The New York Times New York, New York Sunday, August 8, 1965 - Page 30
Fischer To Phone Cuba Chess Moves — State Department Barred Trip by Grand Master
Barred from traveling to Cuba for an international chess tournament, the 22-year-old United States champion, Bobby Fischer, has arranged to participate by telephone.
The young Grand Master from Brooklyn had unsuccessfully sought to go to Havana Aug. 25 for the Capablanca Memorial Tournament.
The department rejected his application, saying that regulations allowed only three classes of Americans to travel to Cuba: journalists, businessmen with long-standing interests there, and persons on humanitarian missions.
Mr. Fischer's lawyer, Andrew P. Davis, argued to no avail that the champion qualified as a journalist, since he had been assigned to cover the tournament for two magazines. The Saturday Review and Chess Life.
When an article on Mr. Fischer's predicament appeared in The New York Times last week, Moses Eskolski, a chess enthusiast who lives at 201 East 19th Street, called Mr. Davis to suggest the telephone arrangement.
Chess players frequently carry on long-distance games by mail, telegraph or telephone, communicating one play at a time to their opponents.
The lawyer was taken with the idea and promptly passed along the suggestion by cable to the man in charge of the tournament, José Luis Barreras Merino of Cuba's National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation.
Mr. Barreras promptly agreed in principle to Mr. 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.
After the tournament officials agreed to let Mr. Fischer play matches by telephone, Mr. Davis asked the State Department once again to let the champion go in person.
The reply, in effect, was: We cannot stop a telephone call, but we will not reconsider our ruling on Mr. Fischer's travel request.
