The Escanaba Daily Press, Escanaba, Michigan, Thursday, July 13, 1972 - Page 1
Fischer Wants Cameras Expelled
Caption: CHESS MATCH — Boris Spassky, left, Bobby Fischer and chess referee Lothar Schmid are at the end of Tuesday's session in the world championship match. Spassky won the first game of the match and the second game is scheduled to begin today. (AP Wirephoto)
Reykjavik, Iceland (AP) — Bobby Fischer today was reported threatening to break off his world championship chess match with Boris Spassky unless all move cameras are removed from the playing hall.
“It's quite serious. He may not play at all,” said a member of Fischer's entourage who asked not to be identified.
Fischer was scheduled to meet the world champion from the Soviet Union later today — at 1 p.m. EDT—for the second game of their 24-game match. The American challenger lost the first game Wednesday night.
Fischer staged a 30-minute walkout shortly after the play began Wednesday, complaining that a movie camera 150 feet away was making him nervous. The camera was hardly visible in the dimness outside the lighted player's circle, and it could not be heard by Fischer, but aides said the knowledge of its presence unnerved him.
Chief referee Lothar Schmid of West Germany, who makes the decisions on all contested points in connection with the match, told Fischer during his walkout there was nothing he could do about the camera.
Film and television rights for the match have been sold to an American promoter, and Fischer and Spassky are to get a share of the proceeds, estimated at a minimum of $27,500 each.
Contacted at his hotel, Schmid said: “There will be a match tonight. If Fischer doesn't appear, he will take the consequences.”
Richard Stein, a lawyer for the promoter who bought the TV and film rights, Chester Fox, said he was up all night with Fischer's second, the Rev. William Lombardy, and Fred Cramer of the U.S. Chess Federation.
Stein said that at one point Fischer walked in on the meeting, listened for a few minutes and then in a few sentences indicated he was adamant about expelling the cameras. Then he went to bed.
In agreement with Lombardy and Cramer, Stein wrote Fischer a letter at 5 o'clock this morning appealing to the challenger to accept the presence of the cameras and go on playing.
Schmid said he was prepared to invoke two rules of the match against Fischer.
Rule 17 prohibits in the name of “the highest principles of sportsmanship” that either player “distract or annoy his opponent.”
Rule 21 allows the taking of pictures during the match by official photographers as long as the cameras are “neither visible nor audible.”
([Note the deliberate obfuscation. It was not the camera, but was the humans and their errors operating the cameras, as explained by Robert J. Fischer in November 1972. Why the cover up, Soviet Union, FIDE and Icelandic Chess Fed? Deliberate noise and commotion plotted, to disrupt Fischer's concentration.])
Fischer 1, Camera 0: FACT CHECK: November 08, 1972 Johnny Carson Interviews Bobby Fischer (8:43/18:30)
CARSON: Now what about the cameras over there Bob? Now you hear about all this about you'd agreed they could film this, and then you kept changing the camera man was Vladivostok someplace, or …
[laughter]
What was the real story?
FISCHER: I was more disappointed than anybody that this thing wasn't televised because, you know, there was a lot of publicity and a lot of money involved and I wanted the people to see me in action. Let's face it. But they had these characters there, who instead of having, some kind of video tape film that didn't make any noise, just, nobody around to operate them, just sort of stationless and they just had guys there with film cameras that were worrying, and they were all around me. Making a racket. A nuisance.
CARSON: Too much noise.
FISCHER: Too much noise, and visually you could see them moving around.
