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Bobby Fischer FBI Files Released Under FOIA
An anonymous reader writes: "Philidelphia Inquirer has a stroy detailing the results of a FOIA request for chess great Bobby Fischer." Turns out they thought the anti-semitic chess grandmaster(and his mother) was a soviet spy.
I wonder how hard it was for her to draw child support because she was a thought of soviet supporter?
No kidding.
As an American citizen I am totally disgusted with our double-standards regarding the Jews / Arabs. The Jews' 'mission from God' to reclaim the land of their legends no matter what the cost to the people who actually live there now must be ended in the name of humanity, but I doubt that America will make a move to right the wrongs unless they come under intense terrorist attack - which unfortunately is quite likely so we will see.
You would be surprised at how many Americans are willing to sweep the issue under the carpet because the current situation works out well for the US economically.
what does him being anti-semetic have to do with anything?
I mean if he hated asians, they wouldn't write him as an "ANTI-ASIAN chess grandmaster"
How come when someone is an anti-semite it has to be painted all over them throughout the article.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
And you are any better? You seem to be predijuced aginst southerners yourself. I am what you would call a "southern redneck", as I am from Jackson MS, and drive a large truck. I hunt, and fish, and even have a deer's head mounted on my wall. Does that make me a bad person? I wouldn't say so. Does it make me stupid, or slow? I hardly doubt it. What it does mean though, is you should watch your words more cloesly, and realize that when you judge others, you yourself are open for judgement.
--Forest C. Adcock--
Being 'smart' is no precursor to either being a reasonable person, living a good (or happy life) or having the same opinions of other people.
Look how many of the geniuses of the past lived fscked lives. Newton for instance (probably) died a virgin. Literary figures are another area where the greats seem to lead terrible lives.
Fischer's anti-semitism and his apparent approval of the attack on the World Trade Center might make him an asshole, but it doesn't make him a terrorist, and it certainly doesn't retroactively make him a Soviet spy in the 1970's or vindicate any of the FBI's suspicions.
As explained in the article, the FBI had a long-running investigation of Fischer and his mother back in the 70's and earlier. It's just another illustration that the US govt has been spying on its own citizens for decades, long before there was any sort of terrorist rationalization.
I concur. They are making it seem like a crime to hold a certain attitude towards a certain population, the jewish people.
... even if unsubstantiated. With freedom of speech, people will be able to distinguish truth from falsity. When restrictions are placed and a portion of the population is given special untouchable-from-criticism status, the people are not given this opportunity to guage truth from falsehood and suspicion and corruption of truth will brew even more so.
Case in point. John McCain has more than once voiced his anti-Vietnamese attitude. You don't see the press calling him the Anti-Vietnamese Senater.
Of course if Joe Smoe says anything negative about jewish people, IMMEDIATELY everyone (like a reflex action) labels him an antismetic and it's like he is a pedophile and they discount everything that he says, even the truthful elements.
I find this behavior troubling because: 1. it creates restriction on freedom of speech and thought for the general population. 2. It creates white/non-jewish backlash against minority groups.
Both of these troubling, growing situations can be prevented by BEING FAIR and not trying to make the jewish population untouchable from public comments, even if the comments happen to be negative
Of course, I'm sure I will be labeled anti-semetic after this post by the ignorant and by pro-censors. But, please think about it. I'm advocating freedom of speech, an essential pillar of our democratic society that is being chiseled away at for the past decade or so.
There is actually a lot more to it than that. John McCain takes issue with the VC (VietCong) who were notoriously evil in combat. These were mostly 12-18 year old boys and girls in black pajams who setup traps using their own women and children as bait. They frequently slaughtered entire villages of their own people by purposely putting them in the line of fire so they could get the liberal Jane Fondas of the world to say "LOOK AMERICA IS KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE".
Men like McCain who had to fight them now just how evil they were. Ad to that his stay in the POW camps, the deaths of close friends, etc and you have a recipe for a life times worth of anger hate and general anxiety.
That part of the world is not a good place. No matter what the liberals would like us to believe, the south east asain governments do not respect life. However the vietnamese people as well as cambodians etc are generally good people.
