AThe Independent-Record Helena, Montana Thursday, September 30, 1971 - Page 4
America's Unsung Hero
The majority of Americans probably don't know the difference between a knight and a rook or a Sicilian defense and a queen's gambit in the intricate game of chess.
But a young New Yorker who quite possibly knows more about the game than anyone else in the world is deserving of some long overdue notice by his countrymen.
Bobby Fischer is now single-handed storming the Kremlin where Russian chess masters have built an almost impenetrable wall around their coveted world dominance of the game.
The Russians have held the world championship in chess since 1937. It is their national sport. Everyone either plays — on park benches, in trains, during lunch hours—or avidly follows the progress of his favorite player.
They are good. But on top of that, the Russians have protected their title with a series of elimination matches and downright refusals to play that have made it nearly impossible for anyone to get a shot at their top man, World Chess Champion Boris Spassky.
Now Fischer, after spectacular victories over several international grandmasters in elimination matches, is in Buenos Aires to play her [Russia's] number two man, ex-world champ Tigran Petrosian, in a semifinal match. If Fischer wins he will face Spassky next spring and possibly gain a real coup for the U.S.
It isn't the world title, itself, however, that deserves special notice now. It is the 28-year-old's quiet rise to preeminence in a country that lavishes undue praise and fantastic wealth on the “superstars” of her gridirons and courts and ball parks.
Fischer is a high school dropout who taught himself to read Russian in order to study Russian chess books. Since winning his first U.S. championship at 14 and becoming the youngest international grandmaster at 15, he has supported himself by winning tournaments, giving demonstration matches and writing books about chess.
There were no lucrative college scholarships, multi-million dollar contracts or plump endorsements.
He has lived a life of lonely hotel rooms, strange towns and restaurant food. He is seldom recognized outside his own small circle of friends and today is better known and respected in Russia that in his own country.
He possesses an awesome ability in a game that demands unbelievable concentration, memory, skill and ability to withstand pressure.
For all that, he is poorly rewarded and internationally known and respected.
And he still remains America's unsung hero.
