While midterms for IR are taking place this week it seems a good moment to go back to the year 1972.
It’s July 11th and the temperature has just dipped below freezing point in Reykjavik, Iceland where when one of the most peaceful clashes of the cold war is going to take place.. Forget about the Vietnam war that was raging on full speed in South-east Asia, this was the real deal: Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky were going to square it off in black and white on the 64 squares of the chess board.
To this day Russia and Other Former Soviet countries dominate the international chess arena and it was no different in 1972 (the top 20 at the time contained only 5 non-Soviet players). To put it mildly, chess was important for the Soviet Union as a demonstration of the supremacy of the communist model and Boris Spassky their champion . Chicago-born Bobby Fischer posed the first serious challenge to the Soviet Chess Hegemony, on his road to the World Championship he disposed – no, demolished – Taimanov, Larsen and Petrosian (a former World Champion himself).
In other words, tensions ran high and to make matters worse, Fischer, who was not an accommodating person, decided last minute to make additional demands and accordingly didn’t arrive until the very last minute. Fortunately, an alleged phone call by Kissinger (“the world’s worst chess player calling the world’s best chess player”) and a higher prize fund convinced Fischer to play … and so it began on July 11th.
But this is no fairy tale and the first game turned into a huge disappointment with Fischer making an incomprehensible blunder and losing the game. To add insult to injury, he blamed his loss on the noise of the cameras and the public and therefore did not show up for the second game. To convince Fischer to continue playing, Spassky made a number of concessions (considered by some as a psychological blunder).
What followed can be easily called spectacular with Fischer playing some amazing chess and quickly gaining the lead and eventually winning the match 12.5 vs. 8.5. It goes without saying that Fischer overnight became a national celebrity. Perhaps this proved to be too much because he effectively retired afterwards into a life of obscurity.
This whole story was triggered by a question in the latest issue of the economist: “can a world cup win help New Zealand’s prime minister?”. The importance of sport in national politics might seem obvious (another example could be Mandela’s endorsement of the Springboks), but can sports also play an important role in international politics? Would the euro crisis be easier solved if Greece had just become European champions with Italy as runner-up so that they could better enact reforms? What is you take?
Post Scriptum: In any case, I cannot end without showing at least one chess diagram. The position below is taken from the match and has Fischer behind the white pieces.
The position is beautiful from an aesthetic point of view: white’s rook is trapped by the pawn and the bishop while the black king and rook are trying to fight off the army of pawns marching down. Fischer is to move and the question is what is his best continuation (First correct solution earns a drink at Julio’s).
i emailed you my attempt!