New York Times, New York, New York, Sunday, July 09, 1972 - Page 172
Chess: Apology From a Knight Errant
Reykjavik—On-again, off-again. For days the participants in the Spassky-Fischer world championship chess match maneuvered into positions more complicated than the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defense. Now—though no game has yet been played—it appears to be officially on.
Bobby Fischer, the 29-year-old American challenger, was not here for the scheduled start last Sunday, and the opening was postponed for two days. He wanted more money, and the British industrialist, Jim Slater, obliged by adding $125,000 to double the purse. That brought Fischer flying over.
On Tuesday, after all the fuss, Boris Spassky, the 35-year-old Soviet world champion, requested and was granted a two-day delay. And Thursday the two players met in a drawing for the white pieces—and the opening move—in the first game. Spassky won. This the International Chess Federation declared to be the official start of the 24-game match, with the first game scheduled for Tuesday.
Far from being a quiet chess match, the event has suddenly developed into something of an international incident. Moscow's big propaganda guns shooting projectiles of invective at Fischer in particular and American sportsmanship in general ([they were doing this since the days the two Imperial financed spies, Lenin and Trotsky overthrew the democratically elected government of Alexander Kerensky!! and enslaved the Russian peasants. What's new?]) Dr. Max Euwe, head of the International Chess Federation, came under the barrage, and he confessed in public that he had indeed broken the rules in favor of Fischer. His justification: It was the only way to get the match started ([while the USSR controlled organizers in Belgrade and Reykjavik had done everything in their power to interfere and prevent it, “old hands” is the description Fischer's friend, Ken Smith used to refer to those troublesome individuals.])
Fischer sent an apology that only partly mollified Spassky, who, it was reported was angrier than if he had left a queen en prise. A second apology, delivered in person, finally cleared the air.
Perhaps both sides were playing a war of nerves. But for the Russians, who consider chess their national sport, the affair was no minor squabble. For years the Russians have been politicizing chess. Ever since Mikhail Botvinnik won the championship in 1948—the Soviet Union has held it ever since—Marxist-Leninist teachings have been applied to the game. Russian chess, a reflection of the great soul of the Soviet people, is noble, daring, fertile, imaginative; Western chess is decadent, bourgeois, imperialist. ([Get a mirror! Soviet Empire!])
Spassky's game is all that the Soviet ideologists say it is. But can he hold the brilliant Bobby Fischer? (In their last five matches, played before Fischer attained his present stature, Spassky won three times and two were draws.)
Bobby has not made himself popular in Reykjavik ([as explained many times, the virulent, Anti-American, racist under-current had pre-existed in Iceland for decades… since World War II era, when the professional class sympathized with Adolf Hitler, and the Soviet Union thereafter! Anti-American publications flooded Icelandic mainstream. The Soviet picked this little hornet's nest of racism and anti-American hostility, especially for American Bobby Fischer, to demoralize him. There was NOTHING Bobby Fischer did or could've done differently to thwart their mindless, chauvinist bigotry]). He did not like the referee. He wanted more money ([in light of the large bid by Australia of $225k after Belgrade backed out, which the Soviet twisted Max Euwe's arm into reneging on his promise… that's understandable. The match was worth more than Icelandic / Soviets wanted to fork up out of their insatiable greed for money, power and prestige]). He antagonized many Icelanders by alleged derogatory remarks about the provincialism of the country. ([There's that word “alleged” again. No actual documentation of these statements. However, if such documentation does exist, it wouldn't have had anything to do with Iceland's RAGING RACIST and ANTI-AMERICAN Provincialism, would it?])
But should Bobby win, he will cry all the way to the bank. The $250,000 purse, of which the winner gets five-eighths, is the largest in chess history. Up to now, as far as anybody knows, the record was $20,000 for the Capablanca-Lasker match in Havana in 1921 (and when adjusted with inflation, that match would've been worth $298,384.36 in 2021]). Standard prizes for major tournaments in recent years have been in the vicinity of $2,500. Bobby will also get 30 per cent of film and television rights.
Bobby is the first box-office chess player in history, and there is extraordinary interest in the match. Some 130 journalists from all over the world are here. Play will be held in the 2,500-seat Exhibition Hall, replete with special lighting, and a huge projector will let the audience follow every move.
- Harold C. Schonberg
