But then came a second call attempting to save the match, just as it looked as if Fischer was going too far.
Driving to work in London early on Monday morning, 3 July, Jim Slater was upset by a radio report on the challenger’s nonappearance in Reykjavik.
Slater was a businessman whose company, Slater Walker Securities, had been formed in 1964 when he was in his mid-thirties. His partner, Peter Walker, had left the business to become a Conservative member of Parliament and a government minister under Edward Heath and (later) Margaret Thatcher. At the time of the Fischer-Spassky match, the company reportedly had a controlling interest in 250 companies around the world. Supremely confident, decisive, ruthless in business, Slater had by then amassed a fortune of, in his own words, “£6 million and rising.” A gambler by nature, he allowed himself one big luxury: to play bridge for thousands of pounds with stronger opponents.
Slater was a chess fan and supporter of the game, subsidizing the annual Hastings tournament. In the years following Fischer-Spassky, he would, alongside the former British champion and journalist Leonard Barden (who provided the vision and organization), transform the state of British chess by channeling funds into junior competition.
Now he decided that he could easily afford the money to send Fischer to Reykjavik—or expose the American as a coward. He would double the prize, putting an additional £50,000 ($125,000) into the pot. Arriving at his office that Monday morning, he passed on his offer through Leonard Barden, who then spoke to Paul Marshall, giving the U.S. attorney some background details about this championship angel. Marshall then talked to Fischer. Slater says he also telephoned his friend David Frost, who in turn rang his friend Henry Kissinger. Kissinger then contacted Fischer. What motivated Slater? “As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks, I could give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure.”
Slater’s offer made headlines in London’s Evening Standard. His house was soon swarming with reporters. When he returned from work, he enlightened his astonished wife: “I had a good idea on the way to the office.” The good idea was couched in challenging terms: “If he isn’t afraid of Spassky, then I have removed the element of money.”
It is not altogether clear how the British offer finally persuaded Fischer. Paul Marshall certainly had a hand, initially pushing it as the answer to all Fischer’s financial demands. “But he wouldn’t accept it. His experiences with people promising things had taught him not to believe them, particularly with money. And he wanted proof. And he said no.” Marshall tried to change his mind. Phoning Barden, the attorney took his place in the gallery of callers that saved the match. “I said if I were them, I would rephrase the offer. Slater should say he didn’t think his money was at risk, because Fischer was just making excuses. He should say that deep down Fischer was frightened. I said Bobby might be piqued by that challenge—and he was. I knew Bobby was very, very competitive and combative and would not like to be thought of as a chicken.” Slater denies this version of events. He maintains it was always his idea to express his offer as a taunt. He never spoke to Fischer and never received a word of gratitude from him. “Fischer is known to be rude, graceless, possibly insane. I didn’t do it to be thanked. I did it because it would be good for chess.” In the meantime, there were reports that Mrs. Marshall, a professional photographer, informed the press where Fischer was staying, in an attempt to smoke him out of his bunker.
Kissinger’s intervention, the extra money, the wording of the offer, the media camped outside the house in Cedar Lane, perhaps also information from Reykjavik that disqualification would follow if Fischer failed to arrive by midday on 4 July—one or a combination of these tipped the balance.
On 3 July, Fischer drove through the pre—Independence Day evening traffic to JFK Airport. At Kennedy, he transferred to an Icelandic Airlines station wagon and was smuggled on board a plane, flight 202A. The flight, scheduled for 7:30 P.M., took off at 10:04 P.M. All the other passengers had been kept waiting, and a few had been bumped off the flight. In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry rang Viktor Ivonin to report that the American challenger was on his way.
Marshall told the press that the problem had never been the money. It was the principle. His client felt Iceland was not treating this match or his countrymen with the dignity that it, and they, deserved. His private view was that before Slater’s offer, Fischer “had already in effect defaulted. He was pretty well determined not to go.”
Marshall chaperoned Fischer on the journey to Iceland, accompanied by his wife, Bette. Fischer had initially prohibited Marshall from bringing her along, claiming she would distract her husband. Marshall circumvented this injunction by booking a seat for her at the other end of the plane. “And a quarter of the way through the flight, I figured Bobby was above jumping, so I asked my wife to come back and he welcomed her very pleasantly, as though the previous conversation hadn’t happened.”
The Icelandic grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson had the role of Fischer’s official greeter, meeting him at his seat, escorting him to the receiving line, performing introductions, and driving with him to Reykjavik. As a precaution, all journalists and photographers had initially been corraled into the airport building—but a public relations officer at Icelandic Airlines was tempted by the fruit of worldwide publicity and fell. He cut the reporters loose.
Olafsson’s plan crumbled as Fischer arrived at the top of the gangway in the early hours of 4 July.
All went well until Bobby came out on the ramp and saw the crowd of journalists and photographers waiting for him below. Seeing this, Bobby dashed down, hardly noticing the dignitaries that had lined up there for him, pushed aside the journalists and photographers, who were in his way, and jumped into the nearest car of the convoy. While this was going on, I had been left standing in the doorway, staring in amazement at the commotion and looking at Bobby dashing down the steps.
Olafsson was a phlegmatic, dignified man who reserved all his aggression for the chessboard. (One of the world’s leading grandmasters, he had little real competition at home. He was, says Thorarinsson, “a genius who came out of nowhere.”)
Gradually things calmed down; the members of Bobby’s party got out of the plane and went to their cars. Soon the convoy was on its way to Reykjavik with a police escort at a speed of 150 kilometers an hour—the protocol for a visit by a head of state.
There was a sting in the tail for the organizers of the match, says Olafsson. “This was Fischer’s first impression of Iceland—and it was that the organizers didn’t keep their word.”
Thorarinsson was now a man relieved, even if Fischer had ignored him in the chaos of the reception at Keflavik airport. He sought out Spassky, to thank him for his advice to refer upward to a more senior rank. But when they met, Spassky, for once, was angry. He charged Thorarinsson with having broken a promise. Suddenly the truth dawned on the Icelander. “I realized that I had misunderstood the whole thing. The Soviet government felt that Spassky was being humiliated and they had called him back. Spassky had wanted me to involve the higher authorities in Moscow, not Washington.” Now that Fischer was in Reykjavik, Thorarinsson had a new battle on his hands: to keep Spassky there, too.