ECONOMICALLY? How so? We alienate the arab nations, which control half the world's oil supply, in order to support a nation that has no oil whatsoever. We support Israel so much, in fact, that fully 1/3rd of their GDP is in the form of American aid. That's right, essentially one in three Israelis is living off of American handouts. How does this provide the USA with an economic benefit?
No, there are reasons that we support Israel, but money ain't one of them. We support Israel because of the holocaust. After WWII, the Allies decided that because of the horrors the Jewish people had endured (not only at the hands of the Nazis, but throughout their history), Israel would be turned over to them. Because we made that commitment, we back them. The second reason is suicide bombing. The Israelis may commit military actions which are of dubious morality (at best), but they've never sent in suicide bombers, or taken actions with no strategic value whatsoever. The third reason is historical. The arab nations in the middle east attacked Israel repeatedly without provocation. Each defeat has made them more and more hostile. Between terrorist actions like the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team and wars of agression from the First Arab-Israeli War onward, it's easy to be sympathetic to Israel.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
How did that dude get so fucked up.
Its called paranoid schitzophrenia [295.30 DSM-IV]. One of Bobby Fischer chess contemporaries, Reuben Fine, was a psychologist, and noted symptomatic behavior when Fischer was a teenager. It also explains a lot of odd behavior Fischer has exhibited throughout his life. Its sad, really.
BTW, southern white trash redneck anti-semitism is not much different than your pro-zionist prejudice.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Violent talks just lead to violent acts.
And violent acts lead to more violent acts - that's why September 11th happened. Arabs hate the US because they sponsor Israel, a state which has pursued policies similar to the Third Reichs for more than fifty years. For example:
So here we have a state that uses military aggression against civilians, essentially its own citizens. They pursue research and production of weapons of mass destruction, and have violated other states sovereignty to assasinate figures they don't like. Sounds like Iraq, but it also applies equally to Israel. Of course Israel doesn't have massive oil reserves, and the US has a powerful pro-Israeli lobby along with a president financed by oil hungry industry.
The Telegraph article linked to a number of times in this Slashdot thread should be taken in context. It's published in Britain by a dubious Canadian with pro-Israeli views, a man who censures his own staff and others if they write anything that criticises Israeli policies or highlights Palestinian grievances. Of course Fischer isn't going to be portrayed in a balanced light by the Telegraph ... ignore Fischers disgust at the way the US has treated him and his likely mental issues, he looks more anti-semitic that way.
Chris
Exactly! All those angry people should be taken out and shot!!!
I have played chess for years. Ever since I was a kid and received my first chess book as a gift, "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess", I have idolized Fischer. I have gone over his games over and over. They are amazing.
Of course, he has problems. Many geniuses, and by extension, chess grandmasters, have severe psychological issues. I read Karpov's autobiography (World Champion 75-85) and it is filled with stories of both genius and complete emotional immaturity. Sometimes I felt like I was reading about the antics at a playground.
One doesn't become a grandmaster overnight. Generally, if you are not on your way by your teens, you will never make it. It involves studying chess every day for years and years. There is a reason there are less than 500 in the world. As a result of their studies, however, I think many miss out on the basic socialization acquired by most people. They would probably make the average Slashdot reader look like a well-adjusted socialite.
Now, I am not trying to make excuses for Fischer's comments. I'm just trying to put them in perspective. Try not to judge him too harshly for his screwed up views on politics and society. He's not exactly an expert on either. He's an idiot, in fact.
I still idolize Fischer, but not for anything but his chess. That is quite enough for me. He created works of art in his games that will be studied for as long as people play the game.
The FBI did have a legitimate national security interest in the Fischers. His mother lived and attended medical school in the Soviet Union. The KGB and GRU recruited agents from foreign students attending schools in the Soviet Union. His father fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. That in itself isn't a problem, but it puts him in a group that was heavily infiltrated and influenced by the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence operations. The FBI didn't have the right to harass the Fischers, but I think they had a legitimate national security interest in investigating their activities to see if they were involved in espionage or other crimes.
