Epic battle of the Cold War

Pawns in a greater game
Steve Bunce
Sunday 21 July 2013

The Cold War was raging when the Russians and the Americans started arriving in Reykjavik in the summer of 1972 for the greatest chess match in the history of the sport.

Bobby Fischer, the American challenger, was the first player from outside the Soviet Union since 1948 to earn the right to challenge for the world chess championship. Fischer was insolent, rude, brilliant, vain, vulgar, fanatical and quite ruthless: he was the perfect chess player.

Boris Spassky, the Russian, was the world champion and equally savage on the chessboard; he was also considered the greatest player ever. The scene was set for the showdown, the preparations in place after a year of strategic planning. The world’s media gathered, putting the build-up on the front pages and at the top of television news bulletins.

The first move was scheduled for July 1 and Spassky was there, shadowed by his KGB minders, ready to go to war. Fischer was missing, presumed lost. There was not a problem with the cruel genius; he was in New York studying a 1000-page document that held every single game and move that Spassky had ever played. The thumbed and grungy book of moves, its annotated pages proof of intense scrutiny, was Fischer’s companion into battle.

In Iceland there was a dreadful but familiar impasse; it was, after all, the Cold War and the chess masters were simply unarmed soldiers. The tension was building, the Soviets were demanding victory by default. Not Spassky; he wanted to crush the American.

It was at this point that Henry Kissinger was asked to get involved and intervene. Kissinger tracked down Fischer and called him. “This is the worst player in the world calling the best player in the world,” Kissinger said when Fischer answered the telephone. President Richard Nixon – Tricky Dicky, noted chess fan and sponsor of aerial death – also called the fugitive and then David Frost found an extra sponsor. The combined forces of the men in power worked and the game was on.

The lights went up in the arena on July 11, the crowd silent when Spassky sat down, moved his queen’s pawn two places and reclined in his chair. Fischer was in Reykjavik but not in his chair at the table. The seconds ticked, the silence was malevolent and then after six minutes Fischer walked in, shook hands with his great rival and the match started.

Fischer and Spassky were not normal men. They had never had a childhood and had instead crushed older men in days and nights of chess annihilation. They had been two tiny boys ruining the lifetime learning of gnarled chess masters, both being taught to crush even the weakest foes; the sport is like that, which is something that Spassky recognised: “When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive.” In Reykjavik in 1972 both men came very, very close to the edge of destruction.

The Cold War operatives were in full force during the best-of-24 match as the days, weeks and months slipped by. They had started on July 11 and it would end on September 1. Never have two sporting warriors gone at each other for so long and so relentlessly without breaks; this was a chess fight to the death. They each had spells in control and away from the playing room there was an endless storm of intrigue, with claims and counter claims of every sort. Chess was the biggest story in the world that summer – the Munich massacre at the Olympics took place after Fischer and Spassky had finished fighting.

After one crushing win for Fischer the Daily Mirror filled its back page with this telling headline: “Spassky Smashski”. It was gripping stuff and the involvement of the world’s two superpowers formed a backdrop of potential Armageddon. Fischer was paranoid from first move to last, believing that the Soviets wanted him dead (he was, it turns out, right about that). He kept asking for changes, delays and even insisted on watching his orange juice being squeezed to avoid poisoning.

However, it was Spassky who started to fade, trailing the American and upsetting the men back in the Kremlin. August was a cruel month for the defending world champion and there was nothing he could do to break Fischer’s hold on the game. It was a crisis and something had to give when they sat down for game 21. The previous seven games had ended in soul-sapping draws. Neither of the men had much left.

Fischer started the game with a Sicilian Taimonov variation and after 41 moves it was all over. Spassky phoned in his resignation. It was September 1, the war was done and Fischer had won 12.5 to 8.5 and was the world champion.

After the match Fischer toured the world, offending people and upsetting the American government, living in exile from 1992, after playing an unofficial rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia, then under a UN embargo.

In January 2008, he completed the circle and died, aged 64, in isolation and loneliness in Reykjavik after becoming an Icelandic citizen. Spassky never fully recovered from the mauling and lives in Paris, another exiled victim of a harsh regime.

Spassky visited Reykjavik on March 12, 2008. He stood alone sobbing at his great rival’s grave. “Do you think the spot next to him is available?” Spassky asked. It is, he was told. They will face each other again one day.

Source: http://www.heraldscotland.com