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Date Posted: 06:21:11 06/09/02 Sun
Author: Todd
Subject: Frank Brady answers
In reply to: Todd 's message, "One more secret marriage?" on 04:07:58 05/27/02 Mon

In Defense of Bobby Fischer's Family:
House of Cards in the World of Chess
by Dr. Frank Brady

A well-known chess master and author of a number of chess books sent me an e-mail a few days ago, after reading the article, “Was Fischer’s Mother a Communist Spy?” (ChessCafe, May 22, 2002), by Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. The e-mail was short and to the point: “You should sue him!” I have no intention of doing so, for many reasons. Although Mr. Berry has distressed me by disparaging my biography of Bobby Fischer, Profile of a Prodigy, (especially since just last month International Grandmaster Joel Lautier said in an interview in New In Chess that it was his favorite chess book), I am not a litigious person by nature, and quite frankly I don’t think I have a case against Mr. Berry for libel.

Libel is injury to or damage of a person’s reputation. As a public figure, in order to successfully sue for libel, I would have to prove “actual malice.” In a court of law, actual malice is interpreted as meaning “reckless disregard of the truth.” I do not think the article was reckless. Foolish, possibly. Careless, probably. Unkind, definitely.

Normally, I do not respond to criticisms of my work, and I am not involved in any of the e-mail wars of chess politics that now seem to rage throughout the Internet. However, the remarks and insinuations in this article are in many ways so erroneous and false-hearted that I feel I must say something, and hence I will reveal what I have come to learn about Bobby Fischer’s family (which might in some details be in conflict with what I wrote 30 or 37 years ago – depending on the edition), and most of which contradict the article’s suppositions. I am at a disadvantage. Mr. Berry writes that he has known most of his “facts” for more than a decade. I have had just one week to prepare my response.

The opinions expressed in the article are more hurtful and damaging to Bobby Fischer and his family than they are to me. In addition, since most of those named are dead or not present, they cannot defend themselves. Mr. Berry knows this. You cannot libel a dead person, according to law, but ethically you should be responsible enough not to besmirch his or her reputation simply because you can get away with it.

The article uses a strange form of circular logic. It states that Profile of a Prodigy is “the best collection of the basic facts description of Regina Fischer’s background,” and then goes on to turn those facts into an indictment against Mrs. Fischer, without even a single shred of proof. This is guilt by insinuation, with echoes of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s climate of fear playing around the edges.

Mr. Berry strongly implies that Bobby Fischer’s mother, Regina Fischer, was a communist spy, and that Bobby’s father may have been a leading German spy. Mr. Berry builds his case based on (in his own words) “factoids,” “speculations,” and “an unrelated reminiscence of a counterintelligence agent” which, he acknowledges, “has nothing whatsoever to do with Regina or Bobby Fischer.” He admits that “nothing definite can be proven from this collage of facts,” yet goes on to smear Regina and Hans-Gerhardt Fischer’s reputations based on his “speculations.”

Was Bobby’s mother a communist? I don’t know. She was a radical person, who was certainly left wing. More importantly, was Regina Fischer spying against the United States? Was she engaged in a conspiracy to carry crucial information to the Soviet Union that was vital to the national defense of this country? There is no rational reason to assume that she was. This “case” is based on unverified assumptions and illogical connections, rather than on definite evidence. Certainly there is a wide chasm between fact and speculation. One wonders if Mr. Berry’s personal interest in communists and spies, combined with his admitted fascination with Bobby Fischer, led him to fashion this fantasy as a misguided defense of one of his “childhood idols.” He blames Bobby’s current “obnoxious paranoia” on his presumption that Bobby’s mother was a “committed Communist agent.” Bobby Fischer’s current state of mind is indeed a tragedy, but casting unproven blame against a dead woman merely adds yet more sadness to the story of one of the world’s greatest chess players – the pride and sorrow of American chess.

How I Came to Write the First Edition of Profile of a Prodigy
Before I discuss the serious errors and mis-judgments in this article, I think it is important to tell you how I came to write the two editions of Profile of a Prodigy, and where and how I unearthed the content of the biography.

