Carefully drafted by his advisers though it was, Fischer’s letter of regret was still, for him, unprecedented.That was only one crisis. Contrary to received opinion, the champion did not defy an order to return home. “If [Fischer] isn’t afraid of Spassky, then I have removed the element of money.” Fischer decided to play.Even with the challenger at last in Reykjavik, the fate of the match was still in the balance. Spassky was under pressure from Moscow; the chess and party authorities resented his enforced discomfiture and worried about his morale. From the White House, President Nixon’s National Security Assistant, Henry Kissinger, put in a call to Fischer’s hideaway – according to newspaper reports, telling him “to go over there and beat the Russians” Kissinger recollects it differently. He told us: “There was a difficulty in the operation, an upset.

I just wanted Fischer to know his government wished him well.” Then came a message from the London-based millionaire James Slater, offering to double the prize fund to $250,000 The offer was escorted by a taunt. On Saturday 1 July, the opening ceremony went ahead in Reykjavik without him. But he persuaded himself this would be “a feast of chess” – and that he would gain a historic victory.To Fischer, the match was war, and war on his terms. With the opening ceremony looming, he remained in New York, haggling through his lawyers for more money. Would he, or would he not, show up? In a bizarre episode, he made it as far as Kennedy airport, only to catch sight of waiting newsmen and bolt. Much as they might have condemned Fischer’s capitalist manners, they acknowledged his brilliance and single-mindedness. Spassky was seen as lazy and easily distracted, and forgetful of his duty to play “in a red shirt”.We now know that the champion arrived in Reykjavik ill-equipped for his opponent He had misjudged Fischer’s preparation and attitude.

Determined to be free of the authorities and the KGB, he had declined to take an interpreter or, crucially, a team manager to stand up for his interests. His leading assistant, Efim Geller, was there purely as a chess player, and anyway, Spassky’s relations with this hardline communist were always edgy. They were also very anxious about their champion’s readiness. But state chess officials were incensed with Spassky, too, accusing him of being too conciliatory and of allowing the USSR to be humiliated in his anxiety to see the match take place. The Sunday Times described him as “the more benign type of Soviet bureaucrat”.