by Frank Brady
When Bobby finally started writing a book on how he’d been cheated by various publishers, he dedicated it to: “The old Jewish scoundrel Andrei Lilienthal whose forgery of my name on his letter to FIDE was the straw that broke the camel’s back [to write an anti-Semitic tract].”
Eventually, Bobby lost as friends not only the Lilienthals, but also the Polgars. Sofia Polgar was invited to give a simultaneous exhibition at the American embassy of Budapest, and Bobby was furious that she’d even consider it, claiming that his enemies—that is, the U.S. government and, therefore, the American embassy—must be considered the Polgars’ enemies as well. Bobby quarreled not only with Sofia but with the entire Polgar family about the exhibition. Incredulous, Bobby asked Sofia: “How can you even talk to those people?” She went ahead anyway and performed well. The Polgars stopped all contact with Bobby after that, and he with them.
All while he was attempting to establish a life in Budapest, and yet alienating everyone around him, Bobby was also trying to win over Zita. It was a campaign fated to end badly. In the nearly eight years that he lived in Hungary, he only managed to convince her to see him a few times—once when she attended his fiftieth birthday party in Bulgaria. That time, he again proposed marriage, even though she was happily ensconced with her boyfriend and had a child. “It’s out of the question,” she told him. “Then what about your sister Lilla?” he asked. When Zita told her mother what he’d said, that Bobby was looking for a breeder, Mrs. Rajcsanyi was horrified.
Zita’s theory about Bobby was that he was dominated by an idée fixe of reproducing himself, much as Henry VIII quested after a son. She felt that the obsession driving Bobby was I must get married, I must have a child, I cannot die without an offspring, or else my genius will vanish forever. Fischer began collecting photos of other Hungarian girls he’d like to meet, and he recruited his new friend and assistant Janos Rigo—an international master and chess organizer—to serve as a matchmaker. The girls had to have certain characteristics or else he didn’t even want to meet them. They must be: (1) blond and blue-eyed, (2) young, (3) beautiful, and (4) a serious chessplayer. When Rigo would bring photos to him, Bobby almost always rejected the women as not having all or enough of those qualities. Finally, Bobby placed the following advertisement in several Hungarian newspapers (his description of himself is revealing, as is the fact that he didn’t risk narrowing the pool of candidates by sticking with all four of his requirements):
Single, tall, rich, handsome, middle-aged American man with good personality desires to meet beautiful young Hungarian girl for serious relationship. One or more photos please.
He gave Rigo’s address for replies, and there were some responses, but none met his perfectionist standards, and ultimately, he nixed them all.
Bobby continued reading anti-Semitic literature as well as neo-Nazi tracts and getting into heated arguments about the evilness of the Jews with virtually everyone he met. Once, when coming home late at night from an event, with Rigo serving as his driver, he refused to allow a Jewish chess player to enter the car until the man was willing to proclaim that the Holocaust didn’t happen.
Some of the many hate books Bobby read while in Budapest were The Myth of the Six Million by David Hoggan; On the Jews and Their Lies by Martin Luther, written in 1543; and Jewish Ritual Murder by Arnold S. Leese. He also read an account of Nazi general Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a leader of the SS who ended up being found guilty at the Nuremberg trials and executed. While in prison and awaiting judgment, Kaltenbrunner wrote a letter to his family and Bobby was affected by it. Here are excerpts of what Kaltenbrunner wrote:
My own destiny lies in the hands of God. I am glad that I never separated from Him. I cannot believe that I shall be held responsible for the mistakes of our leaders, for in the short time of my activity I have striven hard for a reasonable attitude, both internal and external.… They ought to have paid more attention to my words.… We have no property worth mentioning. Perhaps the only resource for you will be my small stamp collection.… Was it not my duty to open the door to socialism and freedom as we imagined and desired them? … I have not given up hope that the truth will be found out and for a just legal decision.
