Articles From 2004 Index

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July 2004

1. (Bobby Fischer 2004 Blog) (★) (Image) The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Saturday, July 17, 2004 - Page 63, “Game May Be Over for Chess King Fischer: Former world champ is held in Japan, accused of using an illegal passport. A fugitive since 1992, he faces deportation to the United States.”
2. (Bobby Fischer 2004 Blog) (★) (Image) Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, Saturday, July 17, 2004 - Page 4, “Search for Bobby Fischer ends”

August 04, 2004

• The News and Observer Raleigh, North Carolina Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - Page 14 — Pardon the Champ — I was dismayed by the July 17 article “Chess star held after trying to leave Japan.” Bobby Fischer is the only American to win the world chess championship. He is a true chess genius and should be shown a little tolerance if he is an unusual individual in other ways as well. In 1992, after 20 years of not playing chess in public, he played a high-stakes rematch with Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, in spite of U.N. sanctions. Fischer was indicted for this in the United States, with the blessing of then-President George H.W. Bush. Subsequently, Fischer was forced to hide out in foreign countries to avoid a possible 10-year jail sentence. After the 9/11 attacks, Fischer had the temerity to say on an obscure Philippine radio station that the United States had been attacked as payment for its anti-Muslim and pro-Israeli foreign policies. Since then, apparently in retaliation, the U.S. stepped up its efforts to track down Fischer, resulting in his capture in Japan. It seems that Americans lose their freedom of speech when they talk about the wrong groups, or at the wrong time. Also on July 16, you ran an Op-ed article about another American world champion, the boxer Jack Johnson. He was also persecuted by our government and became a fugitive abroad. The headline read “It's time to pardon Jack Johnson.” I hope we don't have to wait until the 61-year-old Bobby Fischer is long dead before we have the good sense to pardon him. After all, no one was killed or maimed as a result of his incursion into Yugoslavia. All he did was win another chess match. James Glenn, M.D., Chapel Hill Read More

August 05, 2004

• The Courier-Journal Louisville, Kentucky Thursday, August 05, 2004 - Page E4 — Chess: Bobby Fischer's Iron Will Creates Worldwide Tension by Shelby Lyman — At this writing, Bobby Fischer sits in a Japanese jail cell awaiting possible deportation to the United States, where it is expected he would face federal charges for defying U.N. sanctions and a U.S. executive order to play a 1992 match with Boris Spassky in war-torn Yugoslavia. Fischer is involved in the most important chess game of his life. Those who remember his off-the-board maneuvers before the historic 1972 match with Spassky in Iceland know him as a stubborn, iron-willed protagonist who brilliantly created and defined issue after issue in his own terms. Already, he has claimed his arrest was a kidnapping; declined legal representation; alleged rough treatment by the police; refused to sign legal documents; and elicited significant public sympathy and support from friends and admirers. Don Schultz, an American chess organizers, has presciently described the U.S. government's dilemma: “He's uncompromising. If they bring him back, I predict it will go on for some time, and there will be lots of problems.” Below is a game between Etienne Bacrot and Luke McShane from an international tournament in Biel, Switzerland. Read More

September 2004

1. (Bobby Fischer 2004 Blog) (★) (Image) Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday, September 09, 2004 - Page 23, “Court Halts Deportation of Bobby Fischer”

October 2004

1. (Bobby Fischer 2004 Blog) (★) (Image) The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - Page 16, “Meet Some Geniuses Past and Present”

December 2004

1. (Bobby Fischer 2004 Blog) (★) (Image) Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, Friday, December 17, 2004 - Page 8, “Former chess star Fischer offered asylum in Iceland”