David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War

Both Spassky and Fischer were asked to list their preferences. At this stage, Spassky’s two chief desires were to play on neutral ground and not to split the match between two cities. He was also anxious about the weather. Holland was his preference. The Icelanders could point out that Reykjavik had a climate similar to Spassky’s home city, Leningrad.

The climate, in contrast, never seemed to trouble Fischer much. “Money, money, money,” was what he cared about, or so he said. His preference was always likely to be the highest bidder, Belgrade, where he had been widely admired since competing in the Interzonal in Yugoslavia as a fifteen-year-old. This admiration for Fischer was an obvious drawback for Spassky.

How, then, to decide? For the Soviets, the necessity of thrashing out a deal, of seeking the middle ground, was the beginning of a painful awakening. They had held a monopoly of the championship since the war. Details of any squabbling remained behind closed doors. Behind those doors they had been able to determine the site, the conditions, the prize. Now the authorities had to learn the art of compromise and to do so in doubly difficult circumstances, dealing with the Americans and dealing with Spassky.

Disarray and vacillation reigned. The possibility of playing half in the United States and half in Leningrad was canvassed. When this idea was abandoned, the list of preferences became Amsterdam, Iceland, Bled—or, if not in Europe, then Argentina. Later the order read Reykjavik, Dortmund, Paris, and Amsterdam. There was a further shuffling before the final list was produced. Interestingly, the money on offer seems to have been irrelevant to the Soviets’ decision-making process.

Small wonder, then, that in this confused atmosphere the first major row between the Soviets and FIDE occurred through what might have been a simple misunderstanding over the deadline for submitting lists of preferences. This had initially been set for 31 January 1972, but the Soviets believed Euwe had then brought it forward to 27 January: he maintained that the new date had merely been a FIDE request to speed the process along. The Soviets handed in their list on 27 January. The Americans handed in theirs four days later, when, to Moscow’s great annoyance and consternation, Euwe accepted it as arriving in time.

The price Euwe paid for his management of the location issue was that the Soviets would never again fully trust him to be impartial. Internal Soviet documents impugn his integrity, accusing him of being “indulgent” toward Fischer. The Soviets were further incensed when, during a trip to the United States, Euwe publicly predicted that Fischer would be victorious. In Euwe’s defense, it should perhaps be said that rather than being on Fischer’s side, he was on the side of the match taking place—but for the Soviets, in the light of Fischer’s behavior, this amounted to much the same thing.

Fischer and Spassky eventually submitted four locations each. The Americans chose Belgrade, Sarajevo, Buenos Aires, and Montreal; the Soviets chose Reykjavik, Amsterdam, Dortmund, and Paris. Thus the Soviets’ favorite city was capitalist, the Americans’ communist (though Yugoslavia was not within the Soviet sphere of influence). To put it another way, for both contestants, climate and cash superseded politics.

Negotiations stretched out over the next two months. On 7 February, Edmondson arrived in Moscow to hammer out a deal. He was both liked and respected there, knowing how to get on with his hosts (for instance, confiding in them his reservations on Fischer’s personality and behavior). Because there was little between the financial inducements offered by Belgrade and Reykjavik (especially given an explicit commitment from Iceland to pay the players 30 percent of the TV revenue), and because Spassky was adamant that he would find a Yugoslav summer insufferable, Edmondson signed an agreement for the match to be staged in Iceland.

Euwe’s sigh of relief had barely been exhaled before he received the news that Fischer, holed up in New York, was refusing to acknowledge the Moscow pact. He repeated that he wanted to compete in Belgrade or on American soil.

Desperately, the FIDE president sought a way out. On 14 February, he offered a compromise: to stage the first half of the match in Belgrade, the second in Reykjavik. It was a middle way that suited neither city. In Belgrade, there was resentment that Iceland would host the climax of the match. In Reykjavik, the concern was that one player might secure such a commanding lead in Yugoslavia that by the time the championship moved to Iceland, it would be as good as over. Fischer accepted the compromise. In Moscow, anger and frustration had erupted again. Ivonin described the atmosphere there as a madhouse. In his diary, he noted, “Protest to the very end.”

However, in his talks with the Soviets, Euwe had a major advantage: The world champion was impatient for the match to go ahead. At some point between 2 and 5 March, Spassky decided to let the two-city verdict stand, insisting that all the arrangements must be laid out in a comprehensive contract. The Soviets couched their face-saving retreat in altruistic terms. They would reconsider their attitude, they wrote in a letter to FIDE dated 5 March, for the sake of the millions of chess fans around the world and in view of their friendly relations with the Yugoslav chess authorities.

To finalize the details, representatives of the United States, USSR, Icelandic, and Yugoslav Chess Federations were summoned to a meeting in Amsterdam in late March. Euwe must have been confident that the imbroglio had been resolved, for he was off on a goodwill tour of chess federations in the Far East; the deputy president of FIDE, N. Rabell Mendez, a Puerto Rican, stood in for him. Euwe was surprised and hurt by Soviet criticism of his absence.

In spite of Fischer’s rejection of his last undertaking, Ed Edmondson acted as Fischer’s delegate. Negotiations lasted a few days. By 20 March, every aspect of the conduct of the match had been hammered out; the final session lasted until three in the morning. The rules were designed to cover all the minutiae, from the drawing of lots to determine who would begin with the white pieces to the question of exactly how late a player had to be (one hour) before the game was forfeited. The process was long and tiresome, but the atmosphere was relatively amicable. It appeared to be all wrapped up.

With Fischer, things could never be that simple. Two days later, the occupant of room G6 in upstate New York’s Grossinger’s resort hotel fired off a telegram.

Littered with spelling and typing errors, it was addressed to the head of the Yugoslav Chess Federation and to his Icelandic counterpart, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. In ninety words, Fischer repudiated Edmondson’s agreement and threatened not to appear unless the financial arrangements were changed so that all the income from the match, less expenses, went to the players.

To his credit, the Icelandic official sent back a courageously curt, handwritten reply: “Re your cable 22 Marz [sic]: any changes of the financial agreement in Amsterdam are out of the question. G. Thorarinsson.” From Grossinger’s there came a one-line response. Fischer refused to play at all in Iceland. The conditions were “unexceptable [sic].”

For the Yugoslavs, the match was becoming too much of a gamble. They now refused to host it unless they received a deposit of $35,000 from the United States and USSR Chess Federations as surety against the match not going ahead. The Soviets unwillingly agreed, even though they thought Spassky was allowing himself to be humiliated. The Americans—for whom this constituted a far greater risk—did not agree.

Perhaps Fischer understood that for Euwe an ultimatum was, in the American writer Ambrose Bierce’s phrase, the last warning before making concessions. Nevertheless, FIDE sent Fischer an ultimatum: He must confirm by 4 April that he was prepared to play under the Amsterdam conditions. Back from the U.S. Chess Federation came the soothing—if confusing—response that “Mr. Fischer is prepared to play at the agreed times and venues. Paul Marshal] will finalize negotiations in friendly fashion on our federation’s behalf.”