April 9, 2004, 1:32PM
Happier times. Fischer, Tal, Polugaevsky, Spassky at the Havana Olympiad in
66.
Politics, personalities rule chess showdown
By JOHN W. ROYAL
IT'S taken half the book, but we've finally arrived. We're in a small white room
off the main stage, normally used for table-tennis matches. Today it holds a
small table. On the table are a chess set, some writing pads, a clock.
World chess champion Boris Spassky sits at the table. His challenger, Bobby
Fischer, storms in, screaming. He's discovered that a small TV camera has been
installed in the room. The camera will convey the action to reporters, fans and
the world at large. And Fischer wants it gone. He's raging, pacing.
Spassky has had enough. Enough of the tantrums. The delays. The strange Fischer
demands. Spassky is leading in the competition, but he can't take it anymore.
He's leaving. Lothar Schmid, the match arbiter, walks over and shoves both men
into their chairs. Spassky makes a move. Schmid starts the clock. The match is
under way.
And so, suddenly, is Bobby Fischer Goes to War, the new book by David Edmonds
and John Eidinow, authors of Wittgenstein's Poker. Like Schmid shoving Fischer
and Spassky into their chairs, the dramatic moment brings the book to life,
changes it from a slow history of chess, Fischer and Spassky into a page-turning
account of the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland.
An understanding of chess is not required to enjoy this book; the matches are
secondary to the personalities and politics that dominated this competition.
The backdrop is super-powered: Richard Nixon is trying to formulate an exit
strategy from Vietnam. Watergate is beginning. The Munich Olympics are just
around the corner. There's a slight thaw in the Cold War. Nixon has been to the
Soviet Union and China. Athletic competitions between the two empires are coming
to the fore as a new, safer battleground.
At ground zero is Fischer, the American chess genius who is taking the world by
storm. Only one thing stands in his way: the Soviet chess machine, represented
by world champion Spassky.
The opening third of the book is biography, exploring Fischer's and Spassky's
personalities, upbringings and prejudices, their love and hatred of chess.
Fischer is a flaming anti-Semite who, though a genius, makes such demands on
competition organizers that he's missing many tournaments. Spassky is a
free-thinker, always fighting the Soviet party apparatus and his minders.
The biographical material is important but only intermittently interesting.
Then the games begin -- and not just the World Chess Championship. First there's
the game of choosing the location. Fischer wants the place offering the most
money. The Soviets want a place where U.S. influence is slight. Spassky wants
Iceland. Iceland it is.
Then the Fischer demands begin -- about money, about filming, about noise, about
living conditions. He refuses to board planes. Misses the opening ceremonies.
He forfeits the first two matches. Henry Kissinger is on the telephone, talking
to Nixon, Fischer, Soviet officials, anyone who might keep the competition
going. Spassky fights his handlers, who are demanding that he return to the
Soviet Union. The Icelandic Chess Federation changes deadlines, bends rules, all
in an attempt to get the matches started.
As readers, we're on the ride now, hanging on every move of every pawn. Siding
with Spassky, wanting Fischer to grow up. Feeling for the chess officials trying
to handle Fischer's complaints.
Then the match -- which will become known as the chess competition of the
century -- is over: Fischer triumphant. Spassky, broken, will try to regain his
title. Fischer will refuse to defend the title and sink into a life of oblivion
and mystery, surfacing from time to time to make anti-Semitic remarks. In a 1992
rematch, he will again beat Spassky.
The authors do a good job with the atmosphere surrounding the competition,
providing a history lesson of a world teetering on the brink. U.S.-Soviet
détente will destruct by the end of the decade. The paralysis that will lead to
the Soviet Union's downfall is well-documented, obvious in 20-20 hindsight.
But they don't entirely succeed in showing the unprecedented way this match
brought down the Soviet chess machine.
It's too bad, because the answer is right there. In the Olympics later that
year, the Soviet Union will upset the mighty U.S. basketball team. The Americans
are like Spassky, always ready to play. The Soviets are like Fischer, triumphing
after getting the officials to change the rules to allow for one last shot that
should never should have been.