I first met Bobby Fischer, and his mother, when I myself was a chessplayer on the New York scene, where I played in the Metropolitan Chess League and in several tournaments in which Bobby was also a player. We played dozens, if not hundreds, of speed games together. Later, I was a director or arbiter for a number of major tournaments in which Bobby competed. Virtually all of the material that appeared in Profile of a Prodigy came from discussions at that time, observations by me, and from secondary sources that appeared in the general and chess press. Fischer and his family were always extremely guarded and inhibited about talking about their personal lives. There is nothing suspicious about this kind of behavior; often families and individuals believe that family matters are private, and not to be discussed with anyone, especially a member of the press. (I eventually became the founding editor of Chess Life magazine and Business Manager of the U.S. Chess Federation.)

I did ask Bobby, from time to time, about his father, (whose complete name, by the way, I recently discovered is Hans-Gerhardt Fischer) and he refused to discuss him. In an unguarded moment in the early 1970s, Bobby made one of his only public statements ever about his father, in the Zagreb newspaper Start: “My father left my mother when I was two. I have never seen him. My mother has only told me that his name was Gerhardt and that he was of German descent.” It is not unusual for a child whose parent has left the family to refuse to discuss the situation. Often, members of such families write off the absent member, sometimes referring to the parent who has left as “dead.” Of course, I am aware of the loss of privacy that comes at the price of fame, as in Fischer’s case. As a public figure, anything relevant about him can be and probably should be published. Nevertheless, shouldn’t the principles of fairness and privacy be applied to Bobby Fischer’s family?

My talks with Regina Fischer, first when I was a fellow chessplayer with Bobby, and then when I went to work for the U.S. Chess Federation, were always cordial, but rarely personal on her part. It was neither my place, nor my interest, to ask her about her marriage or her divorce, etc. When I began to write the biography of her son, she was no longer on the scene; she had already moved out of the apartment in Brooklyn, where Bobby continued to live. Even if she had been available to talk to me, I doubt that she would have revealed anything so personal, for the reasons cited above. Mr. Berry states, in an accusatory tone, that I was being “deliberately elliptical” and using “deliberate deception” with “willful omission.” What possible motives could I have for being circular or indirect? Why should I have been? As a professional biographer, dedicated to the truth, if I had information about Fischer, unless it proved to be too trivial or in poor taste, it was included in either edition of my book. As to Mr. Berry’s complaint that my biographical information about Regina Fischer was “too short,” I must remind him that the biography is about the life of Bobby Fischer, not his mother. It was not my intention, nor my ability since she was not willing or available, to elaborate upon her life.

I never distorted, nor did I ever withhold any information that I knew about Fischer or his mother (or father). I wanted nothing to interfere with the deeper logic and meaning of Fischer’s life. So dedicated was I to telling Fischer’s life story as I knew it, that I wrote the book knowing, and regretting, that I might be sacrificing my relationship as a friend and chessplaying colleague. As a matter of courtesy, and so that the biography would be as accurate as it could be, I sent the galley proofs to Bobby before the book was first published, so that he could correct mis-facts, if any. He came to my office, then on Park Avenue, and tried to get me to delete or change certain sections of the book, especially my brief discussion of him being Jewish and then becoming a follower of the Worldwide Church of God, a fundamentalist Christian sect. It was not that my facts about Bobby’s religion were incorrect: it was just that as a private person, (as far as his beliefs were concerned), he did not want that information revealed. I refused to take out of the book what I considered to be important information about understanding who Bobby really was.

Other Facts Came to Light
A few days after the conclusion of the Fischer-Spassky match for the World’s Championship in Iceland in 1972, I was entering the main entrance of the Hotel Loftleider. At that precise moment, Bobby Fischer exited the hotel. He was en route home to the United States. We did not speak, nor did he greet me; however, we made what I considered to be intense eye contact. Although we had known each other ever since he was a little boy, Bobby had ceased talking to me all during the two-month match, for reasons that were clear only to him. He was aware that I was working on a new edition of his biography, Profile of a Prodigy, and knew that I was living with my wife and son in the home of the parents of Gudmundur Thorinsson, the president of the Icelandic Chess Federation, and had been present at the match every day. Stories and interviews about the forthcoming book had appeared in Morgunbladit, Reykjavik’s daily newspaper. However, Bobby was unhappy that I had revealed, according to him, too much about his personal life in the first edition of the book, which had been published in 1965. Therefore, he really did not want to cooperate with me, nor did he approve of my doing this new edition.

