David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War

In his letter of explanation, Taimanov protested, unconvincingly, that the Solzhenitsyn book was essential reading because foreign journalists were always interrogating him about the USSR’s most famous author. He had not read any of Solzhenitsyn’s books before, and “I thought that it would be expedient to familiarize myself with at least one of them. Of course I intended to dispose of the book afterward… but I forgot to do so.” He went on, “I consider this mistake to be a serious misdemeanor on my part, which can only be explained by a state of shock caused by what I had been through.”

Of course, he knew—everybody knew—that the real charge was what Pavlov, in his secret report to the Central Committee on 21 June, called “the unprecedented defeat of a Soviet grandmaster.” In the minds of the officials, a Soviet grandmaster’s losing six to nil to the representative of U.S. imperialism was equivalent to an act of intentional ideological sabotage. Taimanov puts his treatment down to the fact that “I was the first. And they thought something lay behind it, something political.”

Today, the broadcast journalist and chess specialist Naum Dymarskii insists that Taimanov’s “offense” was possession of the forbidden book. “But if Taimanov had won, the customs would have ignored it.” Indeed, Taimanov tells how at Sheremet’evo the customs official had asked, “Why did you lose? If you had beaten Fischer, I would have carried all the volumes of Solzhenitsyn’s books myself to your taxi.” Taimanov managed to retain a sense of humor through the ordeal, laughing at a joke “by my friend the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich that Solzhenitsyn had been arrested for carrying one of my chess books.”

He was not the only scapegoat. Aleksandr Kotov, the head of Taimanov’s delegation, was also attacked for showing a marked failure of leadership. Kotov admitted that Taimanov had played like a machine that had completely broken down. He, Kotov, was then accused of being disrespectful to Comrade Dmitriev, the customs official. He denied this: “We talked in the politest manner.” In his “explanatory letter” to Pavlov and the Council of Ministers Committee for Physical Training and Sport, Kotov wrote that he had actually thanked Dmitriev for teaching them a lesson well learned. The panic is palpable; so is the humiliation.

At the time, the repercussions for Taimanov were sobering—he thought that they were meant as a caution for the world champion. He was thrown out of the USSR team and forbidden to travel for two years. He was banned from writing articles, was deprived of his monthly stipend, even stripped of his title, honored USSR Master of Sport. (The title was eventually reawarded in the last days of the Soviet Union.) As if this were not retribution enough, the authorities prohibited him from performing on the concert platform. From being an elite member of Soviet society, with a comparatively comfortable lifestyle, Taimanov was now a discredited figure facing financial ruin. His marriage was also affected. He wrote later that his “unpredictable fate” had “shattered the family unity.”

Few of Taimanov’s friends and colleagues were brave enough publicly to come to his defense, though many privately sympathized with his plight. There was, however, one exception—Boris Spassky. In the postmortem, the world champion put a rhetorical question: “When we’ve all lost to Fischer, will all of us be dragged on the carpet?” Spassky also showed his irreverent side. Baturinskii wanted to know if a physician should have been sent to help Taimanov. “Yes,” interjected Spassky, “a sexologist.” “I see, Boris, that you are in a jovial mood,” was Baturinskii’s irritated response. Taimanov remains grateful to Spassky that the world champion also backed him publicly. “Everybody criticized me, and Spassky was one of the few who openly defended me to the press by saying, ‘Whatever the result, as a match it was very interesting.’ How they dared to print it I don’t know.”

Fischer’s next match was against Bent Larsen. Fischer was again the favorite, but Spassky predicted a tight struggle. “Larsen is a little stronger in spirit.” The Dane had been the only other Western player to pose a challenge to Soviet hegemony in the previous decade. He had also beaten Fischer twice. After bids were taken to host the contest, the players settled on the U.S. city of Denver as the venue.

Larsen believes that accepting this was his fatal mistake. Accustomed to the gentle summer breezes of northern Europe, he found himself sweltering in a Colorado heat wave. “I couldn’t play. I just couldn’t play. And I couldn’t sleep. They had the hottest summer since 1936. It was so hot that people who worked in offices were allowed to stay at home.”

The first game got under way on 6 July in the playing hall of a women’s college, Temple Buell. Fischer won. He won the second game and then the third and the fourth. After the fourth, Larsen complained of feeling ill and exhausted, and the doctors ordered a break. Fischer then wrapped up proceedings with two more wins in a row.

Recall that Fischer had swept majestically through the last seven games in the Interzonal. With the victory against Taimanov by six games to zero and now Larsen by the same score, he had achieved nineteen consecutive wins against outstanding opposition, a feat in chess that had never been equaled. One hypothetical parallel would be a tennis player taking the Wimbledon title without dropping a single game throughout the tournament.

Although chess was still confined to the back pages, public interest in Fischer was now gathering momentum. President Nixon sent Fischer a letter:

I wanted to add my personal congratulations to the many you have already received. Your string of nineteen consecutive victories in world-class competition is unprecedented, and you have every reason to take great satisfaction in your superb achievement. As you prepare to meet the winner of the Petrosian-Korchnoi matches, you may be certain that your fellow citizens will be cheering you on. Good luck!

The winner of the Petrosian-Korchnoi duel was the forty-two-year-old former world champion Tigran Petrosian. The result of his match with Fischer would determine the challenger to Boris Spassky. The Fischer juggernaut seemed unstoppable.

Petrosian and Fischer had met eighteen times previously, with three victories apiece and twelve draws. Petrosian was known as the maestro of the draw. He had a unique technique, which, despite being highly effective, had not endeared him to the millions of chess fans around the world. He shunned complexity, taking preemptive defensive measures whenever possible. He would lull his opponents into a false sense of security, often inveigling them into overreaching. Then he would grind them relentlessly down with deadly strategic precision, pressing home the tiniest positional advantage (an apparently inconsequential move of the queen’s rook’s pawn might baffle spectators; eight moves later it would invariably turn out to be on the perfect square).

Athens, Belgrade, and Buenos Aires all bid for the match. Petrosian wanted to play in Greece, Fischer in Argentina for two reasons—they were offering the most money, and they had the best steak. Lots were drawn to settle it, with Buenos Aires triumphant.

Fischer fever may not yet have circled the globe, but its arrival in Argentina was unquestionable. Buenos Aires was a chess city—host to over sixty clubs. The organizers had offered $7,500 for the winner, $4,500 for the loser. The match would take place in one of the most prominent theaters, the San Martin, at the center of the capital’s cultural life. It was situated on the equivalent of Broadway, the Avenida Corrientes. Chess was now “entertainment.”

Tickets went on sale at nine A.M. (the games began at five P.M.), by which time several thousand people were already lining up. The regular audience was one and a half thousand, a very high number for a game not previously regarded as much of a spectator sport.