldn’t appear. Bobby had moved from the Yale Club to the home of Anthony Saidy, who lived with his parents in a large Tudor house in Douglaston, Queens. As Saidy later related, the house was subjected to an unending media barrage. Fischer was besieged with calls and cables, and photographers and journalists staked out the grounds in hopes of just a glimpse of him. Fischer headlines dominated the front pages of newspapers all over the world, crowding off such “secondary” news items as the 1972 United States presidential nominations.
Saidy suggested that there was an actual plot to keep Fischer from becoming World Champion, and this involved the wiretapping of his parents’ phone. “At one point, when Bobby was talking to Davis, who was in Iceland,” Saidy said, “Bobby made a reference to one of the Icelandic Chess Federation officials as being ‘stupid.’ Suddenly, he heard a woman’s voice cutting through the line saying: ‘He said: “He’s stupid.” ’ The line was obviously tapped.” Saidy added that Fischer also believed that the line was tapped.
Anything is possible, of course. There was a theory prevalent among a number of Americans, such as Fred Cramer, who was on Bobby’s team, that the Icelanders were underhandedly working with the Russians to repel Fischer’s assault on Soviet chess hegemony. Aside from the personal dislike for Fischer that a number of the Icelandic chess officials, such as Thorarinsson, openly felt, though, not one instance emerged suggesting that they did anything to hinder Fischer’s World Championship bid. Indeed, some of the Icelandic officials were convinced that Spassky was the better player and that he was going to defeat Fischer rather easily anyway. At the commencement of the match, they were privately expecting to see Fischer humiliated on the board.
The drawing for colors for the first game didn’t take place during the opening ceremonies, which failed to develop strictly according to schedule. Spassky was seated in the first row, elegantly attired in a gray-checked vested suit. Meanwhile, an empty seat, also in the front row, which Fischer was to have occupied, remained conspicuously vacant. While speeches were made in English, Russian, and Icelandic, the audience fidgeted, craning their necks to the side entrance, half expecting—hoping—that at any moment Fischer would make a grand entrance. It didn’t happen.
Dr. Max Euwe, representing FIDE, allowed Fischer a two-day postponement. “But if he does not show up by Tuesday at twelve noon, at the drawing of lots, he loses all of his rights as challenger,” Euwe said.
Fischer remained apparently unmoved: He wanted 30 percent of the gate receipts and was not traveling to Iceland unless his demands were met. The ICF received hundreds of cancellations of tickets and reservations. People who’d traveled from all over Iceland to see the first game, and who hadn’t h
eard that it had been canceled, were sadly turned away from the hall. Then a rumor spread through the press corps (there were now about two hundred accredited reporters and photographers) that Fischer was already on the island, that he’d arrived in a navy submarine to avoid the press and was hiding out somewhere in the countryside. Even though it was a rumor, several newspapers and agencies—including the eminent gray lady, The New York Times—published it as at least a possibility.
The Soviet Chess Federation lodged a biting protest with FIDE against the forty-eight-hour postponement, saying that Fischer actually warranted “unconditional disqualification.” Charging Dr. Euwe as the responsible agent, the federation warned him that it would consider the match “wrecked” if Fischer did not appear in Reykjavik by noon on July 4, Euwe’s deadline. Finally, two unexpected phone calls were placed, one from England, the other from Washington, D.C. The calls saved the match.
Journalist Leonard Barden phoned the Icelandic organizers to tell them that British financier James Derrick Slater, a chess devotee and investment banker, was willing to donate $125,000 to double the existing prize fund—if Fischer would agree to play. Slater, a millionaire, stated: “The money is mine. I like chess and have played it for years. Many want to see this match and everything was arranged. If Fischer does not go to Iceland, many will be disappointed. I want to remove the problem of money from Fischer and see if he has any other problems.”
Fischer’s first reaction was immensely positive. “It’s stupendous,” he said. “I have to accept it.” Later, he told a newsman that though he hadn’t studied the offer in detail, he’d decided to play the match because “there’s an awful lot of prestige of the country at stake.” Yet he still needed one more nudge to propel him to the board.
The second call proved to be that needed nudge. Saidy answered the phone for what seemed to be the twentieth time that day, thinking it was yet another request for Bobby to make a statement or grant an interview. Instead, it was the personal secretary of Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s national security advisor (and later, secretary of state), wanting to set up a telephone conversation with Bobby. Bobby dragged himself to the phone, and Kissinger started off in his deep, German-accented voice, “This is the worst chess player in the world calling the best chess player in the world.” Kissinger told Bobby that he should go to Iceland and beat the Russians at their own game. “The United States government wishes you well and I wish you well.”
After this ten-minute conversation, Bobby said he was going to play “no matter what,” and that the interests of the United States were greater than his personal interests. It was at this point that Bobby saw himself not just as a chess player, but as a Cold War warrior in defense of his country.
After months of disenchanting negotiations, the millionaire Slater, backed by the diplomat Kissinger, had accomplished the impossible. What made Bobby run—in this case, to Iceland? Three elements apparently: pride, money, and patriotism.
To avoid being spotted by either reporters or the public, Fischer was smuggled onto a Loftleidir (Icelandic Airlines) flight. He made the overnight trip with William Lombardy, whom he’d announced as his official second that same day. Lombardy, the large, pale, and intense Roman Catholic priest, was perhaps the chief supporting actor in the drama at Reykjavik. Thirty-five years old, six years older than Fischer, he was the first chess master of international importance connected with the Catholic Church since Ruy Lopez (sixteenth century) and Domenico Ponziani (eighteenth century) made their imprints on the game.
The drawing of the lots to determine who’d play what color, scheduled for noon at the Hotel Esja, attracted hundreds of journalists, officials of the ICF, and members of both the American and Russian sides. When Spassky arrived, he was told that Fischer was still sleeping and had sent Lombardy to draw for him. Unnerved, Spassky refused to draw and left the hotel in a huff. At lunch, shortly afterward, he told a newsman that he was “not abandoning the match,” but Fischer had acted improperly. “I still want to play,” he said, “but I will decide when.” He then issued the following statement, possibly written for him in Moscow:
Soviet public opinion and I, personally, are full with indignation at Fischer’s behavior. According to concepts common to all people, he has completely disqualified himself.
Therefore he has, in my opinion, called in doubt his moral rights to play the match.
If there now is to be any hope for conducting the match, Fischer must be subjected to just penalty. Only after that I can return to the question whether it is possible to conduct the match.
Boris Spassky
World Champion
The penalty the Soviets required was a forfeit of the first game. The Soviet Delegation also said:
Robert Fischer must apologize.
The President of FIDE has to condemn the behavior of the challenger.
The President of FIDE has to admit that this two-day postponement violated FIDE rules.
Euwe, again rising to the occasion, said in a touching display of humility that since two of the conditions concerned him, he’d be happy to compose a statement right there, admitting that he’d broken the rules and condemning Fischer “not only in the last two days but all through the negotiations.” After working on his statement for about ten minutes, while the audience—in uncomfortable sympathy—sat waiting, Euwe read his confession aloud, signed it, and handed it to Efim Geller, Spassky’s second. It stated: “1. The FIDE condemns the behavior of the challenger in not arriving on time, thus leaving the entire delegation and others in doubt about the realization of the match, and causing many troubles. 2. The President of FIDE admits that we had to postpone the match for two days; we violated the FIDE rules. I think it’s for special reasons, and on the basis of some presumptions which proved to be wrong afterwards. I declare that the FIDE rules and match agreements approved by FIDE shall be strictly observed in the future.” Euwe’s face was flushed by the chastisement and he was on the verge of tears. The Soviets claimed that, according to the rules, Fischer should have lost the match when he failed to appear on opening day; and only through their benevolence was the contest continuing. It was now up to Fischer to make the next move.
That night, Fischer composed an elegant apology to Spassky. One reporter, Brad Darrach of Life, contended that in the first draft of the letter, Fischer had renounced any share in the prize money and had said he was willing to play for nothing but the love of chess. Though one can imagine Bobby, on the spur of the moment, proclaiming: “I’ll prove to the world that I love chess more than the Russians!” it’s easy to understand that his poor Brooklyn roots ultimately spoke to him of the need for pragmatism. He still wanted a paycheck, but the desire to prove himself over the board was his strongest motivation for trying to heal the rift.
In the end, a second letter was composed, and it was this version that was finally presented to Spassky. Fischer drove to the Saga Hotel early on the morning of July 6 and accompanied the bellboy to Spassky’s room to watch him slide the apology under the door. The text:
Dear Boris:
Please accept my sincerest apology for my disrespectful behavior in not attending the opening ceremony. I simply became carried away by my petty dispute over money with the Icelandic chess organizers. I have offended you and your country, the Soviet Union, where chess has a prestigious position. Also, I would like to apologize to Dr. Max Euwe, President of FIDE, to the Match Organizers in Iceland, to the thousands of chess fans around the world and especially to the millions of fans and the many friends I have in the United States.
After I did not show up for the first game, Dr. Euwe announced that the first game would be postponed without prejudice to me. At that time you made no protest. Now I am informed that the Russian chess federation is demanding that the first game be forfeited to you. The timing of this demand seems to place in doubt the motives for your federation’s not insisting at first for a forfeit on the first game.
If this forfeit demand were respecte
d, it would place me at a tremendous handicap. Even without this handicap, you will have an advantage to begin with of needing twelve points out of twenty four to retain your title, whereas I will need twelve and a half to win the title. If this demand were granted, you would need only eleven points out of twenty three but I would still need twelve and a half out of my twenty three. In other words I must win three! games without losses, just to obtain the position you would have at the beginning of the match and I don’t believe that the world’s champion desires such an advantage in order to play me.
I know you to be a sportsman and a gentleman, and I am looking forward to some exciting chess games with you.
Sincerely,
Bobby Fischer
Reykjavik, July 6, 1972
One obstacle remained and that was the Soviet Union itself. A Russian minister, Sergei Pavlov, head of the State Sports Committee, had cabled Spassky, furiously insisting that he return home to Moscow. Pavlov said that Fischer’s “tantrums” were an insult to the World Champion, who had every legal and moral right to refuse to meet Fischer. Normally, such a “recommendation” had the force of law, but Spassky refused, as politely and diplomatically as possible. He replied to Pavlov that he could not debase his own standards of sportsmanship and would see the match through despite Fischer’s outrageous conduct. It was a courageous act, and one that called for much finesse and force of will on Spassky’s part.
Fischer arrived twenty minutes late for the drawing of colors, and he and Spassky met backstage. After shaking hands, Spassky humorously tested Fischer’s biceps, as though they were two boxers “weighing in.” They then sequestered themselves for a few minutes to discuss the schedule. Spassky wanted a short postponement before the start of the match. Fischer agreed if Spassky would drop the demand for a forfeit. They came to terms, and a moment later they walked to the stage, applauded by the journalists and well-wishers who’d been waiting patiently. Fischer, spying the chess table, galumphed to the center of the stage and immediately lifted the white queen, testing its weight. Then, one hand in his pocket, he tested all the other white pieces and sat down, stretching his legs under the Scandinavian-designed mahogany table. Spassky also sat.