how bobby fischer won cold war

How Bobby Fischer Won the Cold War

I know I will get a lot of flack from my fellow conservatives for

saying this, but it wasn't Ronald Reagan who won the Cold War; it was

Bobby Fischer , who died today in Iceland at 64. Sure, Fischer, who

was probably the greatest chess player who ever lived, was

anti-Semitic (although his mother was Jewish), renounced his American

citizenship after he was arrested in Japan for violating sanctions

against the former Yugoslavia, and rejoiced on September 11 saying he

wanted to "see the U.S. wiped out," but nobody is perfect. For me

Bobby Fischer will always be an American hero.

Young, handsome, brash, spoiled, somewhat insane, Bobby Fischer became

a role model for American youth when he beat Soviet grandmaster Boris

Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship. That this uncouth punk,

playing a game most Americans didn't understand or care about, beat

the cultured, pampered product of Soviet government largesse stunned

the world. For one brief shining moment from July to September 1972

Americans huddled in their living rooms around their televisions

debating the relative merits of the Sicilian Defense, the Queen's

Gambit and Tartakover Variation. Fischer showed that an individual

could triumph on his own merits and you didn't need government

handouts to succeed. All you needed was confidence in your own genius,

a big sense of entitlement and a lot of style. You can see the

influence of Fischer not only in America's steroid-pumped baseball

stars and Olympic athletes but even in the carefree arrogance of our

own President.

When Fischer beat Spassky, America was at a low point in its history.

The Vietnam War was winding to a close without any sign of victory.

The American basketball team lost the Olympic gold medal to the

Soviets in a controversial game that summer. Communist influence was

on the rise. But Bobby Fischer showed the world that we Americans

still had one weapon in our arsenal. That weapon was our faith that we

are better than anyone else in the world and therefore we don't need

to play by the world's rules and if you rile us we are just as liable

to overturn the chessboard as we are to humiliate you in 41 moves.

Richard Nixon had once proposed to his aide Bob Haldeman a strategy

for victory in Vietnam he called the Madman Theory. "I want the North

Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything

to stop the war," Nixon told Haldeman. "We'll just slip the word to

them that, 'for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about

Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry -- and he has his

hand on the nuclear button' -- and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in

Paris in two days begging for peace." But Nixon just talked about the

Madman Theory. Bobby Fischer put it into practice. And Nixon was

right. Just a month after Fischer proved how crazy Americans can be,

the North Vietnamese agreed to end the war. Earlier that year the

Soviets signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the United

States, no doubt because Soviet chess players had already relayed

reports of Fischer's nuttiness to their government officials. Seven

years later the Soviets signed the SALT II treaty. Bobby Fischer was

the closest contact the Soviets had with a real American and he

terrified them. By the time Ronald Reagan arrived, joking about

dropping the big one on Russia, the Soviets were already running

scared. To them it seemed as if Bobby Fischer had been elected

President of the United States.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said there are no second acts in American

lives, but he was wrong. American second acts are played as farce.

American genius is often too great for any one man to handle. Like

Howard Hughes, Elvis and Tom Cruise, Bobby Fischer was always

teetering just this side of complete and total looniness, so it is no

surprise that he finally went all the way over. And yet he still

managed to beat Boris Spassky again in their 1992 rematch.

The terrorists are probably too young to remember Bobby Fischer. But

maybe there is a young American backgammon player out there who knows

the game as well as Fischer knew chess. And maybe someday he will play

the Arab world's champion backgammon player and he will complain about

the lights and cameras and walk out in protest and generally cause a

ruckus with his eccentricities. And then he will come from behind and

crush their champion backgammon player. Maybe this young American

backgammon genius will win the War on Terror the way Bobby Fischer won

the Cold War.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Chess,

Nixon, Cold War, Soviet Union, Politics

Carnivals: Carnival of Mental Illness, History Carnival

Posted by Jon Swift at 1/18/2008 11:43:00 AM

Labels: Foreign Policy, Nixon, Politics, Sports, Television

17 comments:

Carl said...

Sir Swift,

If there had been no Bobby Fischer, there would have been no

Reagan, and therefore, no one for Barack Obama to praise when

it comes to "turning the country around".

For that alone, and for thus ensuring a Huckabee victory, we

should pause for a moment of silence for Fischer.

1/18/2008 12:49 PM

OutOfContext said...

I cannot support your praise of this man. As far as I'm

concerned he died to me five years ago, when he said this about

our President on Philippine radio:

"I've been studying this guy's face for a long time. He's an

imbecile, he's an idiot, he's a jerk, he's a...whatever...and

I'm thinking, 'what is the word that fits this guy?' and

finally I...finally I think of it--he's a buffoon...Yeah,

that's the word that fits this guy...He always has a...I mean

really...he is borderline retarded...If it wasn't for his

father he would have ended up on skid row or in a mental

hospital or as an alcoholic or drunkard..."

1/18/2008 3:16 PM

Scaramouche said...

Longtime reader, first time poster...

This is by far your best analysis and conclusion - whether

straight or ironic!

Fischer did more that Reagan or the Lake Placid Hockey Team to

win the Cold War.

Not only was this match between chess titans seen world-wide,

but it played in the good ol' CCCP as well.

It brings back youthful memories, he was the John McEnroe of

chess, way before that metaphor existed.

I've thought, nay, rationalized his later behavior, was one

goes nuts when treading on a level few will ever attain.

It's like some mathematicians, physicist,d or that guy from the

film, "It's a Beautiful Mind," (with thoughts they are

thinking) that they loose their minds. Maybe there should be a

big caution sign: Curve ahead, don't think there!

Anyhow, the peoples of the Soviet Republics, must of quailed

before the realization that the West could produce

genius/crazies that could overthrow the best produced by their

well-funded statist system, thus proving Nixon correct:)

To make it personal: I was a paperboy selling subscriptions,

back in '72, and I remember using the sales pitch on an

apartment where I saw a chess set "If you subscribe to our

paper you can find out how to be a better chess player."

I got a new subscription.

1/18/2008 11:59 PM

trog said...

The screwy thing is - Mr. Swift may be right.

1/19/2008 12:33 AM

durano lawayan a.k.a. brad spit said...

The Russians dominated/monopolized Chess by preventing

non-Russians from making the finals. Like an Iron wall,they

fenced off other nationalities successfully by drawing games

with fellow Russians for half a point; and would aid a

countryman as seconds when facing a"foreigner". The Russians

gave Chess a prominence that characterized the game as being

for those with intellectual Superiority and those considered

strategic geniuses; staking their reputation as a world power

on the number of grandmasters they have versus any other

country, and on the Chess Titles which have never left Russia.

Bobby Fischer comes along, studies all the Russian moves and

game tactics, and singlehandedly pulverized the iron wall by

beating 24 or so Russian grandmasters in succession.

At the Championship Tournament in 1972, he overturned all the

rules and formal protocols of the Tournament to rile the

Russians,destroy their composure, and ruin their game plan. The

game could have been canceled or Bobby would have been declared

in default, but with the help of FIDE delegates from the