David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War

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:

None of us in the embassy was familiar with the rules or with FIDE. This could be a fiasco, we thought, if the Russians walk out and claim a forfeiture of the entire match. And maybe that’s where we’re headed. The Soviets were tough customers, and understandably unhappy about the circumstances. We were having to interpret what Fischer was trying to do, and what he was trying to do was anyone’s guess. Afterward, discussing the episode with colleagues, we said, Well, maybe the Russians missed a beat there; maybe it would have been expedient for them to have walked out.

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

[It] allowed for an odd combination of tactics; fun, joyful tactics, because they were so damned serious about it all. It was like a bad movie with a load of snarling Russians. It wasn’t that hard to negotiate if one took a position that they didn’t like. You could make fun of them, and knowing that the fun would be publicized really helped a lot.

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:

Dr. Euwe fought with them for a long time. I tried to be neutral and didn’t say much. When it came to three or four in the morning, both Schmid and Euwe were becoming very, very tired. Suddenly Dr. Euwe gave in. He said, “I see there is no other way. I declare the first game lost.” And they all stood up. For me it was clear it was all over, there would now be no match. I banged my hand on the table and said, “This is impossible, and it’s my fault. Because according to the laws of chess, you can’t lose a game by forfeit unless the clock has been started. We are the organizers, and we failed to start the clock.” It was a drowning man grasping at something. And the Russians all sat down.