Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time

10. BOBBY IS MISSING

Fischer trained for the most important match of his life almost completely in isolation.

What chess support he received came from two sources. Ken “Top Hat” Smith was a chess master and world-class poker player who always wore a flamboyant black silk top hat during card games. Slightly too small for its owner, the hat had been acquired in an auction and was alleged to have been discovered in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the night that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated there. Whenever he won the pot, Smith would slam this hat on the table and shout, “What a player!” He always drew a crowd. Such a valued customer was he that the Hilton hotel in Las Vegas would send a private jet to pick him up from his home in Dallas. “No-limit Texas hold-em” was his game, and he was good at it, winning tens of thousands of dollars.

From Dallas, Smith ran Chess Digest magazine and, later, a chess publishing business. For two years, he had been supplying Fischer with chess literature from around the world: books and magazines on openings, the middle game, endings, analysis of all kinds, the moves from games played in topflight tournaments. To feed Fischer’s unquenchable thirst, Smith would fly in with suitcases crammed full of material. Player and supplier were never intimate, and if Smith wanted to get in touch with Fischer, he would have to do so through one of Fischer’s other contacts, using a complicated coding system. (After Fischer went to Iceland, Smith traveled to Reykjavik with yet more literature.)

Fischer’s other aide was Bob Wade, a kindly, accommodating, New Zealand-born international master, a resident of south London and owner of a vast chess library. He had a more specific task: at Ed Edmondson’s request, he had sent Fischer copies of all the games he could find that had been played first by Taimanov, then by Larsen, and then, at the Candidates final stage, by Petrosian. Now Edmondson gave him the same brief for the world championship.

With infinite pains, Wade researched and compiled all of Spassky’s published games; some were well-known, others were located in obscure journals. The folder ended up at over a thousand games and over a thousand pages. He dispatched it to Fischer via Edmondson, who had it bound in red velvet. Fortunately, it reached its destination, for the work had been done by hand and there was no other copy.

By this stage, Fischer was in seclusion at Grossinger’s, in the Catskills in upstate New York. In the so-called borscht belt, Grossinger’s was an institution, popular with the Jewish middle class: a former farm, it had been converted into a huge hotel complex complete with tennis courts and bridle paths. Many famous people had stayed there, including Eleanor Roosevelt. It was also a favorite retreat for sportsmen, such as baseball legend Jackie Robinson and the undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion, Rocky Marciano, who had Grossinger’s emblazoned upon his robe.

For over thirty years, Wade has kept the letter that came back from Grossinger’s on receipt of his meticulously prepared material. There was not a word of thanks. Instead, he was greeted by a torrent of abuse for failing to abide by Fischer’s preferred method of displaying the moves. Wade had written them across the page rather than down the page. “Can’t you follow even the simplest instructions?” He was rebuked for having “cut corners.” There was nothing for it but for Wade painstakingly to copy out each move again, working almost from scratch. “The tone reminded me,” says Wade, who was a chess coach for many years, “of how a teacher might speak to his schoolchildren.” Wade was paid £600, £200 of which was considered “a bonus” for his conscientious labors.

For Fischer, this dossier was to be his constant companion until July 1972. At Grossinger’s, he would take his meals in the dining room accompanied only by the dossier. If he ventured out, he would take it down to a local restaurant. He tended to eat Chinese or Italian dishes. (The waitresses were never pleased to see him because he took up two tables.) For the rest of the time, he was in his hotel room, absorbing the contents of the red file, trying to discern patterns and identify weaknesses. As always, he would rise late and then work deep into the night. Journalists who knocked on the door of his quarters—a white villa—were told to “go away.” One or two chess colleagues went to visit him. Larry Evans says, “We would play over Spassky’s games—usually in the wee hours of the morning. We would have rock radio blasting.” But essentially Fischer worked alone. Evans explained to The New York Times. “I probably have more influence on him than anybody else, and that’s exactly zero.”

Fischer stayed at Grossinger’s until 5 June and then went to California for tennis; he wanted to improve his fitness. He also attended a service of the Worldwide Church of God. His flight to Reykjavik had been scheduled for Sunday, 25 June, in good time for the official opening on Saturday, 1 July and the first game the next day.

