Chess politics - Fischer has landed in Iceland

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Fischer has landed in Iceland

banana

2005-03-25, 6:51 am

Fischer landed in Iceland, about 11 pm local time Thursday, wisely at
Reykjavik airport and not close to any US base:

Icelandic-language articles:

<http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/frett.html?nid=1131113>

<http://www.visir.is/?PageID=38&NewsID=35656>

English-language article, sourced to US news agency AP:

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005...ain683023.shtml>:

***BEGIN ARTICLE***

Bobby Fischer Lands In Iceland

REYKJAVIK, Iceland, March 25, 2005

(AP) Bobby Fischer's latest audacious gambit has begun in a wind-lashed
corner of the north Atlantic.

The volatile chess icon arrived in chilly Reykjavik late Thursday, a
brand-new Icelandic citizen and unrepentant critic of the United States,
which considers him as a fugitive from justice.

Hours after being freed from nine months' detention in Japan, Fischer
called the United States "an illegitimate country" and said the charges
against him were groundless.

Arriving at Reykjavik airport, Fischer, 62, said he was feeling "good,
very good," and accepted a bouquet of flowers from fans before being
whisked away in a car.

Dressed in jeans and sporting a bushy gray beard, Fischer stepped from a
chartered jet to applause from about 200 supporters in a tiny, chess-
loving nation still grateful for its role as the site of his most famous
match - a 1972 world championship victory over Soviet player Boris
Spassky that was the highlight of Fischer's career and a world-gripping
symbol of Cold War rivalry.

Fischer was freed early Thursday after nine months' detention in Japan,
where he had been held by authorities for trying to leave the country
using an invalid U.S. passport. Japan agreed to release him after he
accepted Iceland's offer of citizenship.

Even minutes after his release in Tokyo, Fischer remained defiant and at
one point he unzipped his pants and acted as if he were going to urinate
on a wall at the airport.

During his long trip to Iceland - by scheduled flight from Tokyo to
Copenhagen and then by chartered jet from a small airport in southern
Sweden - Fischer railed against the governments of Japan and the United
States, calling Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi "mentally ill"
and a "stooge" of President Bush.

"They are war criminals and should be hung," said Fischer, referring to
the Japanese prime minister and President Bush.

"This was a kidnapping because the charges that the Japanese charged me
with are totally nonsense," he told Associated Press Television News on
the flight.

An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, the enigmatic
Fischer has long had a reputation for volatility, increasingly strange
behavior, and has a troubled relationship with the United States.

Aboard the flight from Tokyo, he called the United States "an
illegitimate country ... just like the bandit state of Israel."

"That country, the United States, belongs to the red man, the American
Indian. ... It's actually a shame to be a so-called American because
everybody living there is ... an invader," Fischer said.

Fischer, wanted by the United States for violating sanctions imposed on
the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match against Spassky
there in 1992, has fought deportation since he was detained by Japanese
officials last July.

After a nine-month tussle between Fischer and Japanese authorities,
Iceland's Parliament stepped in this week to break the standoff by
giving Fischer citizenship.

"My passport was perfectly good," Fischer insisted on the SAS flight to
Copenhagen.

"It's just my misfortune that this criminal idiot Koizumi ... is a close
friend of Bush and he's willing to do anything Bush tells him," Fischer
said.

Fischer said he felt "very appreciative" toward Iceland - but indicated
he had no plans to tone down his anti-U.S. rhetoric.

"I grew up with the concept of freedom of speech. I'm too old,' he said.
"It's too late for me to adjust to the new world, the new world order,"
he said with a chuckle.

His genius for chess has been overshadowed by increasingly bizarre
behavior that among other things, caused him to lose his world champion
title back in 1978. After that, he vanished from the public eye except
for occasional radio interviews which often degenerated into anti-
Semitic rants accusing American officials of hounding him.

He praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be
"wiped out," and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards." His
mother was Jewish.

Fisher has lived in seclusion and semi-secrecy for decades but he
remains a popular figure in Iceland, a country with one of the highest
numbers of chess players per capita in the world.

"Even though I don't know him personally, I have the feeling of knowing
him through his biography of chess, his games," said Magnus Skulason, an
Icelandic psychiatrist and chess enthusiast who came to the airport to
greet Fischer. "It was hard to think of him going to jail for many
years."

This nation of fewer than 300,000 people is a staunch U.S. ally, but
there is a strong undercurrent of public anger at the government's
support for the U.S.-led Iraq war, which was opposed by four fifths of
Icelanders.

Iceland's ambassador to Japan, Thordur Oskarsson, said Washington sent a
"message of disappointment" to the Icelandic government at its decision
to grant Fischer a passport. The United States has an extradition treaty
with Iceland, and could still try to have Fischer deported.

If convicted of violating U.S. sanctions imposed to punish then-
President Slobodan Milosevic, Fischer could face 10 years in prison and
a $250,000 fine.

His Icelandic supporters vow that won't happen.

"I think he is safe now," said Thorstein Matthiasson, 39. "We have more
courage than the Japanese."

