Bobby Fischer and His World: A Review
John Donaldson, Bobby Fischer and His World. Los Angeles: Siles Press, 2020. xix + 644 pgs. Paper. $29.95.
The life and games of chess genius Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) are endlessly fascinating. Now International Master John Donaldson has given us the indispensable companion for Fischer study. Donaldson has written a number of first-rate chess books. This big, attractively produced book provides much new information and insights about Fischer. Donaldson has left no stone unturned in doing interviews, uncovering documents, and adding insights along with providing 99 annotated Fischer games, some games having never-before been published. The book is replete with photographs, spanning the whole of Fischer’s life, presenting a panoply of people and events that now can live on thanks to Donaldson’s intrepid work. This book is a superb and vital resource for knowing and understanding Fischer’s life and career.
Donaldson studies the man and the player: “Bobby Fischer and His World,” as the title puts it; along with the “riddle, and the colorful characters who surrounded him.” Donaldson presents contexts and insights of Fischer’s dramatic rise in chess, his World Championship triumph over Boris Spassky in 1972, his withdrawal and spiral into near poverty, as he became a religious zealot with the Worldwide Church of God before abandoning it; his mounting and continuing anti-Semitism, paranoia, and ongoing creation of conspiracy theories involving Russia, the United States government, Israel, and other personal enemies. All these emerge in the environment of those with whom Fischer associated—in most cases, casting them aside for even the most minor transgressions—and most quickly, if they made public reference to any contact they had with Fischer or dared to quote anything he said.
The contours of Fischer’s life are well-known. What Donaldson’s book does is provide an amazing array of details about the events and surrounding persons, situations, actions, and all that goes into conveying a fuller picture than we have had before.
Fischer was a chess genius. He became the youngest player to win the U.S. Open (1957), having already beaten Donald Byrne in “The Game of the Century” (October 17, 1956). At 15, Fischer became the youngest Grandmaster, up to that time; and the youngest candidate for World Champion (165). Fischer’s USCF rating, which first appeared on May 20, 1956, jumped 900 points to January 1958 when it reached 2626. This, says Donaldson, “had never happened before and it’s doubtful it will happen again” (135). Fischer was single-mindedly devoted to chess: “All I want to do is to play,” he said (129). In October, 1957, a syndicated article noted: “When the slender, sandy-haired boy won the United States open chess championship in Cleveland last August, triumphing over players, Al Horowitz, editor of Chess Review, was heard to remark; ‘Nobody in the world could have played better than Bobby on this occasion.’” The article continued by quoting the general manager of the Manhattan Chess Club, Hans Kmoch, who said of Fischer: “‘He’s so great that he shows the same potential as the immortals Paul Morphy and José Capablanca. He may someday become a World Champion” (129). Other triumphs followed and Fischer did, indeed, become World Champion by beating Boris Spassky of the USSR in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1972.
Fischer quit high school at 16 in March 1959 (163). His mother, Reginia Fischer, was a suspected Communist, and had an 800- page FBI file on her. She was called by Fischer’s sister, Joan, “a professional protester” (184). Fischer’s mother raised him, but left their apartment in fall, 1960 to travel from New York to San Francisco (216). The man listed on Fischer’s birth certificate as his father, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, was not part of the home (in 2002, it became known that Paul Felix Nemenyi, who died in 1952 was Fischer’s biological father; 132; 620). Excerpts of FBI files on Regina Fischer (who was Jewish; 184) are provided by Donaldson (185-187).
Fischer’s development in the 1960’s featured his continuing success in chess as well as his emerging personality which contained habits, attitudes, and statements which figured in various ways through the rest of his life. A match with the strongest U.S. player, Sammy Reschevsky, was ended, controversially, by eighteen-year-old Fischer over a change in the time for a game. This event led to a deep divide within the U.S. chess community in support of each player (241). It also led to lawsuits and Fischer’s feeling that the U.S. chess authorities were against him (247).
Donaldson suggests this premature ending of the match with Reshevsky may also have been a catalyst for “Fischer’s rabid antisemitism” (247). This manifested itself throughout the years with Fischer but may have been present even in Fischer’s teenage years, according to Pal Benko, who said Fischer’s “mental problems already showed when he was very young” (248).
Donaldson also includes a chapter on a controversial Harper’s Magazine piece by Ralph Ginzburg, “Portrait of a Genius as a Young Chess Master” (January 1962), which included quotes Fischer contested as fabricated. The interview covered many aspects of Fischer’s life and became highly influential, worldwide, in setting attitudes about Fischer who was reported as making disparaging comments about homosexuals and women (259). As for Fischer’s aspirations, Ginsburg reported him as saying about his future house: “I’m going to hire the best architect and have him build it in the shape of a rook. Yeh, that’s for me. Class. Spiral staircases, parapets, everything. I want to live the rest of my life in a house built exactly like a rook” (259).
