popular were that Fischer was in hiding after his arrival in the country a week earlier on a United States Air Force jet or alternately after being smuggled ashore in a rubber dinghy from a U.S. Navy submarine.
Already chilled by the prospect of the whole project’s collapsing, the organizers now faced a problem for which no preplanning could have prepared them. In the absence of the challenger, should they go ahead with the opening ceremony of the match? Absurd though it might be, there seemed no other plausible answer than yes. To proceed as though the match would, at some stage, commence was the surest way to ensure that it did actually commence. That, at least, was the theory.
So, almost as though everything were in order, the dignitaries gather at Reykjavik’s National Theatre for the scheduled event. The seat next to Spassky’s is empty. As befits the magnitude of the occasion for their country, Iceland’s president, Kristjan Eldjarn, and the mayor of Reykjavik, Geir Hallgrimsson, are both present, together with the city councillors. So too are the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, and the finance minister, Halldor E. Sigurdsson, who has guaranteed the cost of the project up to five million Icelandic kronur. The heads of the Soviet and U.S. embassies are in their places. Max Euwe, the president of FIDE, has flown in from Holland. Chief arbiter, Lothar Schmid, has arrived from Germany. They are aware that this event may be a charade. The public bonhomie conceals anxiety and a smoldering sense of grievance.
However, the most embarrassed and fraught figure of all is the man responsible for the match’s being held in Iceland, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. This should be his moment. He is down to make the opening speech, winning plaudits from the Icelandic establishment to launch his political career. Instead, he is seized by panic, sweating and fearful of being late. He has been in the Loftleidir hotel since ten o’clock, listening, he says, to “demands and demands and new demands.” At 4:50 P.M., with little progress made, Andrew Davis stands up and says, “Forget it. Fischer won’t come and there’ll be no match.” There are ten minutes to go before the opening, and Thorarinsson finds himself racing to the National Theatre. Knowing that Fischer has no intention of leaving New York, he will have to appear on stage in front of his country’s president. Worst of all, he is still dressed in his working clothes.
The drive to the National Theatre is spent in frenzied internal debate: Should he tell the audience it is over or simply open the match with his fingers crossed? He arrives at 5:15 P.M., fifteen minutes late, and begins the longest walk of his life, to the rostrum:
A high official at the Foreign Ministry came running to me when I came through the door, and he said, “What kind of a man are you? This is the height of rudeness. Everybody is waiting and you come dressed like this.” He took me by the arm and he said they’re waiting and the rostrum is there. So, I went alone, fifteen meters or so to the rostrum. I looked at the balcony, where the president of Iceland sat. He was an elderly, experienced man. I think he guessed what kind of a dilemma I was in. We looked at each other, and about a meter from the rostum I made a decision. I will open the match. Then I won’t close any doors. I can always tell them later that it’s over. But if I say now it’s over, it’s really over. Somehow I got through a speech, one I hadn’t prepared. And I opened the match.
The president of Iceland makes no speech. The government’s welcome is given by the minister of culture magnus, Torfi Olafsson. The mayor then talks pointedly of an ongoing chess game. “It is obvious that human beings do not for long wish to be pawns on a chessboard, even if they are in the hands of geniuses.” Euwe’s speech is half explanatory, half apologetic, expressing the hold Fischer has over the officials. “Mr. Fischer is not an easy man. But we should remember that he has lifted the level of world chess for all players.” At the cocktail party after the ceremony, Thorarinsson comes in for criticism from his Icelandic colleagues. “‘Keeping the government waiting is something one doesn’t do. If you’re going to organize this world championship, you’ll have to change your habits.’ I couldn’t let on; it would have been all over the world press. I just said, ‘I’m sorry, I shall try to do better. It won’t happen again.’”
In fact, government ministers have more to worry about than Thorarinsson’s working clothes. Iceland’s economy is wholly dependent on fish, and they are preparing to announce the extension of the country’s fishing limits from twelve to fifty miles, confirming a threat that had been made a year earlier. The new rules will come into force on 1 September 1972. With Great Britain’s fishing industry already suffering from an earlier extension, London’s rejection of the move is inevitable, meaning that this tiny nation, whose entire air force (one helicopter) had recently been incapacitated, is heading for a showdown with one of the mightiest military forces in the world. (In the event, with American backing and a devastating weapon, a wire cutter that traps and cuts trawl ropes, causing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage through lost catches and, worse still, lost nets, Iceland will secure its extension.)
Fischer’s aide Fred Cramer dismisses Fischer’s absence from the ceremony, describing it as “a musical concert with speeches in Icelandic which he wouldn’t have understood.” Meanwhile, one man seems to have guessed what is going on. Spassky chats amicably with Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, telling him that he is looking forward to a two-month vacation, and then will return to Moscow to play Petrosian.
As Thorarinsson pondered his next move, Fischer was still in Douglaston, immured in Sabbath observance. His demands were still on the table, and there seemed no question of his boarding a plane. Out of sight of the world’s press, he was refusing to respond to letters, take calls, or answer the door.
With the match in a quagmire, there now came two attempts at its rescue: the first from the heart of Nixon’s White House, the other a true deus ex machina from one of the richest men in Britain, whose decision to intervene came as he was in a car driving through London.
The Icelandic government might have played a part in securing the first intervention. Although it had no direct role in the match, national prestige was at stake, and the prime minister, Olafur Johannesson, was deeply concerned at the possibility of failure. He and Thorarinsson were in the same political party, the Progressive Party, a center-left farmers movement. And Gudmundur Thorarinsson decided he had to ask him for assistance.
He, Thorarinsson, had been searching nonstop for a way ahead. Could he persuade Spassky and Fischer to talk to each other directly? The champion was refusing to call his challenger but readily agreed to take Fischer’s call if the American rang. Fischer, however, seemed unlikely to respond to a request to phone Spassky. Spassky then summoned the Icelander to a meeting at his hotel.
He said, “Gudmundur, this is a very serious situation. This can only be solved at a higher level.”
I looked at him and said, “Well, yes, maybe that is the way. We’ll solve it at a higher level.” And after we shook hands I went to see the prime minister. I said, “We’re in serious trouble, and I think you should come into the picture. You have to phone the White House and ask them to use their influence on Fischer.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” he said. “You’re a young man, and things don’t happen that way.” Then he thought about it and said, “If you’re quite determined, I’ll do what I can.” And he phoned the American embassy.
But the Russian and the Icelander were at cross-purposes. Thorarinsson was so focused on bringing the American to the match, it did not enter his mind that Spassky might need help himself. The prime minister then called in the U.S. charge d’affaires Theodore Tremblay. Would the American government lend a hand?
Tremblay was intensely irritated with Fischer. At the opening ceremony, his wife had been sitting next to the empty chair, on the other side of which sat Spassky. But he was inclined to help. Uppermost in his mind, in a fragile phase in U.S.-Icelandic relations, was the U.S. base at Keflavik. The Icelandic coalition government—the only NATO country with communist ministers—was considering its future. Closure could have strategic consequences for the Western alliance. Iceland’s geographic position, midway between the United States and the Soviet Union, made this desolate island an invaluable ally. The Soviets were pressing on with a new blue water naval strategy, and Iceland served as a critical forward observation post, monitoring Soviet ship and submarine movements.
As well as protection, Keflavik had brought employment and wealth. Yet many Icelanders felt resentment rather than gratitude: the base led to anxiety that Icelandic culture was threatened by the alien presence of so many foreigners. The ambiguity toward America was nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century, a visitor depicted the American whaler “dashing ashore in his civilian dress, and flinging his dollars everywhere, drinking,