When Bobby discovered that Kaltenbrunner’s son was still alive, living in Vienna, he visited him to discuss whether the concentration camps did or didn’t exist. If they did exist, he wanted to know whether the entire Holocaust story was blown out of proportion, and the account of millions being exterminated a myth. Bobby was disappointed when he met the executed SS leader’s son. The younger Kaltenbrunner was an avowed liberal and had no interest in discussing his father, the camps, or anything else concerning Nazism or anti-Semitism. But he was a chess player! To Kaltenbrunner the fact that the great Bobby Fischer was gracing his home—for whatever reason—was equivalent to having the president of a country stop in to pay a visit. When Bobby left, Kaltenbrunner affixed an engraved plaque to the chair in which Bobby sat: IN THIS CHAIR SAT THE WORLD’S CHESS CHAMPION, ROBERT J. FISCHER.
In the summer of 1993, an American feature film called Searching for Bobby Fischer was released to stellar reviews. Originally titled Innocent Moves, the film was retitled before final release, with producers deciding to mimic the title of the book on which the film was based. Using Bobby’s name, they thought, would have more promotional power. Searching for Bobby Fischer was the true story of a young boy, Josh Waitzkin, who showed incredible talent for the game, and how he became successful at the board, at first despite his parents’ doubts and then with the encouragement of his parents and his extraordinary chess teacher, Bruce Pandolfini, played in the film by Ben Kingsley. It was one of the most respectful and sensitive films ever made about chess. The character of Bobby is not in the film, but he is seen in documentary footage. What he accomplished in Iceland inspired the film, which discusses the so-called Fischer Boom of increased chess activity, post-1972. The film grossed more than $7 million and was nominated for an Academy Award. Bobby was indignant and then irate when he heard about it, proclaiming the film a misappropriation of his name and, therefore, an invasion of his privacy. When the final box office receipts were tallied, the producers were disappointed, citing the ambiguous title of the film as the cause for relatively low attendance, and on hindsight they wished that they hadn’t used Bobby’s name.
He was never asked by the filmmakers to give his approval of the project, nor did he receive any compensation from it. He claimed that the film made more than “a hundred million dollars,” which was highly exaggerated. It’s “a monumental swindle,” he wrote. After checking with his attorney, he discovered that because he was a public figure, the producers—Paramount Pictures—had the right to use his name. Even though Bobby felt Paramount’s behavior was unethical and unfair, he took no legal action. Even so, after that he continually complained and wrote negatively about the film, even though he’d never seen it and had been told that it was an excellent depiction of how a child enters the chess world.
Bobby felt safe enough to travel and eventually went to many countries: often to Germany as a companion to Benko, who was playing chess for a team there … to Austria to go shopping with Rigo … to Switzerland to meet his bankers … to Argentina to promote his Fischer Random variation … and to the Philippines, China, and Japan for social and business reasons. Mysteriously, he also journeyed to Italy to meet a member of the Mafia; he wanted to meet a mafioso because he admired the Mafia’s family structure and code of conduct and wanted to know more about it. Whether this was the real reason he flew to Italy is not known.
At the beginning of 1997 Fischer’s passport was expiring. Though it could have been renewed at the U.S. embassy in Budapest, Bobby was worried: What if his passport was confiscated and he was trapped in Hungary, unable to travel anywhere and possibly unable to access his bank account? Or, even worse, what if they arrested him? He considered all possibilities as if he were analyzing a chess problem, and decided that he didn’t want to be confined in Hungary.
Bobby asked Rigo to drive him to Bern, Switzerland. When they arrived, he entered the U.S. embassy, trying to look calm, though he was feeling intense trepidation. His reason for attempting a passport renewal in Switzerland rather than Hungary was that even if he were stymied and had to stay put in Switzerland, he would still be able to access the money he had on deposit in the Union Bank of Switzerland. Rigo waited for him in the car outside of the embassy, equipped with a list of emergency telephone numbers to call should Bobby be detained or arrested; he also had a set of keys to Bobby’s safe deposit boxes and other locked cases. Within forty minutes, Bobby exited the building with a big smile on his face: He had a new U.S. passport, valid until 2007. It was now safe for him to return to Budapest.
