Fischer had not played competitive chess for eighteen months, and many thought he would never return. Then, to general surprise and delight, he agreed to participate in the Soviet Union vs. the Rest of the World in 1970 in Belgrade. To even greater amazement, when the Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen demanded that he play on Board One for the Rest against the leading Soviet, pointing out quite reasonably that he had achieved the best tournament results over the previous two years, Fischer yielded the point and agreed to step down to Board Two. It meant that he played Petrosian rather than Spassky.
Despite his voluntary concession, Fischer was fuming. Knowing how he could take his anger out on tournament organizers, the press monitored his every movement. Soviet grandmaster Mark Taimanov says reports on Belgrade Radio were akin to battlefield dispatches: “Fischer has left the room,” “Fischer has ordered dinner in the restaurant.” However, the American’s humor soon improved; though handicapped by a lack of practice, he beat Petrosian in the first two rounds and drew with him in the last two. Meanwhile, Spassky and Larsen shared the honors with a win apiece. (Spassky’s win became famous—achieved in seventeen moves; it was one of the quickest in grandmaster history.) The Soviet Union edged to victory overall by a single point.
Representing their countries, Fischer and Spassky were to meet at the chess Olympiad at Siegen in West Germany in 1970. Naturally, there was great pressure on both men. Spassky was spotted puffing away tensely on cigarette after cigarette before they faced each other. Hundreds gathered in the hall to watch the game; Fischer had ensured that the table was kept several yards away from the spectators.
Those who could make out the position were not to be disappointed: it was a truly fabulous game. Fischer, with the black pieces—a minor disadvantage—quickly gained equality with one of his favorite openings, the Grünfeld Defense, and, as is common in the Grünfeld, sniped away at white’s center. The American then planted a knight on a secure square, c4, on which it was both safe from attack and, within its surrounding area, a dominating presence. Yet Fischer seemed to underestimate Spassky’s attack, involving rook, knight, and queen, on the other side of the board. The winning combination was delightfully elegant, an unexpected rook sacrifice, winning Fischer’s queen. The chess correspondent of the London Times, Harry Golombek, praised Spassky for having played “in true world champion style.”
When Spassky emerged victorious after five hours and thirty-nine moves, the Soviet ambassador to West Germany, Semion Tsarapkin, kissed him with joy. Spassky was lucky: according to then West German chancellor Willy Brandt, Tsarapkin was nicknamed “Pincers.” “The ambassador’s powerful jaws sometimes snapped with a force suggestive of the intention to pulverize his words.” Tsarapkin was given the chessboard on which the match had been played, signed by all the grandmasters there save one—Fischer.
In an interview later, Spassky said of this win that he had succeeded in working himself up “into that special state of élan without which any tour de force is impossible. Fischer himself may have unwittingly contributed to my high spirits. It has always been a pleasure to play against him.” Spassky told the interviewer that he regarded Fischer as the most likely challenger for his crown and that he held him in high esteem as a man who loved chess passionately and for whom the game was everything. In a display of empathy, he described Fischer as “very lonely. That is one of his tragedies.”
So Fischer was back, and a series of impressive tournament results followed; he was apparently growing stronger with each game. As he once again approached his best form, to the neutral chess observer it began to seem a catastrophe that the self-destructive American had disqualified himself from the world championship cycle. But help was at hand from Fischer’s guardian angel, Ed Edmondson.
Colonel Edmondson had a bearing that could only be American: square jawed, upright, solid. He had entered the byzantine world of chess administration in the twilight of his military career in the U.S. Air Force, where he edited its Navigator magazine. The United States Chess Federation was in chaos when he took over in 1967 as the first ever executive director. Run from a shabby office in Greenwich Village in New York, the USCF had few members and no money. He turned it around, seeking donations, building up the membership base, and moving to new headquarters.
For years, the ever cheerful director of the U.S. Chess Federation acted as Fischer’s unpaid agent, standing between Fischer and the potential consequences of his extreme conduct. Now the colonel and Pal Benko hatched a plan. Rules had been bent for Fischer before; they could be bent for him again. If FIDE agreed, and the other players in the U.S. Zonal agreed, Benko would give up his Interzonal place to Fischer. Some reports suggest this was Edmondson’s idea; Benko says it was at his initiative, since only Fischer had a realistic chance of the title. The prospect that one of the three American Interzonal contenders might make way for Fischer had been the talk of the chess world as early as the Siegen Olympiad. In any case, Edmondson persuaded FIDE to accept the deal. As for Benko, he received a modest payoff from the U.S. Chess Federation of $2,000. Fischer’s place in the world championship had been bought for him—and bought cheaply, given the potential rewards.
Fischer’s rapture was modified: as usual, there was a last minute hiccup when he expressed his dissatisfaction with the money on offer. His threat not to take up his Interzonal spot after all provoked this anguished plea from Colonel Edmondson:
More than anything else, I want to help you to become World Champion. I can only do so if there is a high degree of cooperation and faith between us. I strongly urge you to play in the Interzonal and in the Candidates Matches, trusting me as you progress to fight every step of the way for the best possible playing and financial conditions on your behalf.
I believe you appreciate this fact and ask that we again confirm agreement on the following.
A. Interzonal $4,000
B. Candidates Match, Quarter-Final $3,000
C. Candidates Match, Semi-Final $3,000
D. Final Candidates Match $4,000
E.World Championship Match $5,000
Total guaranteed honorariums $19,000
The honorariums, Edmondson pointed out, were in addition to the prize money. Then there would be expenses. “I will also guarantee that your ‘pocket money’ will be twice that given to other contestants in each event.” In addition, he promised that Fischer would be put up in the most luxurious hotels and that the conditions at every stage in the world championship cycle would meet Fischer’s high standards. The plea worked, and Fischer was off to the walled city of Palma de Majorca in the Balearic Islands—and the Interzonal.
So Fischer began a miraculous year in the history of chess. As the scale of the miracle became apparent, a burgeoning wave of press and public interest emerged that would swell all the way to Reykjavik.
The November/December 1970 Interzonal took place in the concert center in Palma, the Sala Mozart, overlooking the bay, the cathedral, and the old fort. There were twenty-four competitors; many were already famous names in the world of chess, including Efim Geller, Vasili Smyslov, Mark Taimanov, Lev Polugaievskii (USSR), Lajos Portisch (Hungary), Bent Larsen (Denmark), Wolfgang Uhlmann (East Germany), Svetozar Gligoric (Yugoslavia), Vlastimil Hort (Czechoslovakia), Henrique Mecking (Brazil), and Robert Hübner (West Germany). But it was Fischer who drew the spectators. Crowded onto the dark yellow carpet, they strained to glimpse his board.
The top six would advance to the knockout stage, where they would be joined by former world champion Tigran Petrosian and Viktor Korchnoi, the latter having qualified as the losing finalist in the Candidates match against Spassky in 1968. Fischer began well but hit a bad patch, losing to Bent Larsen. In the second half, he abruptly stepped up a couple of gears and, in a stupendous run, eventually won the last seven games, taking first place by the huge margin of 3.5 points. Grandmaster Uhlmann, who also qualified for the Candidates, said, “It’s simply unbelievable with what superiority he played in the Interzonal. There is a vitality in his games, and the other grandmasters seem to develop an inferiority complex.”