As he was about to step into the car that would take him to Kevlavik Airport, he said to his bodyguard, Saemunder Paalsson – loud enough for me to hear – “It looks like Frank Brady is the last one left in Iceland.” Indeed, virtually all of the thousands of journalists, television crews, chessplayers and fans that had crowded the island for months of excitement during the history-making match, had gone back to their lives elsewhere. I had to remain in Iceland for awhile to finish the new edition of Profile of a Prodigy, ship the manuscript back to the David McKay publishing company in New York, and then head off directly to the Olympiade in Skopje, where I had a scheduled meeting with Mikhail Botvinnik, and where I was to be awarded the title of International Arbiter at the FIDE Congress held there.

By the time I left Iceland and the manuscript was out of my hands and out of my psyche, I thought that my writing about, and involvement with Bobby Fischer was over. I had been inundated with Fischer. Little did I know, however, that as Bobby’s Boswell, if you will, the chess world would, for the next thirty years, be relentless, eager, and covetous of any scrap of information that I might be able to share about the wunderkind from Brooklyn. Not a week has gone by since then that I have not been asked, “Whatever happened to Bobby Fischer?” or “What was he like?” or “Was he really that good?”

When I arrived at Skopje, one of the first people I met was Dr. Max Euwe, President of FIDE, who had been extremely kind to me in Reykjavik; he wanted to know as much as he could, in copious detail, about how Fischer had spent his days before and after Euwe had crowned him with laurel as World Champion. Prof. Arpad Elo engaged me in a discussion of the implications of Fischer’s new rating. Col. Ed Edmundson, who was not present in Iceland, but who was largely responsible for propelling Fischer toward the Championship, asked me about the politics of the match. Botvinnik listened intently as I related some of the dynamics of the erratic Fischer-Spassky encounter. Everyone wanted to hear about Fischer, talk about Fischer, and be part of the Fischer mystique.

During the next three decades, I have given talks about Bobby Fischer at clubs and meetings. But aside from my imparting information about Fischer, one of the most interesting things that has occurred over the years is that people – chessplayers, and others – wanted to tell me stories, anecdotes, and observations about Fischer. Without thinking that I would ever write about Bobby Fischer again, for some reason I kept notes, on paper or in my mind, of all of this Fischer lore that was presented to me. Then I went on to write other non-chess biographies.

Although I have been a privileged recipient of certain additional information about Fischer since the last edition of the book was written, and although I am his biographer, a great portion of the material in the biography was unearthed by me (or told to me by Bobby, his mother, and other chessplayers) between 30 and 50 years ago, much of it well before I had any intention of ever writing a biography of my chessplaying friend.

I did make some corrections in the 1972 edition of Profile of a Prodigy: unintentional mistakes that had crept into the 1965 edition, and were discovered later, were diligently corrected. In a book of 160,000 words (not including the games and annotations), and dealing with a figure as mercurial as Fischer, some factual mistakes are bound to appear.

I raise all of this because Mr. Berry, in his article, would have us believe that I have held back information, not so much about Bobby Fischer, but about his mother and father. Mr. Berry is an attorney, a highly successful prosecutor of cyber crime and other felonies, and for that he is to be commended. However, since he is not a professional writer or a biographer, he probably does not understand that an author is a prisoner of the facts that he can unearth. First, as I have indicated, most of the material in both editions of Profile of a Prodigy is decades old, and at that time was as accurate and truthful as I knew it. Since then, I have learned more about Bobby and his family, information given to me in conversations with his friends, or just people who have an interest in Fischer and whose lives may have intersected with his at various times. Second, as should be obvious, Profile of a Prodigy is a biography of Bobby Fischer. While I included information I had about his parents, I did not seek to unearth their histories, certainly not in any great depth. That is not the function of a biographer. I wrote the book as most biographies are written – setting the subject in context, but focusing the study on the subject of the biography – in this case, Robert J. Fischer.

