The Sedalia Democrat Sedalia, Missouri Tuesday, July 18, 1972 - Page 6
World Chess Title Rides With Fischer
For the past several days the dateline of Reykjavik, Iceland, has been eclipsed by Miami Beach. But now that the Democratic National Convention has departed from center stage, we can turn our attention to the battle for the international chess title.
It is a welcome change. Instead of the crowds, clamor, power plays and intrigues of Miami Beach, we have two men bent over a chess board in Iceland, settling between them the future of the world championship of chess.
Here matters of great moment will be decided not by cajoling and maneuvering, but by raw brainpower. Chance will have been reduced to an almost negligible factor. The purity of it all is irresistible.
Still, even the world chess title match has had its cliff-hangers. ([The Soviet sympathizers in Western Press have written and publicly criticized Fischer with demeaning mischaracterization and character assassination, outright distortions portraying Fischer as a Soviet caricature of a capitalist, refusing to play until the pot is sweetened, but the press failing to notify the public boldly, that Australia alone bid a whopping $225,000 which the Soviet shamelessly, snubbed in an all out conniption fit. Threatening to forbid Spassky to play! Their demand resulted in a reduction of the prize by $100,000. The real “money-grubber” is duly noted!])
But if we remember how Russia pampers and subsidizes its chess masters like so many nuclear physicists, perhaps we shouldn't begrudge Fischer too much his financial demands.
To the man on the street the chess games in Reykjavik perhaps seem remote and uninteresting. But to the Russians, who have held the title since 1948, it is a deadly serious business. Its loss would be the greatest blow to the prestige of the Soviet Union since American landed on the moon.
Bobby Fischer represents the best hope this country has ever had to pull it off. If he can keep his cool America may pull off a Cold War victory of the first order, and renew its faith in personal heroes in the process.
World Chess Title Rides With Fischer 18 Jul 1972, Tue The Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri) Newspapers.com
