Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.03.2008, Page 16

16 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 03 2008 | Article
The Circus Comes to Town
The arrival of Bobby Fischer as an Icelandic
citizen on March 24th 2005 was a strange affair.
Firstly there were the circumstances of Parlia-
ment granting him citizenship. It was passed in a
law unanimously; a measure that had never been
applied before, nor since. It has been speculated
that this act was more a defiant gesture towards
the United States government – which demanded
that Fischer be extradited from Japan where he
was being held on charges of travelling on an in-
valid passport – rather than an act motivated by
humanitarian issues. At the time the Icelandic
government was in negotiations with the US re-
garding the defence of the country and the plans
the US had to withdraw its troops from the Kefla-
vík Airport military base. Later, the US did follow
through with the plans to withdraw their troops,
stationed here since 1951, however that may have
related to the Icelandic government’s decision to
grant Fischer citizenship.
Fischer was flown to Reykjavik on a private
jet, leased by one of the country’s most influential
businessmen, Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson. When the
jet landed in the drizzling rain, a curious welcome
committee met Bobby. There were a small num-
ber of people assembled, huddling together, hop-
ing to catch a glimpse of the chess master. Drunk-
en teenagers, holding chessboards aloft, were
proudly represented. After stepping of the plane,
Bobby was whisked into an SUV, which promptly
sped away. It was surreal to watch. It grew even
more surreal a few minutes later when the live
broadcast on Channel 1 had ended and the SUV
emerged on the tarmac again, this time so Chan-
nel 2 reporters could broadcast an exclusive live
interview with Fischer. It turned out that the rea-
son Mr. Jóhannesson, the biggest shareholder in
Channel 2 TV station, had put up the money for
the private plane was so that the Channel 2 re-
porters could get an exclusive interview with the
chess master. Fischer, who had not shaved or cut
his hair for months, said little but grunted some. It
was by all standards depressing to watch.
The next day the group responsible for get-
ting Fischer to Iceland, the RJF Campaign (RJF
stands for Rights – Justice - Freedom, but is also
the acronym for Robert J. Fischer), held a press
conference with Fischer, broadcast live on TV.
Somebody had provided Bobby with a razor and a
haircut and for the first half of the two-hour meet-
ing he was talkative, coherent and in a good mood.
The international press was well represented and
asked various questions about Fischer’s inten-
tions, his past, about a possible match with Kasp-
arov and other things chess related. The Icelandic
press asked if Fischer liked herring. Repeatedly.
Well into the press conference Fischer delivered
an angry speech about the Jewish conspiracy
and the “Jewish snakes”. It was a tense moment,
everyone held their breath in silence, until an Ice-
landic reporter asked: “So… are you planning on
eating any herring?” The meeting continued with
Fischer raving on about crazy Jewish conspiracies
against him, citing the Internet if anyone needed
proof. Members of the RJF group sat sheepishly by
his side, looking confused, if not ashamed. The
Bobby Fischer Circus in Iceland was off to a rocky
start.
Intermission
Those who thought Bobby’s presence in Iceland
would be high profile were quickly proved wrong.
Fischer fell of the media radar quickly, declining to
grant interviews and it also seemed the media had
taken the stance that Fischer was best left alone.
He could sometimes be seen in downtown Reyk-
javík sitting on a bench reading with his Japanese
fiancé, Miyoko Watai, or walking briskly from one
place to another. Bobby was just another ordinary
Icelandic citizen.
And so the years went by. Around New Year,
2008, word spread in chess circles that Fischer
was gravely ill with a kidney disease. Some media
reports stated that he was on his way to recovery,
but then he passed away on January 17, roughly
three years after his arrival in Iceland. The Bobby
Fischer Circus, which had lain dormant during
that time, was instantly brought back to life, more
strange and bizarre than ever before.
Closing Act
Soon after Bobby’s death it was clear that all was
not well in the RJF Campaign group. Various mem-
bers made contradictory statements about the
chess master’s estate and the arrangements for his
funeral. The wildest ideas called for Fischer to be
put to rest at the national cemetery at Þingvellir, a
miniscule graveyard once reserved for the most
noble Icelanders, but nowadays generally regard-
ed as an arcane, if not an embarrassing, testimony
to a class divided society. A full, state paid funeral
was called for with live TV coverage and a na-
tional day of mourning. While some members of
the RJF Campaign debated this in the media, one
of them, Garðar Sverrison, arranged for a private
funeral in a small graveyard near Selfoss. Appar-
ently Sverrison did not notify anyone but Fischer’s
fiancé, Watai, about the arrangements, even the
parish priest was caught off guard, showing up
for work the next day to find a freshly dug grave
in his graveyard. Sverrison got a Catholic priest to
conduct the funeral service, with only himself, his
parents and Watai in attendance.
This did not go down too well with Sverri-
son’s fellow RJF group members and at the time
it seemed that an all-out mud slinging competi-
tion was to break out in the media. But then the
United States Chess Federation stepped in. The
USCF had revoked Fischer’s membership in 2002,
following his remarks in the aftermath of 9/11,
when he praised the terrorist act. Now the USCF
sent the Icelandic Chess Federation a letter, ask-
ing when Fischer’s remains would be sent to the
US for a proper burial. Note that it did not say if,
but when.
But there was more to come. Fischer left be-
hind a sizeable sum of money, around 140 million
ISK, the majority of his prize money from the 1992
rematch with Boris Spassky. His fiancé, Watai,
now came forward claiming that she and Bobby
in fact were in fact married, rather than engaged.
To prove this she produced a photocopy of a Japa-
nese marriage certificate, which the Japanese
embassy stated to be insufficient. Bobby’s brother
in-law, Russel Targ, hired an Icelandic lawyer to
make sure that his sons received a piece of the in-
heritance if they were entitled to it. This seemed to
be a minor dispute, until reports of a child Fischer
was supposed to have fathered in the Philippines
in 2001 began surfacing. Evidently Bobby had
sought the assistance of a friend there to find him
a suitable woman to ensure his genes would live
on after his death. The name of the friend: Gene. It
is impossible to make this stuff up.
A few Icelandic bloggers decided to inves-
tigate these rumors, with one of them throwing
around the idea that Fischer’s remains should be
exhumed to get DNA evidence. Then a Philippine
lawyer came forward, claiming to represent Fis-
cher’s daughter, Jinky Ong. The lawyer, Samuel
Estimo, sent scans of postcards Bobby was meant
to have sent to his daughter to the Icelandic media
and claimed that she had visited him in Iceland
and that they spoke regularly on the phone. Later
he stated that he was working on getting concrete
proof of the girl’s fatherhood through a prominent
European chess player, who could not, for some
reasons, be identified.
And here we are. The matter of Bobby Fisch-
er’s inheritance is still under dispute. It could prove
to be a long and ugly mess when those things are
finally put to rest. But one thing is certain: there
was seldom peace and quiet in the Bobby Fischer
Circus. Not even posthumously.

By Páll Hilmarsson

Remembering Bobby Fisher – II
Garðar Sverrison, ar-
ranged for a private
funeral in a small grave-
yard near Selfoss. Appar-
ently Sverrison did not
notify anyone but Fisch-
er’s fiancé, Watai, about
the arrangements, even
the parish priest was
caught off guard, show-
ing up for work the next
day to find a freshly dug
grave in his graveyard.
The fight for the fallen King.
Illustration by Baldur Helgason