Ivonin had watched Spassky’s expression as he waited for Fischer for that one hour. By the end, the deputy minister was fervently hoping Fischer would not arrive, his champion looked so empty and overwhelmed. All the uncertainties of the preceding days had returned in greater measure. Spassky had gained a point but with a pyrrhic victory. Ivonin noted that in conversation, Spassky talked obsessively about Fischer. The deputy minister found that disturbing. The sensitive Spassky was unable to switch his thoughts to more relaxing matters.
At four in the afternoon, after the forfeit was confirmed, Icelandic officials, Schmid and Moeller, the head of the match committee, representatives of the two sides, Fox, the cameramen, some journalists, and diplomats all met in the hall to reexamine the conditions and check Fox’s cameras. No one had any queries.
Iceland’s chief auditory expert, Curt Baldursson, conducted an official test of the noise made by the cameras. These were brand-new American models and were what was called self-blimped—constructed to be soundless during filming. Baldursson received no pay for his labors but was given, instead, free entrance to the rest of the match. For his experiment, he brought along a state-of-the-art sound-level meter. “The meter didn’t register anything close to levels that could have been picked up by a human ear, so either Fischer had extrasensory faculties or this was part of a poker game.” The noise level was measured at fifty-five decibels with the cameras running and fifty-five decibels with them turned off. Baldursson wrote out a report that Fischer peremptorily dismissed. The cameras were moved behind the walls of the set, looking through tiny windows. In Ivonin’s judgment, they were unnoticeable.
The American millionaire chess fan Isaac Turover joined the group. He played a game on the official board with Ivonin. The Soviet politician took the opportunity of probing and trying out Fischer’s chair, taking pains not to be noticed.
Someone wondered aloud whether it would be the last game there. Turover said that if Fischer was not given the point back, the match was over. An Icelandic journalist asked Ivonin for his opinion. He replied that the Soviet side had not breached the rules and was not going to breach them. Nor were they going to allow anyone else to.
The next day, Euwe telegraphed from Amsterdam to spell out FIDE’s position. If Fischer did not appear for the third game, he would be defaulted on that one, too. And if he did not come to the fourth game, the match would be declared over; Spassky would retain the championship. At least that laid to rest Schmid’s fear that he would have to stand on the stage game after game, starting the clocks, waiting out the empty hour, and pronouncing forfeits until Spassky had the requisite twelve points for victory.
However, if the match officials thought the forfeit was history, they were mistaken. The challenger was now observing his Sabbath and had unplugged the phone. (That Fischer could not play between sundowns on Friday and Saturday was the cause of amused speculation in Reykjavik, where in July the sun does not set until nearly midnight and it is never completely dark. Fischer solved his theological dilemma by choosing an arbitrary time and sticking to it.) His cudgels were taken up by Paul Marshall, who arrived on Saturday, 15 July, like a legal tornado, replacing Davis and insisting on a rehearing of the appeal. The committee’s decision was not final—it could always be changed in the light of new evidence or deferred, said Marshall. He argued on and on; the committee listened until three in the morning. Then they confirmed their original decision, announcing that they found the conditions in the hall to be in line with the rules of the competition.
At last there was good news. Although Fischer had booked another return flight to New York, someone had persuaded him to stay. Perhaps it was Marshall, accusing him of cowardice. Perhaps it was the thin, gray-haired widow Lina Grumette, his intermittent surrogate mother, with whom he had had supper after emerging from his Sabbath.
Fischer’s decision to remain in the match came with strings: He would play game three only in the separate, private room at the back of the stage and without cameras, not in the hall.
Lothar Schmid had to find a way forward. But what possible rationale could the organizers have for moving the game when the appeal committee, the sound engineer, and the mass visit to the hall had established that it was a wholly appropriate site?
He tried reason. “I said, ‘Let’s start in the main hall. If the noise disturbs us, then we can move.’” Reason was not enough. Marshall, says Schmid, preferred unreason. If there were no current disturbance in the hall, he promised Schmid he would create one. “‘If you, Mr. Schmid, will not remove the third game into the separate room, I will go to the stage and take a big hammer and smash down the table and you won’t be able to play there.’ And I said, ‘In these circumstances, I have to think it over.’”
This was a world turned upside down. The normal response to Marshall would have been, “In that case, you will be arrested and charged with criminal damage while we use another board.” Instead, Schmid went to the champion. “I asked Boris if he would allow the third game to be played in the separate room. He said, ‘Pozhaluista,’ “That’s fine by me.’”
The Soviet team had not been involved in this decision. Spassky had capitulated without consulting his seconds or the deputy minister of sport, Viktor Ivonin. They discovered this only on taking their seats in the hall. Ivonin and the Soviet television and radio chess correspondent Naum Dymarskii exchanged startled comments.
Spassky had behaved like a sportsman, Schmid said later. Today his rationalization is less generous. “Of course, Spassky was in the lead. For him, it was worth agreeing to move the game to get Bobby back. So he was easy and friendly.” With Schmid and Thorarinsson frantic to save the match, one to safeguard Fischer, the other to safeguard his reputation and all the hard work and money that had gone into the championship, not to speak of his political future, the Soviet player became the sportsman or, rather, the pawn. The Americans broke the rules, and the ICF colluded with them. For Iceland, continuing the match was simply too vital; comparatively, too much was at stake. A larger country might have shrugged off Fischer’s wayward behavior and his lawyer’s aggressive gambits—“It’s his loss, not ours.” Iceland could not afford that, and the Americans knew it.
For Spassky, as for Schmid, worse was yet to come.
The board had been reset in the unwelcoming, bare back room behind the stage, used normally for table tennis. It was small, about seventy-five feet by thirty feet, with a sloping roof. On one side were windows that looked out over a grassed area toward the main road. The noise of passers-by and children frolicking could be heard.
Spassky arrived in time for the start and sat down at the board. Lothar Schmid was opening a window. Anxiously, Spassky looked around for Fischer. The challenger arrived and was immediately possessed by rage. Wrapped in blankets, a closed-circuit television camera had been installed to carry the action to the thousand-strong audience in the hall and the journalists and commentators in the press room. Fischer roared at Schmid: “No cameras!” He prowled the room, turning switches on and off. Schmid protested that Spassky was being disturbed. Fischer yelled back at him to shut up.
White-faced, Spassky stood. Lothar Schmid recollects, “When Bobby started to fight again, Boris became upset and he said, ‘If you do not stop the quarreling, I will go back to the playing hall and demand to play there.’” With the challenger turning the World Chess Championship into a verbal brawl, Schmid, panic-stricken, pleaded with the champion to continue the game. “Boris, you promised.” He turned to Fischer. “Bobby, please be kind.” Schmid remembers: “I felt there was only one chance to get them together. They were two grown-up boys, and I was the older one. I took them both and pressed them by the shoulders down into their chairs. Boris made the first move, and I started the clock.”
So on 16 July 1972 at nine minutes past five in the afternoon, the World Chess Championship match was finally saved.