Of course, there was one country Bobby still couldn’t travel to, since if he did it would mean almost certain arrest: the United States. This presented an emotional dilemma in July of 1997. Regina had died and Bobby wanted to attend her funeral. Some chess players in the state of Washington conjectured that he surreptitiously entered the United States wearing a disguise, first flying to Vancouver, Canada, and then crossing the border to Seattle and traveling south to California by car, where he attended the service incognito. According to the story, he didn’t talk to his sister, nephews, or anyone else. He just stood on the sidelines, unrecognized.
Not a year later, Bobby’s sister, Joan, then age sixty, died suddenly of a stroke, and Bobby once again felt the pangs of not being able to show his respects at a family member’s graveside. This enforced separation from his family aggravated the hatred for America that he’d felt since 1976, when he lost his case in federal court and refused thereafter to pay taxes. It’s not clear why, during Bobby’s years eluding American authorities, his sister and her family didn’t visit him in Europe; his mother, however, had visited him once in Budapest.
After the schism with the Polgars and the Lilienthals, Bobby’s life in Budapest became less social, but since he’d lived an isolated life for so long, he didn’t appear outwardly affected by the two families’ lack of warmth. Still, the absence of these supportive relationships must have hurt, despite his role in the schism.
His daily routine consisted of rising in the afternoon and having breakfast at his hotel—usually in his room, but occasionally in the dining room—swimming in the indoor pool or taking a trip to one of the city’s many thermal baths, then making a visit to a library or bookstore. Sometimes he’d vary his routine and go on long walks, wandering with his memories near the caves in the Buda Hills—or he’d have an espresso on the terrace of the Hilton on Castle Hill. Rigo usually picked him up at his hotel at about seven p.m. for dinner. Bobby deliberately varied the kinds of food he ate: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Hungarian, even Kosher, alternating restaurants every night. Occasionally he was joined by Pal Benko or Lajos Portisch or Peter Leko—a young Hungarian grandmaster—or one or two others. Bobby would only sit with his back against the wall, preferably in a corner and away from the windows—all tactics to escape notice by other diners or passersby. He always picked up the check for everyone at his table.
He carried his own bottle of water and only occasionally would have alcohol. Once he drank a little too much palinka, a plum brandy made in Hungary and Transylvania that is supposed to aid digestion after a meal, and he got drunk. He was so unused to such a quantity of alcohol that his hangover lasted for three days.
Many have wondered how much of the Hungarian language Bobby mastered during his almost eight years in Budapest. Zsuzsa Polgar believed that he spoke almost no Hungarian; Zita claimed he only knew about seven words, gymulcsriz, his favorite desert, being one of them; and Rigo thought he knew about two hundred words, enough to order from a menu, ask for directions, and make himself understood to shop owners and others. The fact that most older Hungarians knew Russian, and that many also had a command of German, while most of the younger generation could speak English, helped Bobby in communicating.
Once or twice a week in the late afternoon Bobby went to the movies and saw mostly popular American films. He said that he identified with the character played by Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, that he sometimes felt as though he lived in a Kafkaesque world where he—Bobby—like Truman, was the only honest person in the world and everyone else was an actor.
Back in his hotel room at around eleven p.m., Bobby would read and listen to music and the news on BBC radio. He had decided to write an anti-America book in which he’d present his arguments against the country, tying that in somehow with his distrust of and animosity toward Jews (and his personal enemies, whom he called “Jews” regardless of their religion). He connected all this with the rage he still felt for the loss of personal effects he’d kept for years in a storeroom in California, which had been sold at auction when the storage rent wasn’t paid. As preparation for the book, Bobby spent part of his nighttime hours recording on cassette tapes his anti-Semitic and anti-American screeds.