He flew back to New York on Tuesday, 27 June, and moved into the Yale Club as a guest of his New York lawyer, Andrew Davis. It was four days before the official opening of the match.

The Soviet party had arrived in Reykjavik on 21 June to settle in and acclimatize. In Iceland at that time of year, there was practically no darkness, only “white nights.” Spassky was thoroughly comfortable with this; it was the season of merrymaking in his home city, Leningrad. The Soviets took up residence in the best hotel in Reykjavik, the Saga, with Spassky occupying room 730— the presidential suite at the secure end of a corridor. With its wide views, Empire-style furniture, and gold-plated taps in the bathroom, his accommodation no doubt made a pleasing change from Moscow. The champion played tennis with Ivo Nei up to eleven o’clock at night, while Geller and Krogius prepared for the chess battle ahead.

A comparison of the two players’ teams is instructive. Spassky had arrived with Geller, Krogius, and Nei—chess players all, two grandmasters and an international master. Lined up on Fischer’s side were thirty-nine-year-old attorney Andrew Davis, educated at Yale and Oxford, and Fred Cramer, a past president of the United States Chess Federation, who had taken over from Edmondson as the challenger’s emissary. Fischer also summoned Paul Marshall to his side. A journalist for Life magazine, Brad Darrach, attached himself to the Fischer squad and later wrote an exuberant, blow-by-blow account of the whole experience.

Fischer had not yet chosen a second; grandmaster William Lombardy took the position at the last moment. Lombardy was strikingly different from the rest of Fischer’s team. He was a chess player of high class: in 1958, he took the World Junior Chess Championship with a perfect eleven victories, no draws, no losses—a truly remarkable accomplishment—and he went on to become U.S. champion twice. Unlike Fischer, he had beaten Spassky. This victory, in twenty-nine moves, came when he led the United States to first place in the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad. But chess was only a part of his vocation: he was a Roman Catholic priest, possibly the greatest chess-playing cleric since Ruy Lopez in sixteenth-century Spain, originator of the eponymous opening that was Fischer’s favorite.

Rotund, with small eyes peeping out of a podgy face framed by sharply razored muttonchop whiskers and a vestigial mustache, Lombardy tended to divide opinion in Reykjavik. Some thought him approachable, affable, gregarious, and humorous. Others found him insufferably stiff and pompous. Some reported that he was loyal and dependable. Others, such as the writer George Steiner, regarded him as scheming and “sinister.” Certainly, one of the sights of the match was Father Lombardy holding a press conference in clerical garb.

Both Davis and Marshall were accustomed to Fischer’s unpredictability, and each had already resigned once over his repudiation of agreements they had negotiated for him. Yet, in common with so many other acquaintances of Fischer’s, they were prepared to forgive what in other clients or friends would have been unforgivable. Marshall was “amazed” when Davis telephoned suddenly, seeking his help on Fischer’s behalf as though there had been no breach. However, he took his client back on, traveling and acting for him without billing his time or expenses—a New York lawyer taking pro bono to extremes. He reflected on his client in terms appropriate for Charles Dickens’s Tiny Tim: “Bobby never made any money in his life. Everyone who dealt with him when he was fourteen, fifteen, used him. If there was any money to be made, they took it. They’d call him up and say, ‘Come on out here, we’ll pay your bills and we’ll give you a couple of bucks on the side.’ And when it was over, they’d stick him with a huge hotel bill. Here’s a fifteen-year-old kid with an enormous bill, no money, all alone, crying.”

Of course, by 1972 Fischer was no longer a child, and by rights there should have been no further negotiation on money. The financial arrangements appeared to have been settled. The winner would receive $78,125, the loser $46,875, and the two contestants would each take 30 percent of TV and film rights. But Fischer’s approach was always to agree to nothing, sign nothing, confirm nothing. With only days to go before the scheduled start, he now argued that the pot should include 30 percent of the gate receipts—estimated to total $250,000. The Icelanders balked: the venue, the exhibition hall, could seat some 2,500, and they were depending on this revenue to cover their costs.

