ADetroit Free Press Detroit, Michigan Wednesday, August 11, 1965 - Page 6
Checkmated?
The Ways of the cold war are wondrous indeed. Take the case of Bobby Fischer, the United States chess champion, as an example.
Fischer applied to the State Department for permission to go to Havana this month for an international chess tournament, which seems simple enough.
But we're not speaking to Cuba these days, and the State Department has ruled that only journalists, business men with long-standing interests and persons on humanitarian missions can go.
Though Fischer is an accredited writer for a chess magazine and promised to do some articles, he isn't a full-time journalist. State said. Neither is chess a “business” as such, nor playing in a tournament a humanitarian mission. So Fischer can't go.
So Bobby Fischer, our champion, is going to compete by telephone from New York, with a referee watching on.
That way, of course, he can't give away any military secrets — which he doesn't know anyway. The nation will be safe. So there to you. Fidel Castro. Our mighty policy giants have triumphed again.
