When the RJF Committee members returned to Iceland, they worked full-time arousing their parliament’s interest in the case, warning that if action weren’t taken quickly, it would be too late for Fischer to receive justice. He would be extradited to the United States and probably imprisoned for ten years. Many of them believed, as did Fischer, that he could be murdered while in prison.
The Icelandic Chess Federation took a calculated risk in attempting to add strength to the argument for releasing Bobby. They issued a strong critique condemning Bobby’s statements, while hoping that an appeal to the United States’ sense of humanitarianism might alleviate the tension in Japan:
The Icelandic Chess Federation is, of course, aware of the obscene anti-Semitic and anti-American remarks that Bobby Fischer has made over the last year on different occasions. The Federation is appalled by these remarks, as any civilized body would be, and sees them as signs of a deranged and devastated psyche. In 1992, in Yugoslavia, however, Bobby Fischer’s only crime was to play chess again, after years of isolation. The Icelandic Chess Federation urges the President of the United States to pardon Bobby Fischer and let him go free.
The letter was sent to President George W. Bush and received no reply.
Twelve years prior, months after the 1992 indictment had been issued, Bill Clinton had been elected President of the United States. David Oddsson, then the prime minister of Iceland, had visited the White House at the time and made a personal appeal to one of Clinton’s senior aides, asking that the president drop the charges against Fischer. Word came back that Clinton would prefer not to make a ruling on the matter, “an unusual decision,” according to Oddsson. “When the leader of a country makes a personal plea about a relatively small matter (in the scheme of things) to another leader, it is usually granted.”
Back at the time of the sanctions controversy, Spassky wasn’t indicted by the French, and Lothar Schmid wasn’t indicted by the Germans. Bobby Fischer was the only person in the world ever known to have faced charges under President Bush’s bill.
Trying to prevent Fischer’s escape to Iceland, various agencies in the United States accelerated their pursuit of Bobby, putting more pressure on Japan to extradite him. A federal grand jury in Washington began what turned out to be a smoke-screen investigation accusing Fischer of money laundering after his match with Spassky in 1992. Since there was no evidence of such laundering, it was Fischer’s lawyers’ belief that the government was attempting to propagandize Fischer’s sanctions case by further tarnishing his public image. Nothing came of the investigation and no additional indictment was handed down.
At this time James Gadsen, the U.S. ambassador to Iceland, got involved, suggesting that Iceland drop the offer of sanctuary to Bobby Fischer. David Oddsson, in his foreign minister role, invited Gadsen to his office and then categorically refused to back down, adding that Fischer’s alleged crime of a violation of trade sanctions in Yugoslavia had exceeded Iceland’s statute of limitations.
Perhaps because of the political pressure exerted on him, Japanese justice minister Chieko Nohno told reporters after a cabinet meeting, “If he [Fischer] has Icelandic citizenship it would be legally possible to deport him to that country. The Immigration Bureau must think about the most appropriate place for him to be deported to.”
The situation remained unresolved, however, and as Bobby reached his sixty-second birthday in his cell, he was morose. He’d served nine months in prison, and the few people who visited him said he looked wretched. Thorarinsson said that Fischer, locked behind bars, reminded him of Hamlet, and then he quoted a line from Shakespeare’s play:
I could be bound in a nutshell
And count myself a king of infinite space
Were it not that I had bad dreams.
The RJF members called virtually every member of parliament to lobby for citizenship: full, permanent citizenship, not just a temporary permit to live in Iceland. They then met with the General Committee of Althingi. A bill was written asking for approval of citizenship for Bobby Fischer, and an Extraordinary Session of Parliament was called for Saturday, March 21, 2005. Three rounds of discussion took place in the space of twelve minutes, and questions were posed regarding the extent of the emergency. The answers were succinct and forthcoming: Bobby Fischer’s improper incarceration was a violation of his rights; all he was really guilty of was moving some wooden pieces across a chessboard; he’d been a friend of Iceland, and had a historical connection to it, and now he needed the country’s help.
Once the issues had been dealt with, each member of the Althingi was polled on whether to grant Fischer permanent citizenship. “Já,” said forty members, one by one. “Forõast,” said two members who abstained. No one voted “Nei.”
Bobby smiled for the first time in months when he heard that the Icelandic bill had been enacted, and on March 23, 2005, he was released from his cell. He was picked up by a limousine supplied by the Icelandic embassy, given his new Icelandic passport, and he and Miyoko, hand in hand, sped to Narita Airport.
When Bobby emerged from the limousine at Narita, the scene resembled that moment in A Tale of Two Cities when Dr. Manette is released from the Bastille, “recalled to life” as it were: white-haired, battered, with a grizzly beard and old clothes. The difference between Bobby and Dickens’s good doctor was the voice: Manette’s was faint, “dreadful and pitiable”; Bobby’s was booming, ferocious and vengeful. “This was nothing but a kidnapping, pure and simple!” he said to the dozens of reporters and photographers who were following him into the terminal. “Bush and Koizumi [the American and Japanese presidents] are criminals. They deserve to be hung!” said bad old Bobby, showing that prison had done nothing to tamp down his denunciatory fervor. But something in him had changed. When Zita, then thirty years old, saw the footage of him on television, she said: “It is not his beard. There is something bothering about his eyes. He is a hopeless, broken man.”
When Bobby’s plane touched down at Keflavik Airport, and he stepped on the tarmac, he didn’t kneel down and kiss the ground—at least, not literally. Metaphorically, however, he genuflected to the land of the Vikings. He was now in a country that really wanted him, and for the first time in thirteen years he felt truly safe. His first order of business was to settle into the Presidential Suite at the Hotel Loftleidir and order one of his Rabelaisian meals, with bowls and bowls of skyr.
15
Living and Dying in Iceland
FIRST THERE WERE the familiar hazel eyes. They stared at everything furtively, judgmentally, not wanting or permitting eye contact with others. Bobby Fischer’s gaze ricocheted from the partially cobble-stoned road of Klappirstigur Street, where he lived, to the slight rise up to the busy thoroughfare of Laugavegur, with its little shops, then back to the BMWs and Volvos parked at meters and the blue-eyed and cherry-cheeked Icelanders heading back to work after lunch. The passersby recognized Bobby: He’d become the most famous man in Iceland and was remembered not for his public venom toward America but for putting Iceland on the map in 1972. His frozen glance denied them access, however, and they walked with their heads down, trying to lessen the slight of his disregard as they bent against the bitterly cold wind sweeping down from Mount Esja and off the bay. A crunch of snow seeped slowly into the sides of Bobby’s black Birkenstock clogs.