The Fresno Bee The Republican Fresno, California Friday, August 06, 1965 - Page 43
Chess Player Ban
In vast reaches of the world sphere American national policies are not ecstatically embraced and enthusiasm for American culture is not widely shared, the name and skill of Bobby Fischer mean more than those of, say, McGeorge Bundy or Willie Mays.
Bobby Fischer, at 22, is a grand master of chess, the best we've got, and consequently a very valuable cultural export. Because of that, we consider the state department to be shortsighted and stupid in refusing him the passport endorsement he applied for in order to go to Havana this month for an international invitational chess tournament.
To the tournament, honoring the memory of the great Cuban master, Jose Capablanca, players have been invited from Argentina, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Fischer is forbidden permission to go because he does not fall within the state department's “established criteria” for travelers to Cuba; he is not on a humanitarian mission, he is not a businessman with long standing Cuban interests, and he is not, says the department, a bona fide journalist, even though he has credentials to represent the Saturday Review, and Chess Life.
The state department's over-bearing rigidity in refusing to get down its validation stamp and let this young man go after a chess prize, which, if be won it would do mere for us than several hundred hours of Voice of America broadcasting, is disheartening.
If the functionaries who turned Fischer down do not understand the prestige to be gained by sending the United States chess champion to Havana, they shouldn't he handling this country's foreign relations. Perhaps they should move over into agriculture or the bureau of the mint where incompetence is not so conspicuous or harmful.
