11. WHO’S SORRY NOW?
This atmosphere of unreality is likely to prevail throughout the match….
From the airport, Fischer was taken straight to the house, placed at his disposal in a quiet road in a half-built suburb called Wodaland. The jackpot prize in a forthcoming state lottery, it had not been lived in. (The winner would later complain that it was not strictly new, as promised in the lottery promotion.) When Fischer showed up, there were still bricks and mounds of earth on the street. From here, it was a two-mile hike to the center of town. Fischer soon abandoned it in favor of the other accommodation reserved for him—a three-room suite at the hotel Loftleidir. While this was one of Iceland’s best hotels, it was functional rather than luxurious, looking like an airport terminal, low-rise, set off from a big thoroughfare, with a façade of precast rectangular windows and paneling.
Fischer granted the BBC an interview, conducted by a well-known science correspondent, James Burke, and produced by Bob Toner, who has good reason to remember the occasion: “We started recording and Fischer looked very bored and for two reels we got nothing, twenty minutes of nothing, just one-line answers. I thought my career was disappearing down the tubes. But then, in between reels, he asked Burke what kind of events he normally covered. Burke said he had reported on the Apollo launches, and you could see Fischer’s interest light up. And he said, ‘You mean you go to Houston, you go to launch pads?’ ‘Yes,’ said Burke, ‘I know Neil Armstrong very well.’ After that Fischer couldn’t stop talking.”
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.