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

11. WHO’S SORRY NOW?

From the airport, Fischer was taken straight to the house, placed at his disposal in a quiet road in a half-built suburb called Wodaland. The jackpot prize in a forthcoming state lottery, it had not been lived in. (The winner would later complain that it was not strictly new, as promised in the lottery promotion.) When Fischer showed up, there were still bricks and mounds of earth on the street. From here, it was a two-mile hike to the center of town. Fischer soon abandoned it in favor of the other accommodation reserved for him—a three-room suite at the hotel Loftleidir. While this was one of Iceland’s best hotels, it was functional rather than luxurious, looking like an airport terminal, low-rise, set off from a big thoroughfare, with a façade of precast rectangular windows and paneling.

Fischer granted the BBC an interview, conducted by a well-known science correspondent, James Burke, and produced by Bob Toner, who has good reason to remember the occasion: “We started recording and Fischer looked very bored and for two reels we got nothing, twenty minutes of nothing, just one-line answers. I thought my career was disappearing down the tubes. But then, in between reels, he asked Burke what kind of events he normally covered. Burke said he had reported on the Apollo launches, and you could see Fischer’s interest light up. And he said, ‘You mean you go to Houston, you go to launch pads?’ ‘Yes,’ said Burke, ‘I know Neil Armstrong very well.’ After that Fischer couldn’t stop talking.”

Soon after Fischer’s arrival, Paul Marshall held a news conference, adopting an emollient tone. Fischer was sorry to be late and he applauded Spassky for waiting for him. Andrew Davis, Fischer’s other lawyer, was far less loquacious, drawing on his pipe while looking balefully through his bifocals. However, Soviet composure, both in Moscow and in Reykjavik, could no longer be preserved, and the Soviet delegation responded with a news conference of its own. Euwe had not followed FIDE rules. Fischer should have been punished for various violations.

Yet again, Thorarinsson was off to seek prime ministerial intervention. This time, Johannesson summoned Sergei Astavin, the Soviet ambassador. He praised Spassky’s forbearance and asked Astavin to do what he could to ensure the match took place.

Theodore Tremblay wired Washington that “the Russians had become increasingly difficult… to the extent that the match again seemed threatened.” Tremblay, like Spassky, thought a direct approach should be made to Moscow and suggested as much to the prime minister. He has a different account of the prime minister’s meeting with the Soviet ambassador. According to Tremblay, Johannesson said the Russians “should quit being so silly.”

In Moscow, the major concern was still over Spassky’s state of mind, and they wanted a week’s postponement. It was felt that the world champion had been distracted by having to deal with Fischer’s antics and would be too wound up to play properly. It was also felt that Fischer had arrived in good form—though how they could possibly have known that is unclear (after all, unlike Spassky, who had had time to settle in, Fischer was probably jet-lagged).

Then the temperature rose further. Up to this point, dissatisfaction with FIDE and Fischer had been voiced in Moscow by chess players, journalists, and, most significant, the Sports Committee. But now intervention came from a more elevated political level, the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Aleksandr Yakovlev, then acting head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, fumed over the “humiliation” of the world champion. He blamed Viktor Ivonin for in effect helping the Americans by not summoning Spassky back. Spassky should leave, he pronounced.

Whoever did not actively support the Soviet system was against it. Even a senior figure like Ivonin was not immune. He recorded: “Yakovlev accused me personally several times of not creating a situation where Spassky could come home. He said that in a way, given my position, I was helping the Americans.” The functionary went on and on in the same vein. An experienced Party politician, Ivonin responded by consulting a psychiatrist about how Spassky could be persuaded to return even if he was determined to stay. Having received some guidance, he told Yakovlev that he was indeed ready to fly to Reykjavik. “It’s very easy to give advice but not so easy to take responsibility,” remembers Ivonin. “And when I told Yakovlev that I would go, he said, ‘No, no, don’t. We’ll talk about it later.’ And he rang me a bit later with the news that [Party secretary Piotr] Demichev had said, ‘No need to fly. Spassky must not be the first to leave.’ After that, Yakovlev’s energy subsided.”

The situation was not helped by the far from straightforward communication between Reykjavik and Moscow. The champion’s team used Soviet journalists’ telephones to speak to Sports Committee officials, including the minister, Sergei Pavlov. The TASS correspondent Aleksandr Yermakov overheard Moscow being counseled that Spassky was in a strange frame of mind; care must be taken in dealings with him.

