Thoughts of Robert J. Fischer

Isis and I discussed the sad news of Fischer's death last night on the telephone, and she reminded me of a thread we had started a long time ago (back in 2000) on Fischer at our Goddesschess Discussion Group. The Chief had some acquaintance with RJF and I shamelessly pressed for whatever information he could/would give us about him. The thread continued for several months.

Isis said she was going to publish some of the posts at her My Space site, and I think that's a good idea. What follows are a few of the posts, a trip down memory lane, not only memories of 2000 but memories from much further back.

From: RICALVO 2/21/00 5:08 pm
To: ALPHETA 2 of 197 39.2 in reply to 39.1
I met Bobby twice, but not on the same board. First in Havanna 1966. Second time in Siegen (Germany) 1970, when he allowed me to participate in the post-mortem analysis of a game agains Portisch. He retired because of the MiV in the federations, particularly Jeweis ones. He is retered because of danger for his life. He has money, but must escape as a fugitive from their powerful enemies. Not many people dare to speak about BF, but Patton is surely brave enough. SB

From: RICALVO 3/1/2000 10:37 am
To: ALPHETA 5 of 197 39.5 in reply to 39.4
Well, my dear Patton: It´s time to talik about BF, the greatest champion in chess history. He never accepted money as the ultimate reason. He never played tricky chess (no ease draw games of him are recorded). He hated federative crooks, Russian cheaters and particularly, Jeweish manipulators. You may or not agree with him, but the fact is that he won the World Championship in 1972 and was deprived of it by decree in 1975. Now he says that he is protecting his own life. He has been studying not only chess, but also history, above all history of religions. He seems to believe that troubles in the world are created not only by Soviet malignancy but, above all, by Jewish control of powers. Our tribe has some reliable sources, but on the whole, BF is a worthy point of discussion in this forum. SB

From: ALPHETA 3/1/2000 9:08 pm
To: RICALVO 6 of 197 39.6 in reply to 39.5
Greetings, Honorable Sitting Bull. I agree whole-heartedly that BF is a worthy subject of discussion. I was a full-time secretary and part-time hippy living on this city’s "fashionable east side" in 1972 when BF won the World Championship. I didn’t pay much attention to current events back then, but EVERYONE paid attention to BF and the Epic Struggle Against the Russian Juggernaut, and I was no exception! My brief six-month stint as a would-be chessplayer was behind me by this time, but it seemed as if EVERYONE had the name of BF on their lips. The young ladies who didn’t care a fig about chess thought he was oh so cute and "sexy" (he was a very compelling presence back then – still is, actually – at least I found him to be so in the 1992 photographs I have seen of him), the older more motherly type ladies thought him a clean-cut stand-up representative of the United States who clearly loved his mother (this is always counted a very good thing among Americans, home of Mom, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet), the guys (both young and old) got into the "cold warrior" aspects of the match, and basically everyone American agreed that it would be a very good thing if BF could kick some Rusky butt!

Those days are long gone, but the memories will never disappear. They are etched in our collective consciousness as long as we (USA) exist as a country. That is Innisfree, Sitting Bull – a place of beauty, and peace and security; a secret place of the heart; a place we wistfully look back on and to which we perhaps, wish we could return; a place that exists corporally for each country, and for each of us individually no matter what our nationality.
So, talk to us about BF, Sitting Bull.

From: RICALVO 3/2/2000 5:22 am
To: ALPHETA 7 of 197 39.7 in reply to 39.6
Patton: Our tribe will obey your orders following strictly the points indicated by your posted guidelines. 1.Yes, the boom in US chess and in World chess was due to BF. Last year I travelled by car during several hours with Karpov, who declared to me: "I have tryed since 1975 to maintain the financial flowering in chess created by the image of Fisher, but nowadays the stupidity of the current top chess players are spoiling everything" 2.You say, with better instinct, that BF was and still is sexy. But sex seems a very negligible question in BF´s life program. Once, during a chess tournament in Buenos Aires, several chess grandmasters acted as go-betweens to procure the first sexual encounter of BF (with a biutiful woman). When asked maliciously the next morning, his answer was: "Chess is better". 3. His relations wit his mother (who by the way, had the fateful name of "Regina") had apparently nothing to do with Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet, ant at some points seemed rather conflictive and diverging. 4. About Innisfree, I agree with you. I saw "The quiet man" several times, but my reference was aimed basically at Yeat´s poem. Tell me, in case you don´t have it. What I can tell about BF is based mostly in readings, but also in internals reports because the international chess world is a curious group full of chats. BF´s image has suffered an aimed degradation because of many bastard interests of his jealous rivals, and the last one seems to us the article at the "Chess Café" you mentioned in a recent post.

