AQuestion the Soviet Disinformation! “Fact” they say? Journey back to just a few months earlier when Australia was putting $200,000 prize money on the line along with an easy $25,000 for organization expenses. Because Australia knew, the WORLD WAS WATCHING and willing to pay astronomically in ticket sales, tourist attractions, and photographers around the world were itching to pour in to film the young chess geniuses… the tournament, which would lead to EVEN MORE PUBLICITY and more tourist revenue. The Soviet Union had to put a stop to it. So, erase this silly claim from your mind about “photography rights” being the “only possible hope” for a meager $125,000 bid offered for any chess tournament with Fischer. Mexico and Australia's bids were MUCH LARGER. Iceland's bid was the palest by contrast, so do a journey back in your mind, to the Spring of 1972… and Iceland cast it's $125,000 bid. Right? There were no “movie rights” contract with a Chester Fox.
The “photography rights” Scam came later and when journalists around the world learned of it, they were outraged! Unconstitutionally barred from entry into the stadium with their cameras…courtesy of the USSR in its agenda to bury “freedom of the press” and coverage of the match.
Recall the Spring of 1972… when no contract with Chester Fox, Inc. existed. How was it then the Icelandic Chess Federation was bidding $125,000 (for which evidence should have been produced, confirming the prize money was being held “in escrow” and payable to the contestants upon demand when the terms and conditions had been met) yet, they made a bid, and now claim they DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY to pay the contestants without selling off the photography rights and keep repeating this claim over and over, presumably to generate sympathy. “oh how they can not pay their bills without those cameras!” is what the Soviet-controlled reports keep telling the world public. “Sympathy” is not what I am feeling toward the fraud and financial scam pulled like wool over they eyes of the chess community and public at large.
If a sports federation attempted to pull this scam in the United States, offering money as a prize, without actually having the funds “in escrow” they'd be publicly censured or potentially locked up for fraud and the guilty organizers barred from future operations in sports, forced retirement in public disgrace.
July 15, 1972
