AArizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona Wednesday, July 12, 1972 - Page 56
Letters To The Editor: Bobby's Antics
Editor the Star: We were amused to read your recent editorial deploring the antics of Mr. Robert Fischer on the eve of his epic battle for the world chess championship. Perhaps to an outsider, Bobby's conduct appears inexcusably coarse and unsportsmanlike, but it is this same high-handed arrogance which has catapulted him to within a hairsbreadth of breaking the 25-year long Russian stranglehold on world chess. During his 16-year “checkered” career, Bobby has not only bested an impressive array of international grandmasters in dazzling over-the-board play, but as a young boy, he weathered the sordid smoke-filled atmosphere of all-night chess emporia, withstood physical brutality at the hands of “sore-losers” seeking revenge, and yet mustered the courage to expose corrupt and unfair practices commonplace at chess competitions here and abroad. The chess world's “enfant terrible” has accomplished singlehanded what all others failed to do - namely, to challenge and excel against the Soviet conglomerate at their own national pastime.
Bobby Fischer is not in Iceland as a representative of this country, but rather as a singular chess talent. Where were all his critics when Bobby, abandoned and alone, was barely eking out a hand-to-mouth existence building this talent? And we wonder how much national interest would be focused on Bobby's “manners” if he were playing a Frenchman instead of a Russian!
Charles L. White, Marlys Hearst White, 2310 E. Seneca St.
