The Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts Thursday, September 18, 1958
In His Own Country…
There was something rather disgraceful in the way the American chess champion, 15-year-old Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn, was forced to travel to Europe and back in order to play in the Candidates Chess Tournament in Yugoslavia. To raise his fare over, he had to appear on a television quiz program. He paid his way back with prize money. He placed fifth in the competition to win the title of international grand master and a chance to play in the Challengers Tournament. The winner of that will play the world's champion, Mikhail Botvinnik.
Honored in Europe, Bobby was all but ignored on his return to Brooklyn. His case parallels somewhat that of the pianist Van Cliburn, for Bobby too was besieged by Europeans. Europe and Russia have always been long on chess, recognizing the intellectual quality of the game and its value as a mental and imaginative discipline. There, it is admired as an art, and considered a social grace. Child prodigies are not unusual, but Bobby was the delight of the tournament.
The beginnings of chess are obscured in time. Half a dozen nations lay claim to its invention. The scholars lean to India. Whatever its origin, it bears to-day the hallmark of the genius of the Middle Ages. For 200 years Spain and Italy dominated the game. Later, England and France emerged. Then Germany and neighboring countries of central Europe had 100 years of hegemony, although it was during this period that the New World contributed two champions, Jose R. Capablanca, Cuban diplomat, and Paul Morphy, the American wizard who quit at 22. In 1930, Russia, took changed and the title remains there today.
It is something of a national game in Russia. Interest runs high in all walks of life. Russians expect every educated man to be able to play chess. It is taught in the schools, and is in no sense the esoteric preserve of the intellectuals. Chess masters are national heroes, pampered by the government. So would be Bobby Fischer were he a Russian schoolboy.
But in the United States the game has never been popular. Hundreds of reasons have been advanced to explain this. One of the most plausible is the widespread fallacy that it is a very difficult game to learn and time-consuming to an exaggerated degree. It is neither. There are many who believe that nationwide encouragement here would give America world pre-eminence in the sport.
There certain is good reason to believe that the presence of Americans in this field of endeavor where East and West meet without rancor would have high propaganda value among nations that regard us as hopelessly concerned with business. There is more reason to believe that the game would be an ideal supplement to education in this country.
Yet Bobby is probably the only national champion in any field who in effect has had to thumb his way across the Atlantic to compete against foreign champions. And neither the State Department, with its substantial expenditures for cultural exchange, nor the numerous foundations with their concern for variegated precincts of knowledge, came to the young man's aid.