Although Fischer was in New York on 27 June, and so already twenty-four hours late for his timetabled appearance in Reykjavik, his imminent arrival was still expected. And if he did not arrive? The Icelandic Chess Federation press spokesman, Freysteinn Johannsson, had no press statement ready for such a contingency.

On 28 June, Fischer was booked onto another flight from John F. Kennedy Airport. All the arrangements were in place, including a supply of fresh oranges that he insisted should be squeezed in front of him for fear the Soviets had tampered with his juice. Although the challenger’s financial demands had not been conceded, his lawyers were cautiously optimistic that he would be on the plane. Marshall, who was overwhelmed with work at his practice, was quoted in the press:

Davis himself had boarded the plane. But amid the airport passageways, in scenes worthy of a Marx Brothers film (starring Greta Garbo), Fischer stopped to buy an alarm clock, caught sight of the hordes of cameramen waiting to record his historic departure—and bolted.

He took refuge in the Tudor-style family house of a childhood companion, Anthony Saidy, in Douglaston, in the New York borough of Queens—2 Cedar Lane. A medical doctor from a Lebanese family, Saidy had once won the U.S. Open Chess Championship. Fischer felt at home with the Saidy family, relishing the Lebanese cuisine prepared by Anthony’s mother.

Davis later blamed the media for thwarting his client’s desire to be veiled from the public gaze. Others suspected darker motives for his turning the flight to the championship into a flight from the championship. Some theorized that the cause was not the paparazzi, but a stalemate over Fischer’s latest financial stipulations. In Davis’s briefcase were demands for a better TV deal, the loser’s share of the money in Fischer’s hand at the outset, and 30 percent of the gate. The New York Times found that hard to believe: the amounts were trivial compared with the fortune he could make on becoming champion.

A second hypothesis held that Fischer was deliberately conducting a war of nerves against his opponent. With the challenger still absent, the press claimed the champion was “on the edge already.” A Washington Post reporter visited Fischer in Douglaston and put this to him. “I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves,” the challenger rejoined.

To add to the Icelanders’ woes, Fred Cramer had arrived on 27 June and offered a foretaste of his part in the drama. He had presented a list of expected requirements about lighting and other arrangements, then thrown in an unexpected demand—a new arbiter, a non—chess player. The experienced and respected German grandmaster Lothar Schmid was apparently unacceptable as chief arbiter. This was curious if only because, when a teenager, Fischer had stayed with Schmid in his family home in Bamberg. Passing off the underage chess genius as his nephew, Schmid had taken him to a casino in Bad Homburg, a suburb of Frankfurt am Main, where he observed that Fischer was not a risk taker. The quietly spoken, patently decent Schmid had also refereed Fischer’s last match in the Candidates round, against Petrosian. The manner in which he carried off that task had marked him out for the final. Chess was not Schmid’s only interest. His family-owned firm, Karl-May-Verlag, published the writer of westerns, Karl May—after Goethe, Germany’s best-selling author.

While Fischer hunkered down in the Saidys’ house, the impasse between Icelandic officials and his lawyers pushed the U.S. presidential nominations down the front page. With Fischer’s attorneys haggling over the financial terms, it did not escape the reporters that Dr. Saidy’s father, Fred, was coauthor of Finian’s Rainbow, the musical about the filching of a pot of gold. Contributing to Dr. Saidy’s stress was the fact that his father was seriously ill and needed hospitalization. Fischer told Anthony not to worry: Fred’s illness would not disturb him.

On the day of the official opening, Saturday, 1 July, The New York Times covered the story on its front page: “Bobby Fischer’s erratic posture toward the World Chess Championship has touched off a wave of debate and discussion in New York and Moscow as well as Reykjavik, Iceland.” TASS, the Soviet state press agency, wrote that a “disgusting spirit of gain” motivated Fischer. Ed Edmondson said, “He’s putting on some kind of act—for what I don’t know.” He, Edmondson, thought that the odds were two to one that Fischer would not play. When the match was delayed, a reporter noted: “Everyone hated Bobby. He put himself in the hot seat, and every man in the room would have gladly pulled the switch. But nobody could afford to let the son of a bitch burn. So what did they do? They stopped the world. Now if we all fall down on our knees, Bobby might be willing to get on.”

