AArizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona Sunday, August 08, 1965 - Page 2
Chess Champ Will Play Cuba Tourney By Phone
New York — Barred from traveling to Cuba for an international chess tourney, 22-year-old United States champion Bobby Fischer has arranged to participate by telephone.
The young grand master from Brooklyn had unsuccessfully sought the State Department's permission to go to Havana Aug. 25 for the Capablanca Memorial Tournament.
The department rejected his application, explaining that current regulations allow only three classes of Americans to travel to Cuba: journalists, businessmen with long-standing interests there, and persons on humanitarian interests.
Fischer's lawyer, Andrew P. Davis, argued — to no avail —that the champion is qualified as a journalist, since he had been assigned to cover the tournament for two magazines, the Saturday Review and Chess Life.
When Fischer's story appeared in the New York Times last week, Moses Eskolski, a New York chess enthusiast, called Davis to suggest the telephone arrangement.
The lawyer was taken with the idea and promptly passed along the suggestion by cable to the man in charge of the tournament, Jose Luis Barreras Merino of Cuba's National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation.
Barreras promptly agreed in principle to Fischer's participation by telephone, noting that this would lend added interest to the event among chess fans around the world.
Players have been invited to the Capablanca tournament from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, Holland, England and Spain, as well as from several East European countries where chess skill carries special prestige: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Participants are to receive living and travel expenses and will compete for cash prizes, including a $2,000 first prize.
After the tournament officials agreed to let Fischer play matches by telephone, Davis asked the State Department again to let him go in person. The reply, in effect, was: We cannot stop a telephone call, but we will not reconsider our ruling on Fischer's travel request. There are at present no restrictions on telephone calls between the U.S. and Cuba.
