BOBBY FISCHER GOES TO WAR

In 1972 When Fischer "went to war" and did his bit in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union, and won by beating the World Champion Boris Spassky, the whole world was rivetted. The match was broadcast from Iceland. Nixon, and U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger, cheered Fischer on, and congratulated him when he won.

Now Fischer is in disgrace. He disobeyed a State Department order to US Citizens to avoid all the former Yugoslav states and in 1992, twenty years later, played Spassky for a purse of 5 million dollars in the forbidden land. Fischer won. He pocketted 3 million dollars. He always claimed he'd get rich from chess. Now he's married to a Japanese chess champion (Yes! a woman!) and living in Japan, his status indeterminate. 

Two BBC Brits, excellent professional writers, David Edmonds and John Eidinow, published a comprehensive book in 2004 on the 1972 match with Spassky in Iceland. The book was hideously dismissed in the New Yorker by a Harvard faculty member. I've written the New Yorker threatening to cancel my subscription (ha!) if they fail to reopen the subject. I told them, the truth, that there's a Harvard grad, a sidewalk fixture, just outside the Yard on Massachusetts Avenue who plays speed chess against all comers for small change and who could tell them all about the significance of the Fischer/Spassky matches. I'm waiting for their reply. I have not paid them. Yet, my recent copy has on the name label subscription good through 2006. It's War!

It is not true that chess is of no interest to Americans. I received a postcard, richly colored, inviting me to play in a Midwest tourney that has a prize fund of half a million dollars. Beats Ice Hockey and the NHL.

Detente existed between the USSR and the USA in 1972 so the match apparently had less political impact, propaganda value, than expected. Many Russians liked, and respected Fischer, including Boris Spassky! The account of the match in 'Bobby Fischer Goes to War' makes splendid reading and, I pray, could even go a long way toward bringing Russians and Americans closer together. Russia at the present time is in a dreadful state, and I pray for her recovery. Go ahead! Call me Red and watch me spit. Oh, by the way, I too like Bobby Fischer. So, he's excitable. So?

 

Barry