Errors and Suppositions About Bobby Fischer’s Mother
Regina Fischer (née Wender) entered medical school in Russia in 1933. Instead of finding that commendable, the article raises unfounded suspicions against Bobby’s mother and against me. It states that “for reasons Brady does not divulge, she did not complete her medical degree,” implying that I was privy to this information and was for some nefarious reason withholding it from the public. First, I really have no proof as to why she failed to complete her studies in medical school, and second, why would Mr. Berry believe I would withhold such information if I had it? As a biographer (of seven life stories), I am interested in everything that is pertinent to my subject as long as it is accurate, and adds to the understanding and essence of the life at hand.

Mr. Berry goes on to say that he was surprised that readers were not suspicious of Regina Fischer’s unusual education in the Soviet Union. He jumps to the conclusion that only hard-core communists could have been educated in Russia during the 1930s, which is simply not true. It was more difficult for a woman to enter medical school in the United States than it was in Russia in those days. In fact, Russia has always been progressive in medical education for women, and for foreign nationals. One of the first medical schools in the world exclusively for women, the First St. Petersburg Medical Institute, was founded in 1897. In the 1930s, Russia had a great shortage of doctors, and was interested in training whoever they could, with the hope that during internship and residency periods, the country would benefit from the services of the new medical school graduates. Although portions of the country were wracked with famine, increased educational opportunities were being offered in the Soviet Union of the 1930’s.

President Roosevelt established diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933, and restored trade relations with the country: this was the very same year that Regina Wender traveled to Russia. If I were to speculate, as Mr. Berry does, I might assume that she might have felt that the U.S. government’s imprimatur was, if not an impetus, at least a catalyst for her to study there. During an interview, Regina Fischer gave the practical reason why she went to Russia to study medicine: tuition fees were much lower there than in the United States.

Here is an example of one mis-fact in Mr. Berry’s article that, had he been more careful, I am certain he could have caught before having his j’accuse published. He claims that I wrote in Profile of a Prodigy that Regina (Wender) Fischer was born in St. Louis, and he builds a great segment of the article around his mistaken assumption that she was born in the United States. I wish that Mr. Berry had spent as much time and effort reading my words as he does criticizing them. On Page 2 of the 1972 edition of Profile of a Prodigy, I clearly stated: “Bobby’s mother, though raised in St. Louis, where her father Jack Wender was a dress cutter, was [also] born abroad in Switzerland.”

Because she was Swiss born, she had learned French, German, and English starting as a young child, and became adept in a number of other languages (a trait her son shared). She was not intimidated about learning Russian. Having graduated from high school at 15 and college at 18, she had proven herself to be a brilliant student. To go to Russia at the age of 19 undoubtedly seemed to be more of an adventure than a challenge to her, much like many college students today who take a year of study abroad.

Was Regina Fischer a communist? I doubt that she was. Since she was such an outspoken person on so many political issues, it is likely that, had she been a member of the Party, she would not have been either embarrassed or intimidated to admit it somewhere along the line, especially in the 1930’s. Certainly, she was an activist. Joan Fischer Targ, Bobby’s sister, once said of Regina Fischer: “My mother is sort of a professional protester.” Regina was a “registered” pacifist as a member of the War Resister’s League and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, hardly organizations that were attractive to communists. In 1960, she joined the longest peace march in history, walking with Bertrand Russell’s group, the Congress of Nuclear Disarmament, from San Francisco to Moscow. Among other causes, she protested the U.S. policy of remaining in Vietnam; the American Chess Foundation for not sending our team to the Leipzig Chess Olympiade; and British strikebreakers in northwest London. She worked for Senator McGovern’s campaign for the presidency, and helped run a United Nations camp in Honduras. It seemed that she would emerge in the news every few years protesting some issue or picketing some embassy or consulate for whatever cause she wanted to fight for at that time. However outré her politics, this does not make Regina Fischer either a communist or a spy.

A Russian book published in the mid-1990s might have significance concerning Regina Fischer. Russians vs. Fischer, compiled by Dmitry Plisetsky and Sergey Voronkov, is a compendium of heretofore confidential and secret documents and letters, released after the fall of communism, of the USSR Chess Federation, and the USSR Sports Committee, all concerning how to defeat Bobby Fischer, psychologically and on the chessboard, when he was to play Boris Spassky for the World Championship in 1972. The book outlines the political intrigue, and how the Soviet ideological machine, aided by the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, did everything they could to stop the kid from Brooklyn. Yet the book makes scant reference to Regina Fischer: it merely relates that she tried to raise money for Bobby to play in the 1959 Candidates’ Tournament. There is no reference whatsoever to her politics. With all of the forces working toward Bobby’s defeat, possibly with aid of the KGB, if Regina Fischer had been a communist, the Soviet government would surely have used that fact against Bobby.