In the next chapter, personal recollections of National Master, Jerry Hanken, are reported. Hanken became well-acquainted with Fischer in the 1960’s. His 1972 piece on Fischer was updated in 1992 and Hanken wrote: “If I actually chose to rewrite the story at this time I would be a lot more blunt. I would probably include some of Fischer’s remarks attacking Jews and praising Hitler, as well as his occasional foul and abusive language toward his opponent” (261). Hanken said Fischer’s “attitude toward other human beings was dominated by his obsessive involvement with chess” (267). He believed Fischer understood chess in terms referred to by a German friend of Hanken’s who called it “ritual murder” (267).
From the early 1960’s, with the 1962 Candidates tournament in Curaço, Fischer accused Soviet players of cheating through “open collusion” (269), a refrain to which he continued to return for years. Continuing success came to Fischer, including U.S. Championship wins—in 1966/67 for the eighth and final time. This win qualified him for the next World Championship cycle, despite his ongoing feud with the U.S. Chess Federation over the issue of expanding the national championship (424).
In the 1971 Candidates matches, Fischer beat Soviet grandmaster (and concert pianist), Mark Taimanov (435), 6-0 in a series of tough contests (443). Next, Fischer defeated the Danish Grandmaster, Bent Larsen, also by a 6-0 score. The final Candidates match was against Tigran Petrosian. Donaldson reports “the relationship between Fischer and Petrosian on the eve of their 1971 match was one of mutual respect but with no love lost” (455). Fischer’s streak of twenty consecutive wins against Grandmasters was snapped by his loss to Petrosian in the second game of the match. Yet, said Petrosian, “up to the fifth game, despite the scores being equal, the initiative was on my side. Starting from the sixth game, there seems to be another man playing…” (461). Fischer won 6½–2½ (+5−1=3).
World-wide attention was turned to the Fischer-Boris Spassky world championship match in Reykjavik, Iceland in July-September, 1972. It claimed attention as a leadoff story in newspapers and television stations around the world. Donaldson examines the first game and the pivotal thirteenth game (464-468). Fischer won the match 12½-8½ and became the 11th World Chess Champion.
The titles of the final three parts of Donaldson’s fine story are: “The Dark Years,” “Comeback,” and “Adrift.” They chronicle the trajectories of Fischer’s life, which were basically Fischer’s trading of “his status as a highly-visible celebrity for that of a recluse” (476).
Fischer’s numerous television appearances (e.g. “The Bob Hope Special,” “I’ve Got a Secret,” “The Dick Cavett Show” etc.) made him a “household name.” “Seeing Bobby then was to see him at his best—happy and on top of the world” (478), writes Donaldson.
Yet, Fischer’s celebrity also meant a loss of privacy, which Fischer could not bear. This drove Fischer into seclusion. After watching games of the last round with binoculars at a San Antonio tournament in November, 1972, Fischer disappeared and “this would be his last public appearance for almost twenty years” (479).
The “wilderness years” of 1973-1991 is the least-known part of Fischer’s life. He made no public appearances and forfeited his World Championship title to Anatoly Karpov after attempts to set terms for a match failed continuously in 1975 (485).
In the mid-1970’s, Fischer cut ties with the Worldwide Church of God to which he was drawn by the radio preaching of Herbert W. Armstrong and Garner Ted Armstrong—both of whom came under disparaging scrutiny. Fischer had contributed a large amount of money to the Armstrong empire (486-488).
Fischer was involved in various lawsuits in this period: against Brad Darrach and Stein & Day over the book, Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World (1974), claiming Darrach had promised not to produce a book on the World Championship match and Fischer’s preparations for it without Fischer’s explicit consent. “This case,” says Donaldson, “drove Bobby over the edge” (491). The case was thrown out of court with Fischer doing nothing to help his case and, according to the judge, as having displayed an “almost intentional disregard for the rules of discovery” (497). This fueled Fischer’s deep feeling of being mistreated by the U.S. government. In the mid-1970’s, Fischer began to refuse paying income taxes, “This incident,” says Donaldson, is “critical to understanding Fischer’s thoughts from the mid-1970s—when he started to wander off to the dark side—until his death” (499).
During this period, Fischer became increasingly alienated from a number of friends by stopping communication or falling out with them over a variety of issues, or breaking bonds without warning (515). Fischer continued to live and study chess, his phenomenal memory for chess games, still intact. In 1980, he won a game against Jan Timman, a Grandmaster, by recalling an idea from his one his games in 1970. When Fischer spent time in Germany in 1994, before leaving when recognized by journalists, he could recall “games he played from the early 1960s without a problem,” according to Master Lael Kaplan (523; cf. 538; 598).
During his later years, Fischer routinely said he would charge $5,000 as a “meeting fee” for anyone who wanted to meet him. This stipulation put an end to several potential business deals. Basically, Fischer “stayed broke for most of twenty years” (545). He lived on his mother’s social security check and royalties from books he had written. His first book, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (1966), became “the best-selling beginner’s chess book of all time with over one million copies sold” (349). Fischer also got by through borrowing “two or three hundred dollars at a time in hopes that a royalty check might someday show up and bail him out” (539).
Fischer’s “paranoia” and “conspiracy theories” were of long-standing. When he visited Mexico in 1980-1981 and needed dentistry because of the open cavities in his teeth, his friend, Ron Gross, told him Mexico was a good place to get inexpensive dental work done. Fischer said, “‘No way.’ He said he knew a guy in New York who had a metal plate in his head and it picked up radio signals.’ Bobby was afraid the Russians would be able to beam all sorts of things into his head through his fillings. ‘I said, “Do you mean you’re going to let your teeth rot out?” Bobby said, ‘Yes, I’ll gum my food if I have to!’” (40).
During the 1980’s, Fischer kept a low profile, except for a letter he sent to the Encyclopedia Judaica, claiming he was not Jewish. Fischer often claimed “circumcision was mutilation performed on helpless babies” (521) Fischer included “Jews” when he spoke of his “enemies” and in the early 1990’s, according to Bob Ellsworth, Fischer’s enemies were called “Jews, whether they were Jewish or not. I discovered Fischer used the word ‘Jews’ to describe anybody or anything he disliked, feared, or harbored jealousy toward. It was a reflexive mental tape that played over and over in his head” (538-539). A friend reported: “Every time I spoke by phone with him, he first warned me to be careful what I said, since Israeli intelligence listened in on all his conversations. He needed therapy and medicine, but, being Bobby Fischer, he would never admit it or see a doctor” (545).
Fischer reemerged on the world scene in 1992 in a “revenge match” with Spassky held in Yugoslavia (583-594). This was in the face of a United Nations embargo with sanctions on commercial activities. Fischer defeated Spassky with 10 wins, 5 losses, and 15 draws (17½-12½). Fischer was warned his participation would violate a U.S. presidential executive order against commerce in Yugoslavia and that he would be issued a $250,000 fine and ten years’ imprisonment if he played. At a press conference, the day before the match started, “Fischer publicly spat on the letter in defiance, saying, ‘That is my reply’” (547-548). Fischer never returned to the United States.
For the next dozen years, Fischer lived in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Japan, and the Philippines. He ranted more often, and more vociferously against the United State and “Jews” in radio broadcasts from the Philippines and in thirty-five radio interviews between 1999 and 2006 (631). In July 2004, Fischer was arrested and jailed in Tokyo for trying to board a plane while holding an expired U.S. passport. He was imprisoned in Japan for approximately nine months. Finally, Iceland granted him full citizenship rights. When released from jail, he flew to Reykjavik in March 2005 where he lived until he died of kidney failure on January 17, 2008, at age sixty-four (548).
When imprisoned in Japan, Fischer married his long-time friend Miyoko Watai on September 6, 2004. He had known Watai since the 1970’s. She was a chess player and a Japanese Chess Association official. In a court fight after his death, Watai was awarded the remainder of Fischer’s estate. Fischer’s body was exhumed to obtain DNA which proved Fischer was not the father of a Filipino child whose family had made a claim to Fischer’s estate.
There is no way to capture the fullness of the information and insights John Donaldson provides in this groundbreaking book. New perceptions abound; and the breadth and depth of what Donaldson has done in this study…is amazing! Fischer stands, brilliantly unique, in the pantheon of chess greats, his devotedness to study the game—unmatched. Yet, much else with Fischer, brings poignancy and sadness. Now we know much more about Bobby Fischer’s life and his world. Donaldson quotes from a piece by TV talk show host, Dick Cavett, in The New York Times, written after Fischer’s death. He had appeared on Cavett’s show three times and Cavett had great empathy for Fischer. Cavett wrote: “I’m surprised in writing this how much emotion there still is in the subject for me. There’s no story like it: genius kid, precocious, plunged into triumphant victory, money and world fame—no one under thirty should be subjected to fame—then gradual decline into raving lunatic. ‘Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad’” (477).
