AThe Ottawa Citizen Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Saturday, July 15, 1972 - Page 4
Chess Match Still in Doubt
Reykjavik (Reuter) — Bobby Fischer, U.S. challenger for the world chess title, kept everyone guessing about his intentions today with the third game in his match against the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky a day away.
Whether or not he plans to continue the match—two games down and with Spassky playing white on Sunday—is unclear not only to the organizers and the public but, it also seems, to Fischer's own lawyers, friends and advisers here.
“It is impossible to predict what is going to happen,” the challenger's second, Rev. William Lombardy, said at midnight Friday.
“I simply do not know what he plans to do,” said Fred Cramer, Fischer's chief administrative assistant.
To the suggestion that Fischer is now ranked as probably the most unpopu- ([and Icelanders allowed to issue death threats against Americans and “Foreigners” over radio talk shows ranks Reykjavik, Iceland and Soviet Russia at the bottom of the list of world opinion]) lar man in Iceland, he replied: “As soon as he wins his first game, he will be the most popular.”
It now is up to Fischer to decide.
If he chooses to continue there is one outstanding problem to settle. Fischer is still demanding the removal of television cameras placed around the stage by U.S. businessman Chester Fox. Fischer says they distract him.
([The men operating the cameras distract him.
“Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand
removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.” -Colonel Ed Edmondson, USCF
“instead of..video tape film that didn't make any noise they had guys with film cameras that were..all around..making a racket..and visually you could see them moving around.”- R.J. Fischer])
But Fox agrees only to reposition them at the sides of the stage so that only the lenses are visible. An Icelandic audio expert made tests Friday with a decibel-measuring machine and concluded that the sound level did not increase when the cameras were running.
([Were “decibel-measuring tests” performed on the disruptive men operating the cameras, too?])
“The ball is now in Fischer's court,” Fox's lawyer, Richard Stein, said Friday night.
Why isn't FIDE bringing this up, and recycling... recycling... recycling... recycling... recycling... I take SERIOUS issue with it, when our citizens are having their lives threatened. And the implicit unwelcoming emphasis on “foreigner” did not escape me.
A Hornet's Nest of Racist, Anti-American Hostility the Soviet Knowingly Selected for 1972 Tournament 15 Jul 1972, Sat The Marion Star (Marion, Ohio) Newspapers.com