Patton: let us know specific objectives for the next charges of our cavalry.
SB

From: ALPHETA 3/3/00 7:24 am
To: RICALVO 11 of 197 39.11 in reply to 39.7
Greetings, S.B. Yes, I am familiar with Yeats’ beautiful and elegantly simple poem. I chose the recurring theme of Innisfree in "The Quiet Man" for a reason – I don’t recall the words of the song that Maureen O’Hara sang as she sat at her mother’s piano in the cottage she shared with her husband, John Wayne, their being married and together but estranged; I remember it was beautiful, and poignantly wistful, and it seemed somehow quite appropriate to an American Son who has been far from the shores of his homeland for over twenty years. Fitting, too, the theme of a man haunted by demons from the past that MUST be confronted and battled with before he can move forward and get on with the rest of his life. John Wayne as a retired Irish-American boxer at odds with himself and the world is an apt metaphor for our chess heavyweight, BF. …

From: RICALVO 3/3/00 5:49 pm To: ALPHETA 13 of 197 39.13 in reply to 39.11
Dear Patton: Your sensibility surprises our tribe. We can send an explorer to the "Pat Cohan´s Tavern" in Innisfree to obtain the song of Maureen O´Hara. BF is of finer stuff, and our council agrees with your overall impression. Our model for him is however not "The quiet man". First we thought on Coriolanus, as described by Plutarch in "Parallel lives": "Many people thought that his quite retirement was due to modesty, but they didn´t realized the tremendous fury containid inside his apparent stillness". The mother of Coriolanus was his driving force, as described by Shakespeare. Hamlet is in our opinion a much better metaphor. Deprived of his rights to the crown, searching for the history of his father dissapearance, looking at the power of usurpators ("smiling villains") and seeing his mother flirts with the established dictators. Our tribe was once allowed to read a big KGB dosssier on BF, but not to obtain a copy of it. If you wish, I can tell you in secrecy this story next Monday in this forum. SB

From: ALPHETA 3/3/00 8:59 pm
To: RICALVO 15 of 197 39.15 in reply to 39.13
Great Sitting Bull, Off to another chess tournament? Lucky man!

I prefer a happy ending to a tragedy, S.B., and that is why I chose "The Quiet Man". Alpheta JanXena is ever the optimist, in the face of all contrary evidence! I stick my tongue out at the boo-hooers and nay-sayers. I believe wholly and absolutely in the inherent power and triumph of good over evil. Naive you say? Perhaps we should put it to the test then - how about the creation of a "FREE BOBBY FISCHER" campaign? An interesting idea, don't you think?

… It seems to me that for the greater part of his life, people were either telling him what to do and when to do it, or TRYING to get him to do things that THEY wanted him to do. But what about what BF wanted? I've read pages and pages and pages of articles and not one of them addressed this simple and yet profound question - what did, and what does, BF want?

… I am engaging in research on BF … and I am merely reporting on what I have read and what I have concluded:

FACT: I have read many accounts of children approaching BF and asking for his autograph - and the Man always gave his autograph to these young ones without a second thought. Contrast this behavior with the attitude of today's so-called sports superstars, who charge for everything!

FACT: I read an article on one of the websites devoted to BF that described an afternoon spent in the country, somewhere in South America where he was appearing at a tournament - long ago and far away - and about BF's rapturous encounter and immediate friendship with an old dog who miraculously cavorted about like a puppy when BF came into her presence. This, perhaps more than anything else, spoke to me, S.B. Animals ALWAYS KNOW about people - ALWAYS!

FACT: I have read, from more than one source, about BF spending lots of time tutoring many children in The Game, about how patient and gentle he is with these children, and how the children, in turn, have responded to this loving attention. BF has never, as far as I know, either touted or confirmed these activities - the stories have come from the families of the children! I believe these accounts because in a recorded radio interview that I listened to the other night given in January, 2000, BF talked about how he had hoped one day to raise his children on a homestead on land he owned in Florida. Land that he had inherited from his mother, who had inherited it from her father. Land that, for various reasons, he decided to forfeit by refusing to pay the real estate property taxes thereon.

FACT: Just today at GKasparov's current (new and improved) website I read in a recent interview given by GKasparov about a connection between 19 year old Hungarian wunderkind Peter Leko and BF. Perhaps this isn't "news" to the world of professional chessplayers, but it sure was news to me! I believe that BF has lived in Hungary (Budapest) since 1992, and perhaps Peter Leko was one of the children (in 1992 he would have been 10 or 11) that BF took under his chess-tutoring wing...