Icelanders accused Fischer of extortion. In Reykjavik, rumors circulated as in wartime. Among the most popular were that Fischer was in hiding after his arrival in the country a week earlier on a United States Air Force jet or alternately after being smuggled ashore in a rubber dinghy from a U.S. Navy submarine.

Already chilled by the prospect of the whole project’s collapsing, the organizers now faced a problem for which no preplanning could have prepared them. In the absence of the challenger, should they go ahead with the opening ceremony of the match? Absurd though it might be, there seemed no other plausible answer than yes. To proceed as though the match would, at some stage, commence was the surest way to ensure that it did actually commence. That, at least, was the theory.

So, almost as though everything were in order, the dignitaries gather at Reykjavik’s National Theatre for the scheduled event. The seat next to Spassky’s is empty. As befits the magnitude of the occasion for their country, Iceland’s president, Kristjan Eldjarn, and the mayor of Reykjavik, Geir Hallgrimsson, are both present, together with the city councillors. So too are the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, and the finance minister, Halldor E. Sigurdsson, who has guaranteed the cost of the project up to five million Icelandic kronur. The heads of the Soviet and U.S. embassies are in their places. Max Euwe, the president of FIDE, has flown in from Holland. Chief arbiter, Lothar Schmid, has arrived from Germany. They are aware that this event may be a charade. The public bonhomie conceals anxiety and a smoldering sense of grievance.

However, the most embarrassed and fraught figure of all is the man responsible for the match’s being held in Iceland, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. This should be his moment. He is down to make the opening speech, winning plaudits from the Icelandic establishment to launch his political career. Instead, he is seized by panic, sweating and fearful of being late. He has been in the Loftleidir hotel since ten o’clock, listening, he says, to “demands and demands and new demands.” At 4:50 P.M., with little progress made, Andrew Davis stands up and says, “Forget it. Fischer won’t come and there’ll be no match.” There are ten minutes to go before the opening, and Thorarinsson finds himself racing to the National Theatre. Knowing that Fischer has no intention of leaving New York, he will have to appear on stage in front of his country’s president. Worst of all, he is still dressed in his working clothes.

The drive to the National Theatre is spent in frenzied internal debate: Should he tell the audience it is over or simply open the match with his fingers crossed? He arrives at 5:15 P.M., fifteen minutes late, and begins the longest walk of his life, to the rostrum:

The president of Iceland makes no speech. The government’s welcome is given by the minister of culture magnus, Torfi Olafsson. The mayor then talks pointedly of an ongoing chess game. “It is obvious that human beings do not for long wish to be pawns on a chessboard, even if they are in the hands of geniuses.” Euwe’s speech is half explanatory, half apologetic, expressing the hold Fischer has over the officials. “Mr. Fischer is not an easy man. But we should remember that he has lifted the level of world chess for all players.” At the cocktail party after the ceremony, Thorarinsson comes in for criticism from his Icelandic colleagues. “‘Keeping the government waiting is something one doesn’t do. If you’re going to organize this world championship, you’ll have to change your habits.’ I couldn’t let on; it would have been all over the world press. I just said, ‘I’m sorry, I shall try to do better. It won’t happen again.’”

In fact, government ministers have more to worry about than Thorarinsson’s working clothes. Iceland’s economy is wholly dependent on fish, and they are preparing to announce the extension of the country’s fishing limits from twelve to fifty miles, confirming a threat that had been made a year earlier. The new rules will come into force on 1 September 1972. With Great Britain’s fishing industry already suffering from an earlier extension, London’s rejection of the move is inevitable, meaning that this tiny nation, whose entire air force (one helicopter) had recently been incapacitated, is heading for a showdown with one of the mightiest military forces in the world. (In the event, with American backing and a devastating weapon, a wire cutter that traps and cuts trawl ropes, causing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage through lost catches and, worse still, lost nets, Iceland will secure its extension.)

