Chess legend Bobby Fischer visits the Beppu hot springs place in Oita Prefecture in Japan a couple of years ago. Photo Courtesy of Miyoko Watai.

The Japanese have been patiently working their way through the Fischer/Jenkins mess, which I suggested was linked by a possible plan for a swap.

Jenkins, the 67 year old defector to North Korea who popped into Japanese life as the husband of a woman kidnapped to teach NK spies how to behave like capitalists, has been returned to the US military who nominally convicted him, and discharged him from the army so he could settle in Japan with his family.

Chess God Fischer was arrested by the Japanese as he found out his passport had been revoked by trying to fly out of Japan. The Americans do/don’t want him because he violated sanctions in 1992, has been making extreme pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli remarks on radio ever since, and was very tactless about the Twin Towers.

In September last year, his Japanese fiance, Miyoko Watai, gave a touching interview to Chessbase news, in which she explained that:

“The situation is getting worse for Fischer and Watai. In the evening on Aug. 24, the Japanese government, which has an extradition treaty with the U.S., issued an order to deport him later that night. The surprise move shocked the couple and his supporters. But his lawyers quickly filed a lawsuit the same day at the Tokyo District Court to demand that the injunction be canceled, which is expected to delay deportation proceedings for a month, according to Watai.

Watai is in anger and in worry that the arrest has given the chess genius a mental anguish and messed up the couple’s quiet life in Japan. “He is like a prisoner on a death row. He is afraid of being deported to the U.S., which could happen today or tomorrow. Why does he have to endure such misery?” is how she put it.”

Since then the Americans have repeated their demand for Fischer, and the Japanese have not quite supplied him. although they have resisted attempts to have him released to a third country, becaue the US has said he can only be deported to the US,

Meanwhile, the government of Iceland was ruminating on the fact that he played Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972, and they felt a proprietorial interest. Now the BBC has reported that

“Iceland’s parliament voted overwhelmingly this week to grant Mr Fischer citizenship – and with it an Icelandic passport.

It followed a decision last December to offer the chess player a residency visa.

Gunnar Snorr Gunnarsson, permanent secretary in Iceland’s foreign affairs ministry, told the BBC News website at the time that his country had been unable to ignore the grandmaster’s direct appeal for help.

He said both chess and Mr Fischer retained a special place in Icelandic culture.

“There is a certain feeling of solidarity, not with his views but with an exceptional champion who is in difficulties,” Mr Gunnarsson said…

…Pall Stefansson, of the Iceland Review news magazine and website, said people were prepared to make allowances for Mr Fischer’s controversial behaviour because “he put Iceland on the international map”.

He said Icelanders, who form part of the coalition forces in Iraq, were unconcerned about the consequences of supporting Mr Fischer against US wishes.

“I think it’s Icelandic stubbornness, that maybe we do what we like,” he said.

“One chess player cannot upset the good relations we have with the US and everyone here thinks it’s kind of strange the Americans do this… because he’s played chess in Serbia.

“For us he has the status of a football player, he is like our David Beckham.”"

Mainichi News reported on March 15th that Miyoko Wata is still his fiancee, and supports him in prison, which detains people unwanted in Japan but unable to leave – a familiar category in our politics. On March 2nd she went to the prison with Saemunder Palsson, a 68-year-old retired Icelandic Police Force Chief Inspector, who had been Fischer’s bodyguard in 1972.

“A two-man film crew from the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation accompanied them. The TV reporters were forbidden from filming inside the center. I knew this would happen.

But Palsson was barred from visiting Fischer. So was Watai. They were told their visits had been cancelled only “for security reasons,” and center officials refused to elaborate. It would be another five days before Palsson and Watai could find out what had happened to Fischer on that day.

Ushiku breakfasts consist of a slice of white bread, jam, fruit juice or milk and a boiled egg. On the morning of March 2, Fischer wasn’t given his daily egg. He said to the guard, “Give me another egg.” The Grand Master loves eggs. In jail, it had been a habit to ask for a second egg every morning, though his request had been fulfilled just once in the months of his incarceration.

When the guard replied, “no,” Fischer snapped and grabbed him by the pocket of his shirt. A scuffle erupted and Fischer ended up punching another guard in the face. His hands were cuffed behind his back for two hours and he was shoved into a solitary confinement cell. He stayed there for the next four days.”

With papers from Iceland, the Japanese now seem willing to let Fischer go. So what happens to Miyoko Watai in this deal?

I still cannot work out why the Americans are so serious. What would they do with a deified and possibly mentally ill chess champion charged with playing matches in the wrong country? Do they really think that persecuting him for attacking them over the Twin Towers is going to play quietly?

Or does the Administration think that jailing a chess geek for his beliefs will play to its reactionary audience?

The photograph above was taken as he was being arrested at Narita airport, after discovering his passport had been nullified by the US government.

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