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Bobby Fischer welcomed in Iceland
Neatly dressed, newly shorn but as unpredictable as ever, Bobby Fischer was welcomed Friday by supporters in Iceland, the chess-loving nation where his career peaked in a world championship victory 30 years ago.
Most Icelanders seemed happy to embrace their newest citizen — although some expressed alarm at Fischer's provocative and often anti-Semitic views, on display at a rambling, rambunctious news conference Friday.
"I think he's a little bit crazy," said Runar Berg, an investment banker and recreational chess player. "Everyone has the right to express his opinion, but sometimes it's better to say nothing than to say rubbish like Bobby Fischer."
He had a trim and a hearty Icelandic lunch before facing the press alongside Saemundur Palsson, the friend and former bodyguard who helped lead the campaign to win Fischer an Icelandic passport, clearing the way for Japan to free him.
Fischer thanked his "wonderful friends" in the country for securing his release.
Fischer remains popular in tiny Iceland, site of his 1972 showdown with Soviet champion Boris Spassky — a Cold War rivalry that caught the world's imagination and ended in victory for Fischer.
"It was a big advertisement for Iceland at the time," said Fred Fredreksson, 29. "I think it's good that we can help him in this way."
The match in Reykjavik proved the highlight of Fischer's career. He lost his world title three years later after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments.
Time has not moderated his views.
On Friday, Fischer told reporters he was finished with a chess world he regards as corrupt, and sparred with U.S. journalists who asked about his anti-American tirades.
"The United States is evil. There's this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil — the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers," Fischer said.
Fischer, 62, is wanted by the United States for violating sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match against Spassky there in 1992. If convicted, he could face 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Fischer had fought deportation since being detained by Japanese officials in July. On Friday, he accused Japanese officials of mistreating him during two five-day stretches in solitary confinement, where he was sent for grabbing one guard and crushing the glasses of another.
After a nine-month tussle between Fischer and Japanese authorities, Iceland's Parliament stepped in this week to break the standoff by offering Fischer citizenship.
During his long flight from Tokyo, 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.
On Friday, he again declared himself an unrepentant enemy of the "hypocritical and corrupt" United States, which he claims organized his judicial kidnapping.
"They decided Fischer had to go to prison. He had to be destroyed ... they decided to cook up whatever charges they cooked up," he told reporters. Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, accused "the Jew-controlled U.S. government" of ruining his life. 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. Fischer is credited with helping to fuel a passion for chess in Iceland, a nation of fewer than 300,000 people with one of the highest per-capita rates of chess-playing in the world. Fischer, who has long alleged that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches are decided in advance, told Icelanders on Friday that their enthusiasm for chess "was misplaced, because people don't know how utterly corrupt it is, and has been for many years." "Just like when you go to watch a wrestling match, right? Saturday night wrestling. They are very good wrestlers, but anybody with half a brain knows it's almost all prearranged." Declaring himself "finished" with chess, Fischer said he planned to concentrate on perfecting his concept of random chess, in which pieces are shuffled at the beginning of each match, in a bid to reinvigorate the game. "I don't play the old chess," he said. "But obviously if I did, I would be the best." |
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