Former chess champion and long time, serial America basher Bobby Fischer has died. He was 64.
In 1992, he agreed to a rematch with Spassky, scheduled to be held in Yugoslavia and carrying a prize in excess of $3 million. The match — which Fischer won — was a high-profile violation of U.S. sanctions imposed on the Yugoslavian government of Slobodan Milosevic. U.S. officials issued a warrant for his arrest.
The warrant — and rage against the country that once hailed him — dogged Fischer for a decade. Known as much in later years for his ideological tirades — against Jews, in praise of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was arrested in 2004 in Japan where he was traveling on an invalid U.S. passport.
Fischer died in Iceland, where he went to live after renouncing his US citizenship.
Bobby was a man who caused conflict for me: on the one hand, he was arguably the greatest player who ever lived of a wonderful game. He broke the Soviet dominance of Chess when no one ever thought it would end. It was because of Bobby that I took up Chess as a hobby in the late 60s.
On the other hand, he was mentally ill, and this illness lead him to wreck his own career at its height and espouse hateful things for the rest of his life. I hope he finds the peace in the afterlife that he never found in this one.
Bobby Fischer was the saddest person I ever met. An anti-Semite Jew.