Then there is the alarm over Spassky’s refreshments—that on 15 August he drank some juice and was overcome with lethargy. Once more, the KGB and Gostiev are involved. Once more, Gostiev springs into action, ensuring a sample is sent to Moscow. KGB scientists check the sample. Later, Gostiev’s superior, Nikashkin, tells Ivonin that nothing untoward was found.
However, the KGB is not content to play a purely reactive role. The organization’s idea of a helping hand also involves taking the initiative, instigating its own rumor that Fischer is cheating through a device hidden in his chair —a device, so the rumor goes, that is impairing Spassky’s performance and/or benefiting Fischer. This idea is canvassed toward the end of July. It must have sounded convincing. As Ivonin listens to the “comrades” talking, he finds himself wondering whether there might really be something to it. On 29 July, Boris Goncharov, of the Central Committee, reports to Ivonin that the rumor has been “launched.” The rest is silence.
Given the launch date, it is a mystery whether there was any connection between this rumor and Geller’s statement to the press three weeks later, on 22 August, protesting about dirty tricks being used to influence Spassky, though Geller asserted that “letters had been received.” The story of the scenes that followed this statement has already been related. In Moscow, Major General Nikashkin informed Ivonin that the episode had received a lot of publicity; that Icelandic experts had checked everything and nothing had been found.
Was Geller obeying KGB orders? Had he been told the full details of the KGB plotting, or was he himself a victim of the plot, inveigled into believing and then publicly conveying the allegations of American high-tech machinations? Within Spassky’s chess team, Geller, who was ultrasuspicious of the West, acted alone. Krogius did not sign the controversial declaration, and today he categorizes the action as “unsuccessful and clumsy.” He attributes it entirely to “Geller’s tendency to act spontaneously.” Nei says he refused to put his name to the statement because it was evident to him that Geller had issued it under political instruction from Moscow. Ivonin declares that the first he heard of the letter was when news of it came from Reykjavik. Spassky now remembers that a letter before the match had warned about the chair and “this letter was fished out.” Perhaps, nearing the end of the contest, desperate to account for his failure to find a breakthrough at the board, he and Geller consciously or subconsciously cast about for non-chess explanations. Still ignorant of the KGB scheme, Spassky continues to believe that Fischer’s black leather swivel chair might have had something in it; he says he was not at all embarrassed by Geller’s pronouncement.
It remains an open question whether a KGB operative actually planted something in Fischer’s chair for the X- rays to pick up, part of an inept attempt to rescue the champion’s reputation, perhaps even to have Fischer disgraced and disqualified. Strikingly, even the American Don Schultz, an IBM engineer by profession and president of the USCF from 1996 to 1999, is suspicious. During the X-ray process, Fischer’s team sent Schultz along to act as an observer. He still has the contemporaneous notes he took, including a sketch of the object with the loop that he saw in the first X-ray. At the time, in public, he laughed off the Soviet allegations. But later he too admitted to doubts: “Everything wasn’t fully explained.” What puzzled him was the discrepancy between the two X-rays. He was there as the second set of X-rays was developed and saw that the looplike object, the “anomaly,” as he calls it, had disappeared.
I’ve thought long about this. The only plausible thing—and it really sounds radical, and I didn’t want to mention it at the time, as I thought nobody would believe me—but I think there is a slight chance that some crackpot Russian agent—and this is really wild—some crackpot Russian agent had a plan to try to embarrass the U.S. by planting something in the chair and then making a complaint and having it found. And their security forces found out what he did and thought it was a crackpot idea, and somehow they got it out.
This, he says, is “a very disconcerting possibility. I am convinced this is what had to have happened.” Of course, once the alarm was raised, the Soviets and the Icelanders might each have had their own reasons for ensuring nothing was found. Don Schultz was startled when Icelandic officials announced the all clear before the results from the second set of X-rays had been reported.
Whether or not the KGB did implant a device, what is clear is that Krogius is right to call the entire exploit clumsy and unsuccessful. The Icelandic organizers dismissed the accusation, the American media ridiculed it, and the Soviets were left humbled.
The possibility of a spy in the troubled Soviet camp also raised its head. The challenger’s unforeseen departure from a lifetime of opening predictability had thrown Spassky; that Fischer was the better prepared is indisputable. But Geller was convinced that Spassky’s prematch analysis had been leaked.
To suspicious Soviet minds, if there were a fifth columnist, who was the likely culprit? In the written record of the postmortem on the match, there is no direct accusation against any member of the Spassky team, but the wording of a comment by Viktor Baturinskii points a finger. Spassky had cited Ivo Nei as the weak link in his team. Evidently angry and on the defensive, the former prosecutor lashed out: “Here mention has been made of Nei,
In the minds of the Sports Committee, Nei had no real business in Reykjavik. From the moment Spassky’s team was first assembled, Nei was referred to as the champion’s “physical trainer.” Nei insists that he played a full part in the chess analysis, working at night alongside the rest of the team. He also spoke fluent German and some English, and in Reykjavik he interpreted for the chief arbiter, Lothar Schmid, and for Max Euwe, president of FIDE. He knew the president well.
No doubt it was a combination of Nei’s command of chess and his position as an “insider” that commended him to Paul Marshall as the possible author of a book on the match. Marshall recognized the market for such books—especially one written from inside Spassky’s camp. Nei says that as well as royalties, Marshall offered him anything he wanted from America. Nei then approached grandmaster Robert Byrne to be coauthor. This former U.S. champion was in Reykjavik as a commentator for a Dutch television station. Nei had been getting out and about, hobnobbing with match officials and the American visitors. The Soviet ambassador had not vetoed his extramural activities, but he advised Nei to be cautious in his contact with U.S. citizens. As Spassky’s coach, says Nei, his meeting the Americans was beneficial for Spassky: He was able to give his team some insight into how the U.S. camp was thinking.
The book Marshall brokered is called
Immediately after game seventeen on 22 August, Nei left the match so abruptly that he had to kick his heels in Copenhagen waiting for an onward flight to Moscow. Today he says that his job was done and he was needed for the beginning of the academic year in Estonia, where he was head of the chess school. The match was as good as over. He was no longer engaged in serious analysis with Spassky’s other seconds, and Geller thought it was pointless for him to stay. Spassky agreed.
Krogius’s version differs. Certain Soviet embassy personnel informed him and Geller that “Nei is behaving oddly.” The Estonian was spending a long time alone with Byrne. In turn, the two seconds told Spassky. The same evening, Nei was put under hostile interrogation. He did not deny his contacts with Byrne, that he and the American were analyzing the match and that he was passing Byrne his comments on the games for future publication in the United States. His dubious listeners pressed Nei: “Why was he engaged in outside work of such a suspicious nature, and in secret, without Spassky’s permission? And in the material passed to the American, what had he said about Spassky’s condition and his own assessment of Spassky’s chess to date?” They were not satisfied with Nei’s responses. The conversation grew extremely heated. Nei was told that his services were no longer required and that he must leave. (Spassky says members of his team had no right to engage in business.)
On the following day, the Estonian flew out. He changed planes in Moscow, flying straight to his home city of