Fischer’s aide Fred Cramer dismisses Fischer’s absence from the ceremony, describing it as “a musical concert with speeches in Icelandic which he wouldn’t have understood.” Meanwhile, one man seems to have guessed what is going on. Spassky chats amicably with Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, telling him that he is looking forward to a two-month vacation, and then will return to Moscow to play Petrosian.

As Thorarinsson pondered his next move, Fischer was still in Douglaston, immured in Sabbath observance. His demands were still on the table, and there seemed no question of his boarding a plane. Out of sight of the world’s press, he was refusing to respond to letters, take calls, or answer the door.

With the match in a quagmire, there now came two attempts at its rescue: the first from the heart of Nixon’s White House, the other a true deus ex machina from one of the richest men in Britain, whose decision to intervene came as he was in a car driving through London.

The Icelandic government might have played a part in securing the first intervention. Although it had no direct role in the match, national prestige was at stake, and the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, was deeply concerned at the possibility of failure. He and Thorarinsson were in the same political party, the Progressive Party, a center-left farmers movement. And Gudmundur Thorarinsson decided he had to ask him for assistance.

He, Thorarinsson, had been searching nonstop for a way ahead. Could he persuade Spassky and Fischer to talk to each other directly? The champion was refusing to call his challenger but readily agreed to take Fischer’s call if the American rang. Fischer, however, seemed unlikely to respond to a request to phone Spassky. Spassky then summoned the Icelander to a meeting at his hotel.

But the Russian and the Icelander were at cross-purposes. Thorarinsson was so focused on bringing the American to the match, it did not enter his mind that Spassky might need help himself. The prime minister then called in the U.S. chargé d’affaires Theodore Tremblay. Would the American government lend a hand?

Tremblay was intensely irritated with Fischer. At the opening ceremony, his wife had been sitting next to the empty chair, on the other side of which sat Spassky. But he was inclined to help. Uppermost in his mind, in a fragile phase in U.S.-Icelandic relations, was the U.S. base at Keflavik. The Icelandic coalition government—the only NATO country with communist ministers—was considering its future. Closure could have strategic consequences for the Western alliance. Iceland’s geographic position, midway between the United States and the Soviet Union, made this desolate island an invaluable ally. The Soviets were pressing on with a new blue water naval strategy, and Iceland served as a critical forward observation post, monitoring Soviet ship and submarine movements.

As well as protection, Keflavik had brought employment and wealth. Yet many Icelanders felt resentment rather than gratitude: the base led to anxiety that Icelandic culture was threatened by the alien presence of so many foreigners. The ambiguity toward America was nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century, a visitor depicted the American whaler “dashing ashore in his civilian dress, and flinging his dollars everywhere, drinking, roistering, catching the ponies, and scampering off, frightening the Icelander out of his wits.” And in his 1948 novel, The Atom Station, the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author Halldor Laxness catches this dissonance in the image of two small boys playing chess while the radio blares out American music. The heroine reflects: “I contemplated once more the civilized peace of the chess game amongst the din from the American radio station.”

Over and above the geopolitical considerations, Tremblay was also fond of the Icelandic people. “I hated to see this thing blow up in their face because of Fischer’s ignorant attitude.” He recalls the prime minister telling him how much Iceland had laid out for the match and asking, “Is there any way we can get him here?”

Back at the U.S. embassy, Tremblay sent a telegram addressed to the secretary of state, William Rogers, and copied to the National Security Council and the CIA. It recited that the chargé had been summoned by Olafur Johannesson to express concern at Fischer’s nonappearance: the United States government was not accountable for the imbroglio, but Fischer’s actions, he said, were an insult to Iceland, and cancellation would cost seven million kronur. “Everyone knows that Fischer erratic [sic] and not susceptible to control by USG but actions were bound to hurt US image.” The prime minister had asked Tremblay to relay this concern to the White House. “While he realizes it might not do any good, he would appreciate an immediate attempt to persuade Fischer to live up to his agreement.”

