AThe Decatur Herald Decatur, Illinois Saturday, August 25, 1962 - Page 2
Russians Deny Cheating
Bobby Fischer, former United States chess champion, was accused here today of “slander” in charging that the Russians had used collusive tactics in chess tournaments. (Four decades later, the captain of the Soviets confessed Fischer was telling the truth.)
Replying to charges made by the 19-year-old grand master last week, the sports newspaper Sovietsky Sport said:
“It is well known that lies run on short legs. And on such legs it is hard to keep up with those who are ahead.”
Fischer made the collusion charges after the recently concluded Canddidates Tournament in Curacao held to establish a challenger to meet Mikhail Botvinnik for the world's title next year.
Fischer placed fourth in the tournament ([like Tal, Fischer was reported in bad health, suffering from a bad appendix]), which was won by Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet Union. Two other Soviet players, Paul Keres and Yefim Geller, who were tied for second place, are now engaged in an eight-game play-off match here.
The newspaper article, signed by A. Prorovich, identified as an international chess referee, presented Fischer as a poor loser under the headline “Youngster From New York Bears a Grudge.”
“When he was a child, Bobby cried after losing a game,” the article said. “At the Olympics in Leipzig (1960), having got into a hopeless position in a game against Najdorf, he found nothing better to do but knock the figures off the board. And having suffered a fiasco at Curacao, the presumptuous American decided to rehabilitate himself by means of slander.”
Alluding to statements attributed to Fischer last year in which the U.S. grand master was reported to have said that no champion could compare with him, the Soviet referee said, “the youngster from New York had to learn through his own experience that the Russians how to play chess and it is hard to compete with them.”
