The Austin American Austin, Texas Sunday, August 16, 1959
U.S. Chess Genius 'Tied' for Funds
By Edith Kermit Roosevelt
(Edith Kermit Roosevelt has been a newspaper reporter and a correspondent for the past 10 years. She is the granddaughter of former President Theodore Roosevelt.)
Were 16-year old Chess Genius Bobby Fischer to visit Russia, he would probably win more kudos than Vice President Nixon and Jazz Man Louis Armstrong put together.
Chess in Russia is a national pastime. It is taught in the schools. Russian boys and girls tote chess sets to the beat the way American couple carry a portable radio. At the international chess meets held in Moscow 18,000 Russians pore over the moves of the chess masters as they are duplicated on giant boards on the walls of the Palace of Sport in the Lenin Recreation Center. Then as the events are rebroadcasted, millions more Russians huddle over their radios and place bets on the players.
This is why if Bobby ever walked on Red Square he'd be mobbed with requests for autographs. A boy like Bobby Fischer is a credit to our country on a visit to Russia or anywhere else; not only is he U.S. champion but he's the youngest international grand champion of all time.
ALTHOUGH this wiry, six footer from Brooklyn is official U.S. representative to the Candidates Tournament to be held in Yugoslavia Sept. 6 to October 31, he had not yet been able to scrape together the $2,000 he need for expenses. Unless he finds a way to raise these funds immediately, he also will forfeit his chance to challenge the Soviet's World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik in Moscow in 1960.
In preparation for the coming tournament, Bobby already has exhausted both his own prize winnings and the spare pennies contributed by his mother, Mrs. Regina Fischer, a nurse.
Foreigners have a hard time understanding Bobby's embarrassing position. In their countries chess is a highly regarded, popular sport, subsidized by powerful chess organizations or by the state.
If Bobby gets to the Yugoslav meet, he will face four Russians whom the state has provided with coaches for the gambits, plus every kind of financial and moral backing.
In the U.S. chess is the step child of the sports world. It is considered a hobby befitting a retired colonel or perhaps an old maid with a lorgnette, but certainly not a career for a red-blooded American man. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a first-rate professional chess player to earn his keep from the game.
Last year, after winning the U.S. championship for 1958, Bobby qualified for the Interzonal Tournament in Yugoslavia during the summer. After three months in a futile attempt to raise money, he was only able to attend by a fluke. He won tickets on the Garry Moore Show, “I've Got A Secret.”
Like many standouts, Bobby's a high strung youth. And he's carrying a triple load. He must complete his schooling, pursue the demands of an exacting profession and raise money for chess coaches and chess literature.
Last winter after his day at Erasmus High School, Brooklyn, he sat up night to work on his book, “Bobby Fischer's Games of Chess.”
Bobby has been offered sizeable sums to compete in exhibition matches with weak players. He always refuses because “it would be bad for my chess.”
Instead, he takes off for faraway places, many times at his own expense, to compete against the international grand masters where, he says, “you can compete man-to-man against the strong players.”
BOBBY DOESN'T get a good press in this country. He has a shy, studious personality. His only friends are other top chess players, men usually two or three times his own age.
He rarely grants interviews “because I can't see why it's anybody's business to know what I eat for breakfast, when I take a shower or what time I go to bed.”
Fellow players describe Bobby as “quiet at the board.” Unlike some players, he has never been known to divert or annoy opponents by smoking, banging chess pieces or passing disconcerting remarks.
But gentleman though he is, Bobby is known as “a deadly fighter over the boards.” The youngster has total recall about moves and appears as fresh at the end of a five hour chess game as at the “openings.”
Bobby's plight has attracted the interest of the U.S. Chess Federation. The organization believes it is the obligation of this country's approximately 1,000,000 chess players to cooperate with their chess clubs in setting up a fund to support qualified chess masters in international meets. Chess is an intricate and challenging sport, one in which Americans should be proud to excel.
Footnote: Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt (1901–1909) and his fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945), whose wife, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, was Theodore's niece.
