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

15. A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP

Fischer could have faced tougher “chicken” opposition if the match had been held in a major city, Belgrade, Amsterdam, Paris, Moscow, New York. Another chess federation might not have felt obliged to concede ground. During the contest, practically the entire Icelandic population had to be mobilized—the police, the hoteliers, the restaurateurs, home owners with a room to spare, technicians, the print media. The Icelandic papers gave up most of their front pages to the chess match (splitting broadly along ideological lines: of the dailies, the conservative favored Fischer, the center and left of center tried for balance, and the radical left backed Spassky). Conversation among the Icelandic public was dominated by chess. On park benches, in cafés, locals and tourists could be seen bent over their pocket sets. The shop windows displayed posters of the two contestants. There were decorations around town in the shape of chess pieces. On sale were memorabilia of all kinds, including postcards containing the final position of each game.

At one time or another in that July and August, more than 15 percent of the world’s grandmasters came to Reykjavik. As well as the three grandmasters among the Soviet and U.S. teams and the German arbiter, Schmid, eight other grandmasters were present, reporting, or simply watching the match—Olafsson, Najdorf, Larsen, Byrne, Evans, Gligoric, Dragoljub Janosevic, and Lubomir Kavalek.

For this island on the edge of Europe, here was a golden moment: pride, their chess tradition, an invasion by chess tourists and the world press, the sound of cash registers tinkling nonstop—all came together in a national event never seen before.

But the scale of the operation and the effort involved also demonstrated clearly a fundamental weakness in the Icelanders’ negotiating position. Goodwill, patriotism, love of chess, hard work, hospitality, and decency were not sufficient. With the whole island involved, Iceland could not risk Fischer’s departure and the premature ending of this most intensely important of affairs.

Part of the pressure was that with the match, Iceland was international news, although foreign journalists’ interests were strictly parochial. They acted like a small-town tour party jotting down pleasing facts and anecdotes for their readers’ delectation: the place, the people, even the pets. There was a fascination with Iceland’s canine population; in the countryside, if a dog barked at a stranger, the owner would be considered guilty of bad manners. In Reykjavik, dogs had been forbidden since 1924, and a campaign was now under way to have the relevant legislation revoked. The Association of Dog Friends threatened to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg.

Happily for members of the press, Icelanders were too good-natured to take offense as the visitors focused on what were, to them, the quaint and the bizarre. Yes, many Icelandic homes have an “elves rock”: elves are said to live underneath, and woe betide the person who moves the rock—he or she will be afflicted with boils. Yes, there are hardly any trees in Iceland, no reptiles, and in July golfers tee off at midnight. Yes, it really is true that in the phone book subscribers are listed by first names only and the cabbies do not accept tips. Yes, because of the small, tightly knit society, intermarriage is not as problematic as in more populous countries and genealogical records allow people to track their ancestors back a thousand years. (Hence, today, Icelanders are the focus of research into DNA.) Yes, Iceland boasts the oldest parliament in the world, the Althing. What is more, the country has a near 100 percent literacy rate, there is almost zero crime, and according to international polls, Icelanders are the people most likely to sacrifice their lives for others.

Back in the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon was embroiled in ending the Vietnam War and preoccupied with his dramatic breakthroughs to China and the Soviet Union; the leader of the free world was simultaneously preparing to run for a second term in the November presidential poll. A comparison with the president of Iceland was the cause of some merriment in the U.S. press. Dr. Kristjan Eldjarn held this largely ceremonial post in part because nobody else could be persuaded to take it off him. It paid only $12,000. Eldjarn was an archaeologist whose principal hobby was traversing the country hunting for birds’ nests—he was an eiderdown plucker.

There was particular incredulity at the heroic capacity of Icelandic men to consume alcohol. Spirits were the liquor of choice, since the purchase and sale of beer was banned. Correspondents reported how, over the weekends, respectable citizens could be seen staggering out of bars in the middle of the night, near insensible from drink.

In the U.S. papers, there was some disparaging comment from the big-city writers about the tranquillity of Icelandic life, which seemed to be conducted at the leisurely pace of grandmaster chess. “Not much happens around here most of the time,” began a dispatch from Joe Alex Morris Jr. for The Los Angeles Times, though he says things perked up in July with the arrival of a Scandinavian dentists convention. Amazement was expressed at the television station’s closing as usual for the whole of July despite the fact that Iceland was hosting an event generating headlines worldwide. “The nightclubs never close,” wrote Joe Alex Morris, before adding his sting: “There are none to close up.”

How did the locals view this invasion? On the whole, with remarkable good grace. They were even accommodating, slowly, to Fischer. Before arriving in Reykjavik, Fischer had vowed, “I’m going to teach these Icelandic creeps a lesson.” And when he failed to appear for game two, Icelanders returned the compliment. A voice from the auditorium shouted, “Send him back to the United States!” The Icelandic press were uniformly hostile: one paper called his action “the chess scandal of the century” another printed a cartoon showing Fischer’s hotel room and a DO NOT DISTURB notice, under the caption “Come Out and Fight, Bobby Fischer, Or Are You a Coward?” Fischer was labeled “the most hated man in Iceland.”

Ordinary Icelanders had been baffled and hurt by his behavior. The struggle for survival on this barren island has bred into its citizens a high sense of responsibility for one another. The Reverend Pitur Mannusson called on his congregation to turn the other cheek: “I urge those who have been offended… to hold their heads high if they meet [Fischer] on the street. That is what I am going to do if I meet this sharp-tongued genius.” Fischer’s incessant demands became the butt of local humor. The joke doing the Reykjavik rounds was that Fischer had demanded the setting of the sun three hours earlier.

Meanwhile, Spassky was quietly winning admirers. Unfailingly courteous and diplomatic, he would chat with those who sought his autograph, and was shown in newspaper photographs enjoying the Icelandic wilderness on rest days. Soon after his arrival, the champion tried his hand at catching fish. Spassky loved the serenity and seemed not to mind how many (or how few) salmon he hooked.

Everywhere Spassky went, he was greeted warmly. When he went to a sports shop to buy sneakers, the shopkeeper refused to take his cash. When he went to the cinema, they let him in free. The champion could have been forgiven for believing he had arrived in a socialist utopia.

He made friends with several Icelanders, such as Sigfus Sigfusson, the vice president of the Hekla car dealership. Each night Spassky would take a stroll around the Saga, and each night he would walk past Sigfusson’s house on the seafront, where a British Leyland Range Rover stood in the drive.

One evening, Sigfusson spotted the world chess champion admiring the car. He went out to greet him; the two started chatting and hit it off. A dealer to his fingertips, Sigfusson offered him a car for the duration of the match. From that moment on, Spassky was often photographed driving in his Range Rover to and from the match. “It was free advertising.”

In the small, close-knit community of Reykjavik, news that Spassky was a gentleman quickly became common knowledge. But as the match settled in, the number of Fischer’s fans also began to grow. Once the challenger got to work and ceased insulting Iceland, Icelanders began to reconcile themselves to his idiosyncratic ways. In sport, the bad boy has always exerted a powerful allure, especially when boorish behavior is accompanied by skill and glory.

He could not have had a more totally appreciative audience for those skills. The local chess club, the Glaesibaer, bustled between match games; foreigners were allowed to join in, and masters, including David Levy, invited to give simultaneous displays.

With the match now rescued, chess fans could look forward to a titanic struggle at the board.