17. MIDDLE GAME
Now I have nothing but my wife.
After the trauma of the first phase of the match, the organizers and contestants settled into a familiar routine. The shock of Fischer’s approach had worn off. Like inhabitants of an occupied town, they accommodated to a new way of life. There was the certainty of a complaint or more each day by letter, sometimes signed by Fischer, sometimes by Cramer; there were threats, tantrums, ultimatums. But there was also a built-in momentum arising out of a comforting regularity—the game, the day(s) off, the familiarity of the proceedings. As under occupation, the citizens could never let down their guard: there was always the danger that a Fischer complaint would escalate out of control. Some of the protests, however, began to lose their edge; indeed, tension levels among the organizers peaked when no objections were lodged. What was Fred Cramer planning now?
This self-made millionaire from Milwaukee and former president of the U.S. Chess Federation was a tiny man with a giant ego who had made his fortune in the lighting industry. Brad Darrach described him as five feet five “with a little help from his shoemaker” and added that, depending on his mood, he “looked like any of the seven Disney dwarfs.” When Cramer was encircled by the press, his lack of height rendered him invisible and all the journalists on the edge of the group could make out was a squeaky voice somewhere in the void.
Cramer was then in his late fifties and held the official title of vice president of FIDE, responsible for Zone 5 (the United States). He became Fischer’s unofficial spokesperson after Edmondson was summarily fired. Two men more different than Edmondson and Cramer would be hard to imagine. U.S. Air Force colonel Edmondson had a dignified military bearing and a calming influence. Former captain Cramer was excitable and self-important. However, he was highly regarded for his work as president of the USCF—bringing in the Elo system, named after its inventor, professor of mathematics Arpad Elo, which rated the strength of chess players. Cramer also left the USCF a substantial legacy.
Cramer regarded himself as a man of many key roles: gatekeeper to the American genius, main organizer, strategist, and spokesman—someone equivalent to the U.S. president’s chief of staff, barring the way to the Oval Office. In reality, he was little more than chief gofer, in charge of a coterie of lesser gofers, all tensely awaiting Fischer’s barked orders and sweating in case they failed to meet their fickle master’s whims at any hour of day or night. He once even admitted as much: “I am authorized only to complain.” Complain he did. Barely a day passed without a volley of his discourteous notes. He would also complain in person to officials—sometimes rather conspiratorially by whispering to them in a public place. “Ear-shattering whispers from six inches,” according to the British
He was in the habit of holding impromptu press conferences in the antechamber to the main playing hall or in the lobby of the Loftleidir hotel, oblivious to how comical or portentous the journalists found them. He reveled in the attention and would dramatize the latest developments using an idiosyncratic vocabulary consisting predominantly of warring metaphors such as “The Russians are supporting their frontline troops with a paper barrage.” Not being blessed with the spokesman’s qualities of wit, tact and diplomacy, he was a journalist’s godsend, always to be relied on for a quote. In public relations terms, he was twenty years ahead of his time, defending Fischer’s behavior by launching verbal counterthrusts rather than by apologizing. The more outlandish Fischer’s conduct, the more vociferous Cramer’s defense. The Russians were always talking “nonsense,” “garbage.” The officials were “stupid” or “incompetent” or “biased.”
Reporters aside, he was not popular in Reykjavik. Spassky accused him of acting as though Fischer were the champion and “I was nothing.” The officials disliked him, too. Today, Schmid dismisses him with a laugh as “Bobby’s servant,” simply carrying out his wishes in a way Edmondson might not. He found fault so often, says Schmid, “that I was well trained.” Following his early attempt to have Schmid removed as chief arbiter, Cramer had aired doubts about the German grandmaster’s impartiality when he played bridge with the champion on a day off and when on a separate occasion he was observed dining with Ivo Nei. Schmid dismissed the accusations robustly: “Whenever I see Mr. Cramer, he tries to hide behind a big man.”
