Endgame (52 page)

Renunciation of United States citizenship requires three things: (1) an appearance before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer, (2) the renunciation must be done in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. embassy or consulate), and (3) an oath of renunciation must be signed in person before a U.S. official.

Bobby wrote to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo asking them to send a member of the diplomatic staff to the detention center so that an official could accept his citizenship renunciation. No one came.
He also wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell to enlist his help in allowing him to renounce his citizenship. No answer. Finally, Bobby wrote another letter to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo
insisting
that they send someone, and in case they didn’t comply, he appended his renunciation. If Bobby had any trepidation about permanently severing his relationship with the United States, there was no evidence of it in the renunciation he wrote. He
had
to get out of his imprisonment, and so he attempted to surgically remove himself—quickly and precisely, slicing away at his homeland, aware that it would be a permanent farewell, never to be undone. The text:

Bobby Fischer’s renunciation of his citizenship was never accepted by the United States. He remained a citizen. Meanwhile, Suzuki and Bosnitch appealed to the courts on Bobby’s behalf for him to become a political refugee from the United States and be allowed to live in Japan. Their argument was that when he competed in Yugoslavia, he violated the trade sanctions purely as a political act against the United States, and he was now being punished for it. This request was denied. Bobby’s team also pleaded to the court that it strike down the deportation order requested by the United States and brought by the Japanese Immigration Bureau. That request was denied too. Bobby had been locked up for over a month at this point and was becoming desperate. Finally able to make outgoing calls, he, along with his team, started contacting a number of countries to determine if they would offer him asylum:

Germany
—
Bobby’s plea was based on his paternity, in that his father, Gerhardt Fischer, was German, and under the blood citizenship law of the country, Bobby claimed to be a German citizen. The problem was that Bobby was a Holocaust denier, which is a crime in Germany. If the country offered him asylum, his past remarks would get him arrested as soon as he entered.

Cuba
—Since Castro was so anti-American, and Fischer knew the premier, he thought Cuba might accept him. Nada.

North Korea
—Possibly the most anti-American country in the world. The problem was that Miyoko thought it was the
worst
country in the world and could not see herself living there or even visiting.

Libya
—Mu’ammar Gadhafi was attempting to ingratiate himself with the United States and couldn’t take the chance of antagonizing President Bush.

Iran
—To the Iranians’ way of thinking, Bobby was Jewish, and they had no interest.

Venezuela
—No reason given for rejection.

Switzerland
—Although the country was politically neutral, Bobby’s anti-Semitic views were not acceptable there.

Montenegro
—Fischer’s connection with Vasiljevic, who had scammed so much money from the citizens, left them unenthused.

The Philippines
—Although Bobby was adored by the Philippine chess community and had established ties there, he was unhappy with the ouster of president Joseph Estrada, whom he believed was “pushed out illegally.” He also felt that crime and corruption was rising in Manila and even in Baguio, and although he enjoyed living there, he was uncertain about gaining, or even wanting, asylum.

Iceland
—Yes, Iceland! As a result of the 1972 match, Fischer had more to do with promoting Iceland than anyone in modern times. In effect, as a hero who’d come to the island and performed great deeds,
he’d become part of the Icelandic sagas. The Icelanders were also known for their strength, fairness, and stubbornness. They had the ability as a people not only to offer him asylum, but to secure it and extricate him from prison.

Saemi Palsson, Fischer’s old bodyguard, was tracked down at his winter home in the north of Spain. “
Saemi, this is Bobby. I need your help. I’m a prisoner in Japan and I want to get asylum in Iceland. Can you help me?”

A former policeman and carpenter who in his youth had gained unlikely fame as a “rock dancer,” who delighted people with his “twist” performances, Saemi would do anything for a friend. He also had an innate sense of self-publicity. Although he hadn’t seen Bobby in thirty-two years, Saemi phoned some political and business leaders and several from the chess community who he thought might be able to help Bobby.
He was on a plane to the East in short order.

While Palsson was en route to Japan, a group of stalwart Icelanders met in Reykjavik to discuss whether there was any way asylum could be offered to Fischer. A committee was formed using Bobby’s initials: “RJF.” Perhaps as an afterthought someone came up with another meaning for the acronym: “Rights, Justice, Freedom.”

Though the rest of the world, including his own country, was vilifying Bobby for his outrageous positions and statements, the Icelanders felt sorry for him. They deplored what he’d said, but felt he had a right to express himself. The Icelanders also felt a sense of obligation. Fischer, in effect, had honored the country of Iceland by playing there in 1972, and now he was in
trouble.
To not help him, they believed, would be a greater moral offense and act of ingratitude than even his verbal attacks of hostility and hatred.

