| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-04-26, 8:34 pm |
| TAYLOR KINGSTON IS LAUGHING (not!)
"I can only laugh about you presenting Mr. Laurie's letter like it was
the Zimmermann telegram. You seriously misrepresent our correspondence,
though in this case I don't entirely blame you, since Mr. Laurie
himself misrepresents it. I have rarely communicated with anyone so
prone to misunderstanding and misinterpretation as he, whether
willfully or carelessly I don't know." -- Taylor Kingston,
"Is not it amazing that Taylor Kingston has now accused me, Larry Parr,
Mr. Laurie, Larry Evans and somebody named Lev of lies,
misrepresentations, falsehoods and so on and so forth all in the same
thread. Mr. Kingston would have you believe that only he and Edward
Winter are truth-tellers and the rest of us are all liars. Meanwhile,
Taylor Kingston refuses to proivide any evidence at all for his
claims, while peppering us with demands for evidence." Sam Sloan
WHO IS "MISREPRESENTING" KINGSTON'S VIEWS?
Not I , yet I doubt that Mr. Kingston will retract his falsehood. I
merely quoted Richard Laurie's letter in full which caused Mr. Kingston
to "only laugh.".
Two facts are undeniable:
1. FIRST, YOU ASKED ME TO KEEP THIS CORRESPONDENCE SECRET wrote Mr.
Laurie: e.g., don't tell GM Larry Evans.
2. Mr. Kingston tried to persuade Richard Laurie to retract his
letter that won The Best Question in Evans On Chess (Chess Life,
September 2001, page 14).
The question is why did Mr. Kingston write several letters to Mr.
Laurie trying to convince him that GM Evans was wrong?
Well, you see, at the time Mr. Kingston was still claiming there
was no evidence Keres was forced to throw games to Botvinnik in the
1948 World Championship. That was before Mr. Kingston changed his mind
(once again) and finally conceded "the Commies did it" at ChessCafe.
Mr. Laurie was knowledgeable about the subject because he wrote a
play about the last days of Alekhine in Portugal . He presented some
facts backing up GM Evans' view of the matter, and this didn't sit well
with Mr. Kingston. Here is part of GM Evans' reply:
<In a letter to the editor of Kingpin (Spring 2000) Taylor Kingston
claimed I misrepresented his views about the Keres-Botvinnik
controversy. But his "Survey of the Evidence" (Chess Life, May 1998)
devotes six pages to the topic without reaching any conclusion despite
what Keres told Whyld and Botvinnik's startling admission in a 1991
interview that Stalin did intervene. Mr. Kingston, whose work I
generally admire, probably is unfamiliar with a syndicated newspaper
column I wrote in 1999 entitled An Old Scandal. Here is an excerpt.
I analyzed all five games, sadly concluding Keres was probably
coerced. Alas, his dilemma was how to lose and make it look real. "Who
wouldn't throw games to save his own life and his family?" I asked,
reviving an old scandal.
Taylor Kingston, an amateur, wrote a laudatory editor to the
editor of Chess Life: 'Larry Evans' article The Tragedy of Paul Keres
in October 1996 was one of the best pieces of historical writing you've
ever run. Evans' analysis of games in the 1948 World Championship makes
a strong case that Keres' failure was the result of coercion by Soviet
authorities. We should investigate further and find out the facts. We
could be on the verge of uncovering a major scandal in chess history.'
Kingston later wrote an article disputing my theory, mostly
ignoring my critique of Keres' strange moves. This was like dismissing
the Zapruder film in the Kennedy assassination.....Clearly the Soviets
used dirty tricks in chess for decades. The truth about Botvinnik and
Keres may never be known, but until a smoking gun is found in KGB
files, I firmly believe the games themselves contains the best evidence
of a fix.>
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