The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Friday, January 15, 1960
Send Chess Champ Abroad
It has been observed with regrets and disgust that in recent years, the Olympic Games have been used more and more as a propaganda medium and less as an emphasis upon skills and training. That we can expect repetition in the current Olympiad is indicated in the difficulties already cooked up by the Red Chinese for athletes of Nationalist China.
We can't do much about the frantic efforts of the Communists to achieve athletic victories and credit the Communist system for a Red's casting the discus a few more inches than his competitor and a Russian Amazon's putting the shot a foot or so farther than some big, Nordic girl from the West.
There is a good chance to beat them at their own game and in a field where they least expect serious challenge; but where they will value results most highly. This is in the field of chess.
The threat that the United States can pose in this field is offered by a brilliant boy from Brooklyn. Bobby Fischer altho only sixteen years of age, is the acknowledged champion of the United States. As such he has done extraordinary service to the nation by his journeys abroad, especially to Russia, where he has met and bested some of the top players in this purely intellectual game.
Now Congress is being petitioned to provide funds to send the mere boy to Europe and to any countries where chess is played extensively. The especial target should be Russia where superiority is played up for its political value. In the confidence that the Brooklyn lad can hold his own with the world's greatest and defeat most of them, he should be encouraged to go wherever masters of the game are to be met.
Americans know that his victories will not be the result of the democratic, free enterprise American system. They know it will be due to the boy's phenomenal mentality. But the Communist world, trained for more than forty years in warped thinking will look upon the defeats of their supermen as a defeat for their system.
