Daily News New York, New York Sunday, July 02, 1972 - Page 177
Oh, Ploy! Bobby's Late and Boris Fires an Aide by Robert Byrne, Special Correspondent of THE NEWS
Reykjavik, Iceland, July 1—With barely 24 hours to go before he has to make his opening move against world champion Boris Spassky in the 24-game match to settle the world chess championship, Bobby Fischer, the 29-year-old challenger, still had not arrived here.
There still is time for Fischer to reach the Reykjavik exhibition hall, Laugardalsholl, by 5 p.m. tomorrow, but how he expects to ready himself for a grueling five-hour playing session against Russian Spassky is the question. After the transatlantic flight, and the four-hour time change, a traveler needs acclimation, but that's out of the question now.
If this delay is a ploy aimed at unnerving Spassky, Fischer is in for a surprise.
When I met Boris this afternoon on the steps of the Saga Hotel where he is staying and mentioned that Bobby could not get here until Sunday morning, he merely shrugged his shoulders in unconcern.
With Spassky were Efim Geller, Nikolai Krogius and Ivo Nei. Absent was the head of Spassky's team of analysts-trainers, Igor Bondarevsky. He had been fired. When Boris was asked what happened to the friend who had guided him through so many triumphs in the past, he replied, “It was nothing personal. We disagreed about the chess (anti-Fischer match) strategy.”
Meanwhile, the organizing committee was fighting a defensive campaign on two fronts. Fischer now is demanding 30% of the gate receipts and replacement of the match referee, Lothar Schmidt of West Germany, fearing that the Russians could pressure any referee still an active player by threatening to blackmail him from tournaments.
But Schmidt reminded me as we checked the stage lighting for the fifth time this morning, “yes, I am a grandmaster, but my publishing business makes me independently wealthy. I am in my 40s now and play chess only when I feel like it. There's nothing the Russians can do to reach me.”
A Second Front
The second front was opened by the press, which objects to the exclusive contract the organizers have signed with the World Chess Network, which denies all others the right to broadcast move-by-move plays of the games.
Gudmunder Thorarinsson, president of the Icelandic Chess Federation, refused to change the rule but—has challenged anyone to come up with a workable compromise. Press credentials will not be validated for those who fail to sign a pledge that they will not engage in instant transmissions of the moves.
Fischer remained in hiding Saturday in the New York area. As a member of the Church of God, a fundamentalist Protestant sect that observes the Sabbath on Saturday, Fischer prefers not to fly until after sundown. A 9:30 p.m. Icelandic Airlines flight out of Kennedy International Airport thus remained the only direct connection to Iceland.
Fischer's lawyer, Paul G. Marshall, would say only, “I expect Bobby Fischer to do the proper thing for Bobby Fischer.” A long-time friend and fellow international grand master, the Rev. William J. Lombardy, who talked with Fischer Friday, predicted he would arrive in Reykjavik in time for the match.