The big man was the key to Cramer’s frenetic activities. In Don Schultz’s phrase, “He was a 100 percent ‘yes-man’ for Bobby: Cramer did not want to be fired, like his predecessor, Edmondson. So he did literally everything Fischer wanted. Whatever Fischer would say, he would respond, ‘Yes, sir. I agree with that, let’s do it.’” It is easy at this distance to mock Cramer’s submis-siveness to Fischer’s every wish. But he was far from alone: most of those serving Fischer accepted that there was a line not to be crossed if his wrath was to be avoided.
Cramer’s press conferences were his—often desperate—means of proving to Fischer that he was faithfully executing orders. Schultz believes it was not the most effective strategy. “A better way would have been to go to the authorities behind the scenes. Instead, Bobby would say something and there would be a press release.” Frank Skoff, who became president of the U.S. Chess Federation in August 1972 and was one of Fischer’s aides in Reykjavik, is more generous: “Fred would have been a good guy if he’d just tempered himself a bit, but he was one of these people who bubble over, and when he gets going he shoots in all directions.”
Fischer’s bodyguard in Iceland, and one of the few to achieve some sort of rapport with the challenger, Saemundur—“Saemi-rock”—Palsson recalls how if Fischer needed to be woken up for a game, Cramer would “knock on the door and then say to me, ‘You stay there.’ Then he would run off.”
The close relationship that developed between Fischer and Saemundur Palsson, between the chess megastar and an Icelandic policeman, is one of the curiosities of the match.
In Iceland, the thirty-five-year-old Palsson was as much a celebrity as Fischer. An avuncular, regular-guy, he had won the gold medal in the Icelandic Judo Championship (middleweight), had taken first place in a Reykjavik rock-dancing tournament, and was the ex-goalkeeper for the national handball team. He had one other fateful attribute that put him on guard outside Fischer’s house the evening the contender finally arrived: His superiors knew he spoke some English, enough to communicate with the challenger.
On that night, at around midnight, Fischer poked his head out of the window to check whether the road was clear. When he saw that it was, he went out, asked Palsson, who was sitting in his police car, for directions to the city center, declined a lift, and loped off into the night. Palsson radioed his headquarters for instructions. “Don’t let him out of your sight,” he was ordered.
The chess player was now heading due west—away from the city. They pulled up alongside him. “Good evening, Mr. Fischer,” Palsson said. “How about coming with us? If you like, we can show you around and escape this jungle of much concrete.” The American agreed to an excursion. The night was chilly; Fischer had ventured out without a sweater. After picking up some warmer clothing, they took off for the mountains. Palsson contacted headquarters again, naturally briefing them in Icelandic. Sharply, Fischer demanded to know what they were talking about. Palsson was suitably mollifying.
In the country, they found a flock of sheep and chased them “like children.” It was the beginning of a firm friendship—some say Palsson was the only real friend Fischer ever had. “I need a tailor,” Fischer said that night. “Do you know where I can find one?” Palsson knew everybody in town—he promised to introduce Bobby to the finest tailor in Reykjavik, Colin Porter, an Englishman married to an Icelander. “My TV aerial is broken. Do you know anyone who can repair it?” “I’ll make sure it’s fixed,” said Palsson.
For the next two months, Palsson and Fischer were nearly inseparable. Fischer always called him “Sammy.” The policeman became the dependable elder brother that Fischer never had. They played tennis, they swam (“I was a little faster than him, but to keep him in a good mood I would lose”). Palsson would take Fischer to his house by the sea, where Bobby would lounge on the sofa while Mrs. Palsson cooked up colossal helpings of Icelandic cuisine. Fischer grew attached to Palssons son, Asgeir, then seven years old. Bobby could not understand why, when they went out in the middle of the night, Mrs. Palsson would not let her son accompany them.
Palsson even looked after Fischer’s finances. He remembers Fischer as being naive to the point of ignorance on issues of money, and especially on the foreign checks he received from various sources in Reykjavik. “He only wanted green [cash]. I said, ‘I can prove to you that these checks are real money.’ And I took a check for six or seven thousand kronur and we went down to the bank, where I said, ‘I need to change this check.’ And Bobby