There are numerous accounts of Pavlov telephoning Spassky and pressuring him to return to the USSR. Some have him ordering the world champion back and meeting a brave refusal. Such a command seems unlikely. Spassky was world champion and in charge of his own defense, and he still believed he would win. Furthermore, Ivonin has no record of his recall being discussed in the Sports Committee. Yermakov recollects the phone call but says that Spassky phoned Pavlov, not the other way around. He remembers Spassky talking in a quiet and conversational tone, and not for long. Pavlov, he says, was trying to help the world champion deal with the situation, advising him to consider declaring the match void, but finally agreeing that he should stay. On 7 July, Pavlov told Ivonin that his place was by Spassky’s side. Ivonin left for Reykjavik four days later.

A problem for the far-off Moscow bureaucracy was that events were moving fast. Fischer had already plunged the proceedings into a new controversy, locking himself away from officials and sending his second, Lombardy, to act for him at the drawing of lots to determine who would open with the advantage of the white pieces. This was too much even for Spassky. First the empty chair, now a replacement at this crucial ceremony. He read a short prepared statement in Russian and left the room; suddenly the future of the match was again in doubt. His statement protested against the postponement of the match and accused Fischer of violating the rules and insulting the Soviet people. A just punishment was required. This could only mean forfeiting the first game.

Spassky’s reaction triggered a plethora of meetings in hotels around Reykjavik, at all hours of day and night. Spassky wanted an apology as well as an appropriate sanction imposed on Fischer. Even after a three-hour meeting between Fischer’s and Spassky’s representatives, the matter remained unresolved.

Victor Jackovich, later a U.S. ambassador, was the only American diplomat in Iceland who could speak Russian. He was brought in as an interpreter:

Paul Marshall’s view was that the Soviets’ emotional involvement in the match gave him a bargaining edge:

The organizers were not having much fun. They had to deal with the Soviet claim that Fischer forfeit the first game. All knew the latter was out of the question for Fischer. “The situation is critical,” Euwe declared. “I don’t know if the match will be played at all.”

Schmid concedes that the Russians were within their rights to demand the first game, but when he and Euwe met Spassky, “I tried to make a joke of it and said, ‘How about a pawn head start in game one instead of a point?’” This raised a rare Soviet smile. Schmid reminded them that in other competitions the Russians had arrived a day late because of travel hitches—even once for a tournament in Reykjavik—and they had been allowed a postponement. This, he maintained, set a precedent.

A grueling second meeting between Thorarinsson, Euwe, and Spassky’s seconds was held late in the evening at the Saga. This time Thorarinsson took the role of white knight:

This moment of inspired casuistry immediately terminated the forfeit debate but was not enough to rescue the match; there were still the required expressions of contrition. On 5 July, the Soviet delegation issued a statement, read by Geller at a press conference. Hastily translated, it complained that “an unprecedented in the history of chess situation [sic]” had arisen when the world champion was made to wait. This was also the infringement of FIDE rules. The absence of the challenger at the opening and his three-day delay were insulting. This breach had been “taken under the protection” of Euwe. There followed a proposition with which few could quarrel: “All that have [sic] happened were enough to B. Spasski [sic] to discontinue the negotiations and leave for home. The only thing that is keeping him hitherto from taking this step is his understanding of the match meaning [sic] for the world of chess and for hospitable Iceland.”

Decoded, the statement added an extra condition for the survival of the match. As well as Fischer’s apology, the Soviets now required Euwe’s condemnation of Fischer’s behavior and an admission by the president that he had violated FIDE rules by postponing the match.

Earlier, Fischer’s team had gone a short way down the apology route, offering a terse handout written by Marshall: “We are sorry that the world championship was delayed…. If Grandmaster Spassky or the Soviet people were inconvenienced or discomforted, I am indeed unhappy, for I had not the slightest intention of this occurring.” Geller rejected it at the press conference as entirely inadequate—it had been mimeographed and was unsigned.

Euwe was in the audience, which had now gone quiet. In what Lothar Schmid called “a great gesture by a great man, saving the match,” he immediately rose to do his part in meeting the Soviet conditions. The USSR embassy interpreter, Valeri Chamanin, jotted down Euwe’s words on his own copy of Geller’s statement. The president admitted breaking FIDE rules “for special reasons,” for which he apologized; he condemned Fischer’s behavior, and he accepted that Spassky could not be expected to play within the next four days.

The press conference spontaneously erupted in applause, although they also greeted with ridicule Euwe’s assertion that Fischer did not intend to cause trouble. The Washington Post commented that everybody thought Fischer and his companions were the villains. A Los Angeles Times article filed from Iceland was headlined BOBBY FISCHER AS THE UGLY AMERICAN. However, the Soviets too came in for criticism. The British papers reported an attack by Ed Edmondson. If the Soviets claimed victory because of Fischer’s failure to appear, they would be “showing themselves in their true colours as grasping, greedy, deceitful nonsportsmen.” Edmondson added, “I do not intend this to be a personal attack on Spassky because we all know that he is being guided—I should say misguided—by the Russian Ministry of Sport.”

Immediately after Geller’s press conference, Fred Cramer called one of his own. Concessions were out of the question. If any apologizing was to be done, Cramer said, Dr. Euwe should apologize to the Americans. He had broken the rules in favor of the Russians. As for Fischer, he “felt he hadn’t violated the rules.”

Meanwhile, Tremblay had met Lombardy and Marshall for what the chargé called a strategy session “aimed at getting the contestants to the chessboard and reversing the propaganda trend that had been heavily pro-Spassky.” The Washington Post depicted Fischer’s entourage as part of the problem: Lombardy and the lawyers were professionally closemouthed, Cramer the opposite. The Post remarked: “All in all, the Americans add up to a great team—for Spassky.”

The outcome of the meeting was a new letter of apology by Fischer to Spassky. Fischer, in one of those sudden, unexpected, and inexplicable U-turns that had dotted his career, now decided on an act of abnegation. He scrawled a note in which he proposed giving up every cent of the prize money and competing simply for the love of chess. Horrified, Marshall and Darrach worked on the text through the night, finally persuading Fischer to delete any reference to relinquishing the prize. Marshall was quoted as having described his task as “feeling like a cop trying to talk a jump case off a ledge.”

The letter was delivered to Spassky’s hotel room in the early morning while he slept. Fischer offered “sincere apologies” to Spassky and apologies to Euwe and millions of chess fans for his “disrespectful behavior in not attending the opening ceremony.” He also confessed that he had been carried away by his petty dispute over money. However, the hand of the lawyer is plain. After the opening paragraph of soft soap, the next paragraph carefully argues the case against a forfeit of the first game, casting doubt on the Soviets’ motive in demanding it, especially when they had apparently accepted a postponement. Anyway, the apology goes on, surely Spassky would not want an unfair advantage? Then, following best public relations practice, it concluded with an appeal to Spassky’s honor: “I know you to be a sportsman and a gentleman, and I am looking forward to some exciting chess games with you.” In the circumstances, it was a psychological masterstroke. How could the champion not be disarmed? The U.S. embassy released the letter to the press before the Soviets had a chance to react.

It worked. Opinion swung toward the American challenger for the first time. The match was back on.

On 7 July, lots were drawn. Again Fischer was late, leaving the Russian to sweat it out once more. When the American arrived at the playing hall, according to Darrach “bursting out of the cab in a glitter-green slubbed silk suit with wide pointy shoulders,” he at first failed to notice Spassky. The world champion “stood staring at the broad green back, his smile crumpled and his tan two shades lighter. Big and vital and overdressed, Fischer looked every inch the arrogant superstar. In a sweater that had lost its casual flair, Spassky looked like a guy who had asked for an autograph and been told to buzz off.” The Moscow evening paper Vecherniaia Moskva recorded the draw:

Spassky would start with the white pieces.

There is now an interval in the drama, a breathing space for the harried actors. The first game has been rescheduled at the Soviets’ request (or ultimatum) for 11 July. Spassky relaxes over a salmon fishing expedition. Gudmundur Thorarinsson rests. Paul Marshall returns to his less troublesome clients in New York. Lothar Schmid has to fly back to Germany briefly to tend to his son, who has fallen off a bicycle while pedaling downhill and is suffering from a head injury. Fischer can slip into his routine of sleeping by day and bowling and eating U.S. steaks by night at the Keflavik military base.