Given that these events unfolded over a weekend, it remains unclear whether Tremblay’s telegram produced any result. We can simply observe a chain of events: Johannesson’s request preceded Tremblay’s action, which was followed by a call to Douglaston made by the national security adviser, Dr. Henry Kissinger.

In an interview with the authors, Dr. Kissinger rejected any idea that this call was made in an official capacity. “It was not a big political thing. I did not have a big staff paper to say you’ve got to do this. It somehow came to my attention.” Kissinger makes no claims for his own chess expertise. “I am a rank amateur.” He refused to play the Soviet ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, a keen player, in case it gave his adversary an insight into the way his mind worked. The opening words of Kissinger’s conversation with Fischer have entered chess lore: “This is the worst player in the world calling the best player in the world.” He recalls, “There was a difficulty in the operation, an upset. I just wanted Fischer to know that his government wished him well. I wished him well.”

Thorarinsson learned from the “American attorneys” about Fischer’s reaction.

No doubt the attorneys felt suitably humbled at so selfless a display of patriotism by their client—and puzzled by his continued failure to leave his Douglaston foxhole for the battlefront.

Meanwhile, in Reykjavik, the American team was pushing Thorarinsson for financial concessions in ways he had never experienced and thought utterly unreasonable. He felt that if he yielded to one of their demands, he would simply open the door to many more. “So we very stubbornly said, ‘This is our offer. We will live up to it, but this is all we can do and we’re not changing it.’” Almost admiringly, he recollects their tactics. “They would always say, ‘This is nonsense. We’re against it. We are telling you this as a friend: To save the match, you have to do this and this. Otherwise there will be no match.’ There was no hostility. They were just giving me advice! They came with papers and they said, ‘There’s no problem, you just sign here.’” The Icelander was in culture shock:

Money, however, mattered to the Icelanders, too. They were at a disadvantage. If there were no match, they would lose their whole investment, and for a tiny country, this represented a large sum. Thorarinsson has not forgotten how Andrew Davis rubbed this in: “He said, ‘You’re losing everything. You just have to give us the gate money and this and that, and we shall make sure Bobby is here.’” The Icelander was under attack from all directions. The journalist Brad Darrach accused him of wanting to hand the match to the Soviets. The local press charged him with damaging Iceland’s international reputation. One editorial griped, “Why can’t he negotiate? He seems impotent.”

Thorarinsson was not the only one on the receiving end. Tremblay informed the State Department by telegram that his mission was dealing with a “large number of financial and facultative requests from Fischer’s reps….” He wanted to put on record demands he had not granted. For example, Davis had asked the U.S. government to guarantee Fischer a sum of $50,000 on the grounds that his bid for a percentage of the ticket proceeds had been turned down. Davis’s argument took some lawyerly chutzpah: the U.S. government should help out, he argued, because of the risk that his client would be responsible for a breach in U.S.-Icelandic relations. Tremblay wrote, “This was rejected as exaggerated. Icelanders regard Bobby Fischer as a unique individual, and while his antics may not aid the US cause, it is highly unlikely that public or official blame will accrue for the delay or possible cancellation.” Cramer had also requested on Fischer’s behalf diplomatic number plates—and was told this was unnecessary. At two A.M. on Sunday, 2 July, Darrach woke Tremblay to insist that four marine guards were required around the clock to ensure Fischer’s security.

All of this was infuriating the Icelandic government. The prime minister had particularly taken umbrage at Davis’s claim that Iceland would look to the U.S. government for reparations if the match fell through. Johannesson had also resented a demand by Fischer’s representatives that the United States guarantee Fischer’s security. According to Tremblay, “the prime minister remarked acidly that the government of Iceland is quite capable of providing the requisite security.”

Tremblay was far more anxious about the impact of Fischer’s behavior than he let on to his superiors back in Washington. The Soviets, he thought, were winning the propaganda battle. “Sure they were. Boris was his charming self. The guy’s a real charmer. He’s handsome and sophisticated and well educated: he’s got everything going for him. And here’s this other guy refusing to turn up.”

