New York Times, New York, New York, Saturday, July 24, 1971 - Page 24
And Who Is Bobby Fischer?
For reasons that go deep into American history and the national psyche, chess has never attained the status in the United States of baseball or football or even bridge. Compared with the multitudes to whom Babe Ruth or Red Grange or Eli Culbertson were intimately familiar names, how many Americans have ever heard of Paul Morphy or Frank J. Marshall?
Can Bobby Fischer change this situation? He is already a hero in the Soviet Union, where millions of chess fans have ecstatically hailed his recent remarkable shut-out victories over Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen in the preliminary rounds to select the challenger for the world champion Boris Spassky. He has won twelve successive games against two of the world's greatest chess masters.
At 28, after too many years of erratic and often-disappointing play, Bobby Fischer finally appears to be developing into the most brilliant star in the world chess firmament. He deserves to be better appreciated here in his native land.