As the hours faded into dawn, he’d play over games from the latest tournaments, impeccably dissecting each move using his mental microscope, looking for errors, misinterpretations, and fallacious conclusions—especially ones that might prove conspiracies among those he believed were the chess world’s thieves and embezzlers. Each game became a mystery novel. The goal was never to find a murderer—rather, it was to discover how the “cheating” had occurred.
He began to limp noticeably, and several of his colleagues urged him to see a doctor, a dreaded experience that Bobby would only agree to if he were in enormous pain. Finally, after the suffering became intolerable, he relented, was examined, and was told that he was suffering from orchitis, an inflammation of the testicle. As he walked, he was “guarding” the gland and therefore limping. Usually, a ten-day antibiotic treatment alleviates the symptoms, or a fast in-office medical procedure can release the pressure. Bobby availed himself of neither. Instead, he told everyone that his limp was caused by an old leg injury (he’d broken his leg many years before), and he just suffered through the pain of orchitis until the swelling subsided on its own. He continued to walk with a slight limp for the rest of his life.
“As Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, the Jews are not the victims, they are the victimizers!” blared Bobby Fischer during a live broadcast on Calypso Radio in Budapest on January 13, 1999. How many of the 1.5 million citizens of Budapest, or the ten million people who lived in all of Hungary, were listening to Bobby when he offered his hate-filled comments is not known, but the interviewer, Thomas Monath, was dumbfounded as to what to do. Turn off his microphone? Shout him down? Bobby’s rant could be heard for years all over the world because the show went online.
It was Bobby, through Pal Benko, who’d approached the station to say that he wanted to give an interview, his first since he’d won the match against Spassky in 1992. At first, the interview was fairly benign, and questions such as why Bobby preferred to live in Budapest were answered politely (“I like the mineral baths, the people; you have a fabulous city here”), but soon he became impatient, saying he wanted to discuss much more substantive things. If the world, at least the Hungarians, had missed his anti-Semitic remarks during his press conferences in 1992, they certainly couldn’t have missed his near hysterical posturing on Calypso Radio seven years later.
The rationale that Bobby offered for his blather was that all of his personal belongings and memorabilia—admittedly valuable to him, and some of interest to collectors—that he’d stored at the Bekins warehouse in Pasadena, California, had been auctioned off because of the failure of his agent Robert Ellsworth to pay the storage bill of $480. “It was worth tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was stolen!” Bobby complained. Then in some incredible leap of illogic, he equated the loss of his property to a conspiracy hatched by the Jewish people, and his argument was delivered with such venom and vulgarity that the broadcasting station considered ending his time on the show. Monath appealed to him, “Will you please allow me to ask you some friendly qu
estions about chess?” Raising his voice and bullying his way forward, Bobby replied: “No, I won’t let you!” He continued his rant, talking about how he was being “persecuted by the Jews,” and claiming that “the Holocaust never happened,” and using four-letter words to describe “the Jew Ellsworth.” It was almost as though he felt that this opportunity of being on the air live might be his one and only chance to set the record straight—to inform both the station’s listeners and the world of the injustices done to him. His hatred continued to spill out into the broadcasting ether until Monath could stand it no longer: “Mr. Fischer, you are destroyed in your mind,” he said, and Fischer’s microphone was rendered mute.
The facts of Fischer’s loss of belongings are fairly straightforward: He’d been paying for storage costs for about ten years, and his bin contained a large safe with such things as his letter from President Nixon congratulating him for his win in Iceland, his World Championship medal presented to him by FIDE, letters, score sheets, paintings, trophies, statues, scrapbooks, photos, books, and hundreds of other items. One great loss for the chess world was the original scores of games that Bobby played in a series of simultaneous exhibitions throughout South America and about which he planned to write a book, since he had played a number of interesting games during that time. If sold individually—there were thousands of games, according to Bobby—or as one large cache to a collector, the value of these score sheets alone would have totaled somewhere around $100,000.