Probably sensing trouble, Davis changed tack and asked for a postponement. The excuse? His client was suffering from fatigue. Davis and Cramer promised doctors’ certificates that failed to materialize. The mood in Reykjavik was somber, the organizers living on their nerves, the city still alive with speculation. The correspondent of The New York Times, Harold Schonberg, wrote: “There is something sad about the stage which has been so carefully prepared and conceivably may never be used.”

Max Euwe, president of FIDE, held back from contacting Fischer directly. For six months, the match had been one long headache; now he was quoted as saying, “Fischer does not speak to me unless, perhaps, it is to order me to get him a taxi. I do not want to meet him.” All the same, without seeing any medical evidence, he allowed Fischer two extra days to arrive, on the grounds that the challenger was ill.

While all this was going on, the world champion was marginalized. The Soviet team in Reykjavik was informed that the drawing of lots was to be postponed from 2 July to midday on 4 July. Geller phoned Moscow to pass on the news. On behalf of the USSR Chess Federation, Baturinskii sent a furious cable to Schmid. He accused Fischer of “busying himself with blackmail” with the connivance of the FIDE leadership. His failure to appear for the opening, the drawing of lots, and the first game on 2 July was a violation of FIDE rules unprecedented in its history. Fischer deserved disqualification, said Baturinskii. For his part, Euwe had taken “the more than unattractive role of Fischer’s defender.” On his own initiative, he had postponed the match following a “nonexistent request” on the grounds of Fischer’s “imaginary illness.”

Citing chapter and verse from the Amsterdam agreement, Baturinskii declared that if, beginning at noon on 4 July, measures were not taken to follow FIDE rules and the agreement, the USSR Chess Federation would consider the contest “wrecked” by FIDE and Fischer. The threat was plain: they would declare the match null and void.

When Geller challenged Euwe over the postponement, the FIDE president used Spassky as his excuse: “I wanted to save the match because Spassky wants to play so much.” Geller recounted this to Ivonin, who dismissed it as an outrageous argument. What they could not have known is that the world champion had indeed tacitly given Thorarinsson and Euwe the go-ahead to try to salvage the competition.

In the early afternoon of Sunday, 2 July, Spassky had a long conversation with Euwe, who then proposed an evening meal with himself and an American millionaire chess fan, Isaac Turover. Geller and Krogius believed Spassky could return with honor to Moscow, and, sensing the champion’s vacillation, urged him to miss the supper where he might be prevailed upon to give ground. Spassky ignored them: the next day, it was reported he had consented to the delay.

But then came a second call attempting to save the match, just as it looked as if Fischer was going too far.

Driving to work in London early on Monday morning, 3 July, Jim Slater was upset by a radio report on the challenger’s nonappearance in Reykjavik.

Slater was a businessman whose company, Slater Walker Securities, had been formed in 1964 when he was in his mid-thirties. His partner, Peter Walker, had left the business to become a Conservative member of Parliament and a government minister under Edward Heath and (later) Margaret Thatcher. At the time of the Fischer-Spassky match, the company reportedly had a controlling interest in 250 companies around the world. Supremely confident, decisive, ruthless in business, Slater had by then amassed a fortune of, in his own words, “£6 million and rising.” A gambler by nature, he allowed himself one big luxury: to play bridge for thousands of pounds with stronger opponents.

Slater was a chess fan and supporter of the game, subsidizing the annual Hastings tournament. In the years following Fischer-Spassky, he would, alongside the former British champion and journalist Leonard Barden (who provided the vision and organization), transform the state of British chess by channeling funds into junior competition.

Now he decided that he could easily afford the money to send Fischer to Reykjavik—or expose the American as a coward. He would double the prize, putting an additional £50,000 ($125,000) into the pot. Arriving at his office that Monday morning, he passed on his offer through Leonard Barden, who then spoke to Paul Marshall, giving the U.S. attorney some background details about this championship angel. Marshall then talked to Fischer. Slater says he also telephoned his friend David Frost, who in turn rang his friend Henry Kissinger. Kissinger then contacted Fischer. What motivated Slater? “As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks, I could give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure.”

