ASt. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis, Missouri Monday, June 26, 1972 - Page 17
Bobby Fischer Cancels Flight To Chess Match
New York, June 26 — Bobby Fischer, the unpredictable challenger for the world chess championship, abruptly canceled last night his flight to Reykjavik, Iceland, where he is to begin his match next Sunday with Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
Col. Edmund W. Edmondson, head of the U.S. Chess Federation, said he had no reason to believe that Fischer would not appear for the match.
Paul Marshall, a lawyer who has been active in behalf of the American grandmaster, said that some detailed “ground rules” of the match remained to be settled. But that he did not expect them to prevent Fischer's arrival in time to play.
Fischer was to have flown to Iceland from New York on Icelandic Airlines this evening.
However, Fred Cramer, past president of the federation, indicated that the long awaited chess match might be canceled because of a dispute over lighting.
Cramer, a consulting illumination engineer and a friend of Fischer, said a dispute was brewing between Fischer and a television producer who had arranged for the right to televise the 24-game match scheduled to start July 2.
Speaking to reporters at Kennedy International Airport before boarding Icelandic Airlines Flight 508 to Reykjavik, Cramer said, “Fischer won't play under anything but fluorescent lighting — it is very important to him.”
Cramer said that the television contract, “in six figures,” called for filming the match in color and that fluorescent lighting did not have “the proper color spectrum for color film.”
“The television people have insisted that they will use additional lighting such as incandescent or tungsten-halogen,” Cramer said.
Fischer is opposed to any additional lighting, Cramer said.
