Searching for Bobby Fischer
Do we, as a nation, really have so little to concern ourselves with that we will devote manpower and financial resources to tracking down Bobby Fischer? Apparently so. The State Department revoked his passport (Fischer says illegally), and Japan was ready to deport him to the US to face charges of illegal chess playing. To be fair, he was actually wanted for violating sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing chess against Boris Spassky there in 1992. To my mind this boils down to illegal chess. The horror.
So here we are 13 years later, chasing a guy whose highest crime was to utter “checkmate” in a troubled foreign country.
It looks like Iceland has given him citizenship and he is on his way there. Poor guy. He’s $3million richer for winning that match in 1992, and now he is being forced to move to a country abounding in beautiful women, natural beauty, and midnight sun in summer. After his 8-9 month detention in Japan, it looks like he is finally getting a much needed vacation. I hope this is the end of things and they allow Fischer a nice quiet life. Although, I can’t help but wonder if the US would have been so hard on him had he not said we deserved what we got on 9/11.
For a full article on this, you can look here.