AThe Belleville News-Democrat, Belleville, Illinois, Tuesday, October 11, 1960
Chintzy on Chess
While 17-year-old Bobby Fischer three-time national chess champion stands in Iceland with a ticket to Leipzig in his hands his mother, Mrs. Regina Fischer has been picketing the White House in Washington and the American Chess Foundation headquarters in New York writing letters to editors and in desperation going on a hunger strike. She wants to raise the $6000 necessary to back a U S team — which Bobby would lead — for the 1960 Chess Olympics which open in Leipzig next Friday and run into early November.
Chess has always had a hard time finding backers in this country. Puerto Rico by contrast is sending a team to Leipzig and 39 nations have registered for the international competition.
There might be sound propaganda reasons for backing Bobby and his team. Russia has dominated international chess play for most of this century and last May Mikhail Tal of Soviet Latvia won the title from longtime champ Mikhail Botvinnik of the U.S.S.R. But Fischer six years younger than Tal, has already proved his mettle in international play. Most recently he tied with Russia's Boris Spassky for first place in a tournament last April in Mar del Plata, Argentina. And in July the American team won the annual international students’ team in Leningrad downing the Russians.
