THOUGHT EXPERIMENT - What would happen if a chess engine went back in time?

Yes but my point is that people were already looking for "cheats" (whatever they were) all the way back then even though neither player had any real reason to be thought of as a cheater.

Maybe this question would have more merit if you wound back the clock a few more decades when chess engines didn't even exist.

They didn't x-ray his chair to check if he was cheater, he requested it because he thought the Soviets put a bug in it to disrupt him. He was paranoid.

Fair enough but I still think it shows how paranoic people could be about such an unusual player.

I don't think the concept of cheating would even be considered honestly for a pre-computer grandmaster. Maybe unless they had a secret team of grandmasters to confer with, but until Deep Blue, there just wasn't any chess engine that could beat a world champion. 

Tangentially related: https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/06/archives/fischer-apologizes-to-spassky-plans-for-match-still-unsettled.html

If you scroll to the bottom, you see grandmasters laughing about the presence of computers, saying they are weak, etc. This was back in the 70s

I'll be black!