Chester Fox was already an isolated and unpopular figure. The Icelandic camera team thought him unprofessional and his planned approach ludicrous, using miles and miles of film on a visually static scene when the action, and the profits, were outside the playing hall. (Of course, it is the traditional role of film cameramen to dismiss the director as being risibly ignorant and incompetent and for wasting their talent and time.) There were also cultural barriers. Fox was the New Yorker’s New Yorker. Thirty-one-year-old Icelandic cameraman Gissli Gestsson, who supplied the crew and equipment, took against him:
He was a funny character—a typically New York Jewish character. I didn’t trust him because after a time I realized he promised more than he could deliver. He was noisy, and he and his colleagues had some odd ideas about Iceland. They complained that everything was primitive. I think they expected the atmosphere in Iceland to be like that in Manhattan.
Nor did the Icelander have much sympathy for Fox’s problems inside the halclass="underline"
He could claim he didn’t have the access that he was promised, but he had access to so many other things that gave him a good source of revenue. For a few weeks, this was the biggest event going on in the world. I think his loss in the auditorium was compensated for by what he was able to sell from outside the auditorium to all over the world.
In fact, Fox could have been right. With the longueurs edited out, a move-by-move film of the match would still be selling today. Gestsson was under tremendous stress, and perhaps this partially accounts for his impatience with Fox. The Icelandic film and television industry was negligible, and the cameraman made his living by representing two of the biggest British worldwide film agencies. They had pressed him to cover the match for them; he had to bar his regular customers from the hall.
The Icelandic Chess Federation also faced a dilemma. They were contractually bound to Fox, and he was now in conflict with Fischer’s representatives, the very people who had suggested him. Gudmundur Thorarinsson remembers that although the Americans had been so keen on granting Fox exclusive rights, “once the problems started, they came to me and said, ‘You have to tear up the agreements with Chester Fox.’ I said, ‘We don’t do that in Iceland. Here we make an agreement and it’s an agreement.’”
Like Gissli Gestsson, Thorarinsson was struck by the “Jewishness” of the New Yorkers. (The number of Jews in Iceland was negligible: historically, they came and went as traders or merchants, and the Icelandic word for Jew, Gyoingur, was used to mean cunning or sharp.) “Fox was one of the Jews—they were all Jews around him,” notes Thorarinsson. “I think he was rather a simple guy, and he had nobody to support him; he seemed quite alone.” In a fight between Fischer and Fox, saving the match was always going to come first.
In any case, the legal position was not clear-cut. From Fox’s viewpoint, the Icelandic Chess Federation had sold him all picture rights. Film and video exploitation was permitted under the match rules and was a significant part of the budget. But the rules also stated that the players had the right to demand the end to any disturbance. And Fischer complained that the cameras disturbed him.
The Amsterdam agreement, in which all the rules were laid out, was not drafted to be watertight. Edmondson had done his best to cover Fischer in all eventualities. Approached by Schmid after the adjournment of the first game and handed a copy of the Amsterdam agreement, Paul Marshall demonstrated the approach that had brought him success and riches in New York legal combat: “I dropped them on the floor, saying, ‘They’re written in English: Do not quote rules that you can’t read.’ Almost as an afterthought, Marshall adds, ‘Because the rules were clearly in Bobby’s favor, and his complaint was absolutely right.’”
Through Marshall, Fischer demands that the ICF underwrite a document giving him complete control over filming. Believing it could not favor one player over another, the federation says no. With only one game over, the match reaches another impasse. Fox has his rights. Schmid and Thorarinsson have the match to safeguard. Fischer has his rage. Behind the walls a space is discovered in which the cameras are hidden yet can still see the board. Has the problem been finessed? On learning that the cameras are still there, Fischer refuses to come to the hall for the second game.
The game is scheduled to begin at five P.M. on Thursday, 13 July. Schmid presses the clock on the dot. Rule five states, “If a player does not appear within one hour of the start of the game, he loses that game by forfeit.” The road is cleared between the hall and Fischer’s hotel. Engine running, a police car stands ready to bring him. All the traffic lights are held at green. From New York, Andrew Davis intervenes, calling Richard Stein, one of the lawyers for Chester Fox Inc., and proposes that the cameras be removed for this game only, pending further discussion. Stein takes the call at 5:30 P.M. while Fischer’s clock is ticking and immediately agrees. He calls Lombardy on a hot line that has been set up from Fischer’s room to the playing hall. Thorarinsson orders the cameras to be removed completely. Fischer adds one more condition: His clock must be restarted. Already bruised by Fischer, and now distraught, Schmid refuses. The rules are the rules. He has Spassky to consider; the world champion has been waiting for forty minutes.
Unwillingly, finding the whole affair “vulgar,” grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson steps in at the request of the Icelandic Chess Federation. Within a few minutes, he has arrived at the Loftleidir hotel on a mission to mediate. His reward is a second dose of rudeness. Having ignored the Icelandic grandmaster at Keflavik, Fischer now submits him to a verbal tirade. Again and again he tells him that the ICF is a communist front. Olafsson phones Schmid. The only hope is to ask Spassky to agree to a restart. Schmid cannot. “There has to be a limit.” In one of the worst moments of his life, he goes onto the stage at six o’clock and announces that Spassky has been awarded the game. That night, Schmid wakes up with tears in his eyes “because I thought I had destroyed a genius by my decision.” Spassky now leads by two games to zero; it seems extraordinarily difficult for Fischer to surmount that—the champion needs only twelve points out of twenty-four to retain the title. The Washington Post reports that Americans are voluble in references to Fischer’s “disgraceful behavior.” Some are observed apologizing to Icelanders in the name of the United States.
A new round of crisis meetings begins. Andrew Davis jets in from New York, dropping everything to mastermind the predictable protest against Schmid’s decision. It will be based on what he claims has been a guarantee by Iceland that all television equipment would be “invisible and noiseless.” Seeking a way out for his client Chester Fox, Richard Stein tries schmoozing Fischer. He writes: “I can only express my admiration and appreciation for the elevation of chess in the eyes of the people of the States, through your Herculean efforts. As a folk hero of the Americans, you must permit millions of Americans to share this experience with you in their homes, through television.” Stein points out Fox’s investment and notes that the Icelandic Chess Federation’s entire financial structure depends on video and film proceeds. For all the impact this letter was going to have, he might as well have put it in a bottle and thrown it into Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon.