Paul Marshall’s view was that the Soviets’ emotional involvement in the match gave him a bargaining edge:
[It] allowed for an odd combination of tactics; fun, joyful tactics, because they were so damned serious about it all. It was like a bad movie with a load of snarling Russians. It wasn’t that hard to negotiate if one took a position that they didn’t like. You could make fun of them, and knowing that the fun would be publicized really helped a lot.
The organizers were not having much fun. They had to deal with the Soviet claim that Fischer forfeit the first game. All knew the latter was out of the question for Fischer. “The situation is critical,” Euwe declared. “I don’t know if the match will be played at all.”
Schmid concedes that the Russians were within their rights to demand the first game, but when he and Euwe met Spassky, “I tried to make a joke of it and said, ‘How about a pawn head start in game one instead of a point?’” This raised a rare Soviet smile. Schmid reminded them that in other competitions the Russians had arrived a day late because of travel hitches—even once for a tournament in Reykjavik—and they had been allowed a postponement. This, he maintained, set a precedent.
A grueling second meeting between Thorarinsson, Euwe, and Spassky’s seconds was held late in the evening at the Saga. This time Thorarinsson took the role of white knight:
Dr. Euwe fought with them for a long time. I tried to be neutral and didn’t say much. When it came to three or four in the morning, both Schmid and Euwe were becoming very, very tired. Suddenly Dr. Euwe gave in. He said, “I see there is no other way. I declare the first game lost.” And they all stood up. For me it was clear it was all over, there would now be no match. I banged my hand on the table and said, “This is impossible, and it’s my fault. Because according to the laws of chess, you can’t lose a game by forfeit unless the clock has been started. We are the organizers, and we failed to start the clock.” It was a drowning man grasping at something. And the Russians all sat down.
This moment of inspired casuistry immediately terminated the forfeit debate but was not enough to rescue the match; there were still the required expressions of contrition. On 5 July, the Soviet delegation issued a statement, read by Geller at a press conference. Hastily translated, it complained that “an unprecedented in the history of chess situation [sic]” had arisen when the world champion was made to wait. This was also the infringement of FIDE rules. The absence of the challenger at the opening and his three-day delay were insulting. This breach had been “taken under the protection” of Euwe. There followed a proposition with which few could quarreclass="underline" “All that have [sic] happened were enough to B. Spasski [sic] to discontinue the negotiations and leave for home. The only thing that is keeping him hitherto from taking this step is his understanding of the match meaning [sic] for the world of chess and for hospitable Iceland.”
Decoded, the statement added an extra condition for the survival of the match. As well as Fischer’s apology, the Soviets now required Euwe’s condemnation of Fischer’s behavior and an admission by the president that he had violated FIDE rules by postponing the match.
Earlier, Fischer’s team had gone a short way down the apology route, offering a terse handout written by Marshalclass="underline" “We are sorry that the world championship was delayed…. If Grandmaster Spassky or the Soviet people were inconvenienced or discomforted, I am indeed unhappy, for I had not the slightest intention of this occurring.” Geller rejected it at the press conference as entirely inadequate—it had been mimeographed and was unsigned.
Euwe was in the audience, which had now gone quiet. In what Lothar Schmid called “a great gesture by a great man, saving the match,” he immediately rose to do his part in meeting the Soviet conditions. The USSR embassy interpreter, Valeri Chamanin, jotted down Euwe’s words on his own copy of Geller’s statement. The president admitted breaking FIDE rules “for special reasons,” for which he apologized; he condemned Fischer’s behavior, and he accepted that Spassky could not be expected to play within the next four days.
The press conference spontaneously erupted in applause, although they also greeted with ridicule Euwe’s assertion that Fischer did not intend to cause trouble. The Washington Post commented that everybody thought Fischer and his companions were the villains. A Los Angeles Times article filed from Iceland was headlined BOBBY FISCHER AS THE UGLY AMERICAN. However, the Soviets too came in for criticism. The British papers reported an attack by Ed Edmondson. If the Soviets claimed victory because of Fischer’s failure to appear, they would be “showing themselves in their true colours as grasping, greedy, deceitful nonsportsmen.” Edmondson added, “I do not intend this to be a personal attack on Spassky because we all know that he is being guided—I should say misguided—by the Russian Ministry of Sport.”
Immediately after Geller’s press conference, Fred Cramer called one of his own. Concessions were out of the question. If any apologizing was to be done, Cramer said, Dr. Euwe should apologize to the Americans. He had broken the rules in favor of the Russians. As for Fischer, he “felt he hadn’t violated the rules.”
Meanwhile, Tremblay had met Lombardy and Marshall for what the chargé called a strategy session “aimed at getting the contestants to the chessboard and reversing the propaganda trend that had been heavily pro-Spassky.” The Washington Post depicted Fischer’s entourage as part of the problem: Lombardy and the lawyers were professionally closemouthed, Cramer the opposite. The Post remarked: “All in all, the Americans add up to a great team—for Spassky.”
The outcome of the meeting was a new letter of apology by Fischer to Spassky. Fischer, in one of those sudden, unexpected, and inexplicable U-turns that had dotted his career, now decided on an act of abnegation. He scrawled a note in which he proposed giving up every cent of the prize money and competing simply for the love of chess. Horrified, Marshall and Darrach worked on the text through the night, finally persuading Fischer to delete any reference to relinquishing the prize. Marshall was quoted as having described his task as “feeling like a cop trying to talk a jump case off a ledge.”
The letter was delivered to Spassky’s hotel room in the early morning while he slept. Fischer offered “sincere apologies” to Spassky and apologies to Euwe and millions of chess fans for his “disrespectful behavior in not attending the opening ceremony.” He also confessed that he had been carried away by his petty dispute over money. However, the hand of the lawyer is plain. After the opening paragraph of soft soap, the next paragraph carefully argues the case against a forfeit of the first game, casting doubt on the Soviets’ motive in demanding it, especially when they had apparently accepted a postponement. Anyway, the apology goes on, surely Spassky would not want an unfair advantage? Then, following best public relations practice, it concluded with an appeal to Spassky’s honor: “I know you to be a sportsman and a gentleman, and I am looking forward to some exciting chess games with you.” In the circumstances, it was a psychological masterstroke. How could the champion not be disarmed? The U.S. embassy released the letter to the press before the Soviets had a chance to react.