I did not know that Joan Fischer Targ was born in Moscow until I read her obituary – the same one that Mr. Berry read – in 1998. Coincidentally, someone who used to be relatively close to Bobby Fischer told me several months ago that Bobby and Joan did not have the same father. When I asked for more details, the friend said that he really could not remember the specifics of his information, but it was based on something that Fischer had told him many years ago. Is this correct, or yet another rumor? If it is true, then why did Joan Fischer Targ claim, throughout her life, that her father’s name was Hans-Gerhardt Fischer? Is it possible that Hans-Gerhardt Fischer was her father after all?

Mr. Berry states that his article is full of suppositions. Then I must be allowed the same privilege. Based on what I have learned, and with some conjecture, it is my belief that Regina Fischer became pregnant with Joan, perhaps out of wedlock, when she was a medical student in Moscow. Realizing that with a newborn infant it would have been impossible to complete her studies, and aware that the War was raging in Europe and that Russia was going to be drawn into it, Regina chose to return to the United States and to the safety of her parents. It was at this time that Stalin began to remove Jews from scientific and educational institutions. It is also possible that Regina had actually been expelled from medical school because of her religion. She was then 24 years old. One report states that she and Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, who was studying bio-physics, left Moscow together (which might indicate that he was, indeed, the father of Joan), traveled first to Austria (perhaps for Hans-Gerhardt to settle his affairs, although that would have been extremely dangerous for Regina since she was Jewish). Then Regina, the report continues, with infant Joan (and perhaps also with Hans-Gerhardt), made her way across Europe and caught one of the last ships leaving France for America.

Mr. Berry, in his attempt to prove, or at least suggest, that Regina Fischer was a communist spy, suggests that the fact that she did “menial” work as a welder during World War II was somehow underhanded. First, Regina had not yet completed her medical degree; she was not yet a doctor at that time. (She didn’t study nursing until the late 1940s, at Prospect Heights Hospital in Brooklyn, and eventually, and temporarily, became a nurse.) Secondly, during the War, many white collar workers, from office clerks to bank tellers, from secretaries to bookkeepers, left their places of employment to become defense workers such as riveters, steam fitters, and welders, because it was the patriotic thing to do – and also because it paid a great deal more money, with opportunities for overtime and double-time. Raising two children by herself, (we don’t know when Hans-Gerhardt Fischer actually left the family, but he and Regina were divorced by the time Bobby was two), the promise of higher wages, to say nothing of the advantage of being able to work whichever shifts were most convenient for her, was probably irresistible for Regina Fischer.

Years later, after her children were grown, Regina returned to medical school at Freidrich Schiller University in East Germany and, after earning her M.D. degree with a specialty in pediatrics, she completed a Ph.D. in hematology. She was 55 years old, and then spent the better part of the rest of her life doing pro bono medical work for the poor in South America, while also using her meager Social Security checks to help support Bobby, who was close to impoverishment in Los Angeles and had been for many years.

Regina Fischer is dead now, so she cannot read that Mr. Berry, admitting he has no proof, has nevertheless decided to record his own speculations: “Based on all Regina Wender said and – more importantly – did not say about her past, it is my belief that she was an active member of the German Communist underground during the 30’s and 40’s.” What she did not say? Where is it written that a person is guilty of anything he or she does not say about something that may never have occurred? This is even more than guilt by insinuation. It is guilt by not talking about a matter that may not even exist!