All of the members of the committee were eminent Icelanders and ardent chess enthusiasts: Gudmundur Thorarinsson, former member of parliament and the principal organizer of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match; Magnus Skulasson, a psychiatrist; Gardar Sverrisson, a political scientist; Helgi Olafsson, a grandmaster; and Einar Einarsson, a bank executive. The group met for over five months in formal meetings, and there was much correspondence and phone exchanges between them as
they began lobbying the Icelandic government to consider Fischer’s case. In the midst of this, they contacted both the United States and Japanese embassies in Reykjavik to protest Fischer’s incarceration. In a letter to Fumiko Saiga, the Japanese ambassador to Iceland, the RJF Committee stated, in part:

Palsson began visiting Bobby at the jail and met with some of the Japanese officials to see what he could do. Having a representative there from Iceland, although Saemi wasn’t an official, helped Bobby somewhat to make a credible case that the country was considering asylum. The problem was that he wasn’t helping his own case.

Bobby continued making broadcasts, this time directly from the detention center’s pay telephone, and they went immediately on the World Wide Web. Most of his vitriol was directed toward the Jews (“absolute pigs”), with a slight softening of his invective against the United States. Although still unkind (“
the whole country has no culture, no taste, it’s filled with pollution”), his anti-American remarks were tempered somewhat—though hardly enough to win points with the U.S. Justice Department.

Fischer then announced that he was going to marry Miyoko Watai, his longtime companion. “I could be a sacrifice pawn,” she said to the press. “But in chess there is such a thing as pawn promotion, where
a pawn can become a
queen. Bobby-san is my king and I will become his queen.” Shortly after that the couple was married in a private ceremony in the prison. John Bosnitch was a witness. But was the marriage ceremony legal? More than a year later, when asked by a reporter whether she ever “tied the knot” with Fischer, Miyoko replied, “
I’d rather not say,” and then added, “I prefer not to talk about private things.” Immediately, the media began implying that the alleged marriage was just a ploy to help Fischer obtain his release and live in Japan, but Suzuki disagreed: “
It was already a de-facto marriage,” she said. “Now it is a legal marriage. I have never seen a case where there is so much passion and devotion.” Miyoko was more forthright when she stated: “
We had been satisfied with our life before he was detained. Marrying him legally may be helpful to avoid the possible deportation and enable him to get a permanent visa in Japan.”

Fischer, on the advice of the RJF Committee, wrote to Iceland’s foreign minister, David Oddsson, and requested a residence permit, which was forwarded to him immediately. The Japanese court didn’t accept it, though. If a country offered Fischer
citizenship
, they specified, they’d consider deporting him to that country. In the meantime, the Tokyo District Court issued an injunction to stay the deportation order on the grounds that a passport violation was not an extraditable offense. The final lawsuit against the deportation could take as long as a year.
After months behind bars, it didn’t look as though Bobby could emotionally survive for much longer.

Almost every day Fischer’s team attempted a new strategy. He was encouraged to write a letter to the Althingi, the Icelandic parliament, and he composed a five-hundred-word plea, extracts of which follow:

During his incarceration in Japan, the only respites Bobby had from boredom and emotional turmoil were the visits from his lawyers and Miyoko,
and his use of the telephone. He was allowed out of his cell to make collect calls, and the jailers seemed to put no time limit on them. He talked with Palsson, and later he had long, wide-ranging conversations with Gardar Sverrisson, the Icelandic political scientist on the RJF Committee.
These calls to Gardar were important to Bobby because they went beyond the complicated aspects of his imprisonment and touched on other matters, such as politics, religion, and philosophy. Bobby asked Gardar in what religion, if any, he’d been raised, and when he was told it was Catholicism, Bobby pressed for more insight, wanting to know the nuances of that theology. The two men created a tele-pal relationship, forming a bond that would last for years.

Bobby also discussed Catholicism with a second person during this time. Richard Vattuone of San Diego, California, was another attorney who was helping out with the case. He visited Bobby in the jail and gave him a copy of
The Apostle of Common Sense
, a book about the writer G. K. Chesterton, which covered various matters of religion and culture.
Bobby read some of the book and had conversations with Vattuone about religion. Chesterton was a convert to Catholicism.

When Miyoko came to visit, often she’d have to wait to see Bobby if he had another visitor—such as Suzuki or Bosnitch—since the detention center only allowed one visitor at a time, and visiting hours were limited. Fischer would have to pass through sixteen locked doors before reaching the visitors’ room, and could only talk through a plate-glass wall, as if he were not just in an immigration detention center but a maximum security prison.