Slater’s offer made headlines in London’s Evening Standard. His house was soon swarming with reporters. When he returned from work, he enlightened his astonished wife: “I had a good idea on the way to the office.” The good idea was couched in challenging terms: “If he isn’t afraid of Spassky, then I have removed the element of money.”

It is not altogether clear how the British offer finally persuaded Fischer. Paul Marshall certainly had a hand, initially pushing it as the answer to all Fischer’s financial demands. “But he wouldn’t accept it. His experiences with people promising things had taught him not to believe them, particularly with money. And he wanted proof. And he said no.” Marshall tried to change his mind. Phoning Barden, the attorney took his place in the gallery of callers that saved the match. “I said if I were them, I would rephrase the offer. Slater should say he didn’t think his money was at risk, because Fischer was just making excuses. He should say that deep down Fischer was frightened. I said Bobby might be piqued by that challenge—and he was. I knew Bobby was very, very competitive and combative and would not like to be thought of as a chicken.” Slater denies this version of events. He maintains it was always his idea to express his offer as a taunt. He never spoke to Fischer and never received a word of gratitude from him. “Fischer is known to be rude, graceless, possibly insane. I didn’t do it to be thanked. I did it because it would be good for chess.” In the meantime, there were reports that Mrs. Marshall, a professional photographer, informed the press where Fischer was staying, in an attempt to smoke him out of his bunker.

Kissinger’s intervention, the extra money, the wording of the offer, the media camped outside the house in Cedar Lane, perhaps also information from Reykjavik that disqualification would follow if Fischer failed to arrive by midday on 4 July—one or a combination of these tipped the balance.

On 3 July, Fischer drove through the pre—Independence Day evening traffic to JFK Airport. At Kennedy, he transferred to an Icelandic Airlines station wagon and was smuggled on board a plane, flight 202A. The flight, scheduled for 7:30 P.M., took off at 10:04 P.M. All the other passengers had been kept waiting, and a few had been bumped off the flight. In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry rang Viktor Ivonin to report that the American challenger was on his way.

Marshall told the press that the problem had never been the money. It was the principle. His client felt Iceland was not treating this match or his countrymen with the dignity that it, and they, deserved. His private view was that before Slater’s offer, Fischer “had already in effect defaulted. He was pretty well determined not to go.”

Marshall chaperoned Fischer on the journey to Iceland, accompanied by his wife, Bette. Fischer had initially prohibited Marshall from bringing her along, claiming she would distract her husband. Marshall circumvented this injunction by booking a seat for her at the other end of the plane. “And a quarter of the way through the flight, I figured Bobby was above jumping, so I asked my wife to come back and he welcomed her very pleasantly, as though the previous conversation hadn’t happened.”

The Icelandic grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson had the role of Fischer’s official greeter, meeting him at his seat, escorting him to the receiving line, performing introductions, and driving with him to Reykjavik. As a precaution, all journalists and photographers had initially been corraled into the airport building—but a public relations officer at Icelandic Airlines was tempted by the fruit of worldwide publicity and fell. He cut the reporters loose.

Olafsson’s plan crumbled as Fischer arrived at the top of the gangway in the early hours of 4 July.

Olafsson was a phlegmatic, dignified man who reserved all his aggression for the chessboard. (One of the world’s leading grandmasters, he had little real competition at home. He was, says Thorarinsson, “a genius who came out of nowhere.”)

There was a sting in the tail for the organizers of the match, says Olafsson. “This was Fischer’s first impression of Iceland—and it was that the organizers didn’t keep their word.”

Thorarinsson was now a man relieved, even if Fischer had ignored him in the chaos of the reception at Keflavik airport. He sought out Spassky, to thank him for his advice to refer upward to a more senior rank. But when they met, Spassky, for once, was angry. He charged Thorarinsson with having broken a promise. Suddenly the truth dawned on the Icelander. “I realized that I had misunderstood the whole thing. The Soviet government felt that Spassky was being humiliated and they had called him back. Spassky had wanted me to involve the higher authorities in Moscow, not Washington.” Now that Fischer was in Reykjavik, Thorarinsson had a new battle on his hands: to keep Spassky there, too.