Errors and Suppositions About Bobby Fischer’s Father
The article attempts to weave a theory about the name “Fischer” being the code name for communist operative spies, and deducing not only that Bobby’s father was thus a German communist, but also a key spy. This hypothesis is based on a series of suppositions and coincidences that are almost too ludicrous to take seriously. Nevertheless, since Mr. Berry has presented this as part of his accusation against Bobby’s family, it must be dealt with. He says in his article that he read a book titled The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent’s Account, by Robert Lamphere, because “the marginal personalities who were involved in Soviet espionage activity have always interested me.” He quotes Lamphere as saying that “German Communist agents were accustomed to check into hotels and drop points with the same coded surname on every occasion, intended to identify them to other members of the organization as field agents.” He then says that the universal surname used throughout the organization was “Fischer.” “The implications of this should be obvious,” Mr. Berry tells us.

Obvious? If, as Mr. Berry informs us, agents used the same surname, would they not have used very ordinary surnames to avoid attracting attention to themselves? In the United States, they might have used common names such as Smith or Jones. In Germany, Fischer would have been such an ordinary name. This does not lead us to conclude that everyone named Fischer (or Smith or Jones, for that matter) is a communist spy.

In an attempt to understand Mr. Berry’s reasoning, I have now read both editions of Mr. Lamphere’s book, a fascinating and important work about the counter-intelligence contest between East and West, and nowhere did I find such a conclusion. Mr. Lamphere does devote a chapter to a Gerhard Eisler, a German agent for the Soviets, whose mother’s maiden name was Fischer, and whose sister Elfrieda assumed that name also. However, how can that possibly be connected to Bobby’s father, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer?

With even less substantiation, Mr. Berry admits that “on a note of complete, unbridled speculation, I think his father may well have been Gerhard Wachter or Richter, the head of the German Communist spy apparatus,” but Mr. Berry does not tell us where such information comes from. It is certainly not in Mr. Lamphere’s book. Apparently, the difference between the names Fischer and Wachter or Richter are of less importance to Mr. Berry than the fact that both men happened to have the same first name. I have never met Bobby’s father and have no vested interest in defending the man, but such an illogical assumption is so preposterous that a part of me wishes that Mr. Hans-Gerhardt Fischer is alive and well, and will take the initiative of contacting Mr. Berry himself, to straighten out the matter.

Condemning the Rest of Bobby Fischer’s Family
One of the most deplorable red herrings that Mr. Berry uses, in his unfounded connection of Fischer’s family with communism, is to relate that Elizabeth Targ, Regina’s granddaughter and Bobby Fischer’s niece, had been awarded a fellowship to study in Leningrad – as though that makes the whole family suspect of something. Perhaps Elizabeth was interested in her mother’s (Joan’s) birthplace. Perhaps, like many college students, she wanted to study abroad. Do we assume that a student taking a year abroad at the Sorbonne, in light of France’s growing anti-Semitism, is an anti-Semite herself? No, and we cannot assume anything about the political persuasion of Elizabeth Targ, simply because she was offered a chance to study abroad.

Finally, Mr. Berry takes the Fischer clan to task for not being involved with their “extended family,” again implying that there was something suspicious about that. First, when I returned from Europe in late 1972, I had conversations with some of Bobby’s relatives who lived in the Bronx, and they were very much in touch with Regina and her two children. I have copies of letters from Regina Fischer written in the late 1980’s that indicate that she – and Bobby – were in touch with members of their “extended family.” I’m also surprised that Mr. Berry, in his investigation of Regina Fischer, which he said has been ongoing for over 10 years, does not indicate that he made any attempt to talk to her brother, Max Wender, who lived in Oakland as of 1997, and who Regina was in touch with. Mr. Berry says that he withheld his facts “because Joan Fischer Targ was a good, well-loved woman who did not deserve any undue exploration of her private life.” What a pity, then, that Mr. Berry did not privately contact Joan Fischer Targ or Regina Fischer herself, both of whom lived in Mr. Berry’s county in California, to clarify all or some of his vague guesses or unproven assertions.

Mr. Berry admits to his ongoing interest in Soviet espionage, having really nothing to do with Regina or Bobby Fischer. Did he then try too hard to connect her with his obsession? I think so.

After all this, Mr. Berry admits that “nothing definite can be proven” from the “collage of facts” that he presents. What facts? Using innuendo, and building self-crumbling sandcastles in the air, he has done irreparable harm to the reputations of people who did nothing more than the raising of, or being related to, Bobby Fischer. Regardless of Bobby’s recent hate-filled rantings, which I abhor, he is nonetheless one of the greatest chessplayers of all time.

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