***END ARTICLE***

--
banana "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you
give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to
Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the
rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)

Hans Jørgen Lassen

2005-03-25, 6:51 am

"I think he is safe now," said Thorstein Matthiasson, 39. "We have more
courage than the Japanese."

They sure have. Maybe Iceland is the place to live.

If the Japanese were to uphold their old ideas about honour I think one or
two of them ought to commit suicide.

I know these concepts of honour do not exist in the US.

HansJ

Paul Rubin

2005-03-25, 6:51 am

"Hans Jørgen Lassen" <hj.lassen@privat.dk> writes:

quote:

> "I think he is safe now," said Thorstein Matthiasson, 39. "We have more
> courage than the Japanese."
>
> They sure have. Maybe Iceland is the place to live.

I'd like to at least visit there sometime. Meanwhile I have a couple
of Bjork cd's, which are quite good.

Hans Jørgen Lassen

2005-03-25, 6:51 am

In my distant youth I played chess with an Icelander living at the same
college (not college in the American sense, but just rooms, appartments for
students) as I did. A hot-tempered person, and for that reason he mostly
lost, but also a person with a warm heart.
Later I played a few correspondance games with Icelanders. This one you will
like:

Lassen,H - Karlsson,B. [B99]
EU-ch M corr, 1982

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7
9.0-0-0 Nbd7 10.Bd3 b5 11.Rhe1 Bb7 12.Qg3 b4 13.Nd5 exd5 14.e5 dxe5 15.fxe5
Ne4? [ 15...Nh5] 16.Bxe4 Bxg5+ 17.Qxg5 dxe4 18.Nf5 Qxe5 19.Rf1! [ 19.Nd6+
Kf8 20.Qxe5 Nxe5 21.Nxb7 Ng4 22.Nd6 g6 23.h3 Nf6 24.Nxe4=
Petruschin-Chudinovsky, UdSSR 1973] 19...Bc6 [ 19...f6 20.Qxg7 0-0-0 21.Nd6+
Kc7 ( 21...Kb8 22.Nxb7 Rhg8 23.Nxd8) 22.Nxb7 Rhg8 ( 22...Kxb7+-) 23.Qxh7 Rh8
24.Qf7 Rhf8 25.Rxd7+; 19...h6 20.Nxg7+ Kf8 21.Rxf7+! Kg8 22.Qg6 Nf8 (
22...Qg5+ 23.Qxg5 hxg5 24.Rfxd7 Bc8 25.Re7 Bg4 26.Rh1) 23.Rxf8+ Kxf8 24.Rf1+
Ke7 25.Rf7+ Kd8 26.Qb6+ Kc8 27.Qxb7+] 20.Nxg7+ Kf8 21.Qh6! Bb5 [ 21...Qxg7
22.Qxc6 Rd8 23.Rxd7 Rxd7 24.Qxd7 Qg5+ 25.Kb1 Qe7 26.Qxe7+ Kxe7 27.Rf4;
21...Bd5 22.Rf5 Qxg7 23.Qd6+ Kg8 ( 23...Ke8 24.Rdxd5 Rd8 25.Rd4) 24.Qxd5 Nb6
25.Qd8+ Rxd8 26.Rxd8+ Qf8 27.Rg5# #] 22.Nf5+ Kg8 [ 22...Ke8 23.Nd6+ Ke7
24.Rxf7+ Kd8 25.Rxd7+! Kxd7 26.Nf7+] 23.Rf4 Nf8 [ 23...Be2 24.Rxd7 Re8
25.Qg5+ Kf8 26.Nh6] 24.Qg7+!! Qxg7 25.Ne7# # 1-0

Morphy's ghost

2005-03-25, 5:51 pm

In the year of our Lord Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:16:10 +0100, "Hans Jørgen
Lassen" <hj.lassen@privat.dk> wrote:

quote:

>"I think he is safe now," said Thorstein Matthiasson, 39. "We have more
>courage than the Japanese."
>
>They sure have. Maybe Iceland is the place to live.

I've never been there, but everything I've heard about Iceland
suggests that it's a pretty nice place to live. And I'm quite sure
that Iceland would not have given Fischer citizenship if they didn't
intend to thwart his extradition.

quote:

>
>If the Japanese were to uphold their old ideas about honour I think one or
>two of them ought to commit suicide.
>
>I know these concepts of honour do not exist in the US.
>
>HansJ
>
>

Bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet
shall not his folly be beaten out of him. -- William Blake

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)

2005-03-26, 3:50 am

banana wrote:

quote:

> Fischer landed in Iceland, about 11 pm local time
> Thursday, wisely at Reykjavik airport and not close
> to any US base

Your low standard for the meaning of word "wise"
speaks volumes about you, monkey's food. But
never mind.

I am glad that Fischer's ordeal is to great
extent over (I hope so).

I still don't envy him. It was a common nighmare
of about every US immigrant from a communist country
to dream about somehow being outside of the USA, and
not being able to come back. I am sure that inability
to come back to the USA must by a very depressing factor
of the present Fischer's subconscious condition -- it's
a terrible punishment. And because of this I am very sorry
for Fischer.

Wlod