Yeah, but he was a chess player for god's sake what possible national security issue could he raise? Maybe he was deep programmed to shove a bishop in the president's brain if he got close enough? Seriously though, the thing that really sticks in my craw about all this spying and stuff in the west is that the institutions of government, are really strong enough to survive most every attempt to "espionage" them. It is the ego (technical not derogatory definition) of the office holders that leads to the "questionable" activity. Indeed, institutions such as the "rule of law", "separation of powers" or for you American's the "Bill of Rights" and the "Constitution" are made stronger by their ability to survive the most serious attacks on their incumbants by being indifferent to the specific individuals excercising them (yeah, yeah I know it aint perfect). It is funny how the greatest threats to these way of life shaping facets of our socieities are the excesses of the incumbent office holders and their needs to "protect" us from ourselves or to "protect" the institutions that seem to do a pretty good job on their own.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
"The second reason is suicide bombing. The Israelis may commit military actions which are of dubious morality (at best), but they've never sent in suicide bombers, or taken actions with no strategic value whatsoever."
Isreal doesn't use suicide bombers. Why send suicide bombers when you can send armed helicopters? On the other hand, if you lack the helicopters and pretty much any other means of modern warfare, suicide bombers are cheap and reliable means of getting at your targets. There is nothing inherantly evil about suicide bombers.
It's probably the bad choice of targets of these suicide bombers, that you want to point out as one of the reasons for supporting Israel. Well, both sides are guilty there: when Israel sends its helicopters against a town that supposedly harbors terrorists, and fires missiles into their homes, innocent civilians die. These aren't precision military bombings as some would suggest. The town is chosen for harboring terrorists but the people wounded and killed in these raids are not picked off carefully. In my opinion that is just as bad as a suicide bombing.
". Between terrorist actions like the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team and wars of agression from the First Arab-Israeli War onward, it's easy to be sympathetic to Israel."
I'd rather say that it makes it easy to dislike the Arab states and the Palestines; it hasn't changed my dislike for certain Israeli practices. Israel (their current government and a large part of their people) has the same problem that the Palestine terrorists have: they are fanatics; i.e. they are bent on achieving their goals by whatever means necessary.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
He agreed to the formation of a palestinian state? oh how nice of him, since the USA created that israeli state for him after WWII out of palestine. Both sides are wrong. Palestine( BC ) was around long before Israel(1920's or 1948, i'm not sure). Take a minute and try to figure out why that state next to them is at war with them. Throughout this thread, anything that says something negative about israel is labeled a troll or antisemetic. Maybe you've been brainwashed. Issues like these can't be discussed after reading an article. You need some info on the history. They are both terrorists, we just support one of them because we put them there after wwII.
The leadership of the U.S. has changed 8 times since 1970, when Nixon was in office.
If, in fact, this is his motivation, he's fighting against an administration that's been out of power for a quarter of a century, and whose leadership, even if he could legitimately blame them, is already dead.
You honestly believe that the current administration is totally distinct to those of the past? Christ on a bike, Daddy Bush was head of the CIA, Cheney was Ford's assistant and Chief of Staff. Your current administration is chock-a-block with the same crooks and cronies as Bush Sr's 10 years ago, which was stuffed with Regan-era and earlier muppets. And now, to top it off, here comes Poindexter eager to set up his new Stasi. It's unbelievable.
Israel and Palestine do the same shit to each other. But we label attacks by Palestine terrorism. BS. Both countries engage in it, we just support one of them.
I must be watching a different news show, reading a different newspaper than you. What happens is some palestinian nut job comes into Israel, blows himself up, and tries to take as many innocent lives as possible. Then after this provocation, Israel attempts to either assassinate the people involved with the planning of the attacks, or take out their entire neighborhood with tanks.
Here's a good question: How many Israeli suicide bombers have you read about?
It's not terrorism when you're responding to an attack, and trying to localize your response to the perpetrators.
"And like that
Here's a good question: How many Israeli suicide bombers have you read about?
How many Nazi suicide bombers have you read about? How many Soviet suicide bombers have you read about? If you have tanks, you don't need suicide bombers.
It's not terrorism when you're responding to an attack, and trying to localize your response to the perpetrators.
They take out their entire neighborhood with tanks. Imagine your neighbor went nuts, so they rolled up tanks on your front lawn. Would you feel that that was a localized response?
I'm not arguing that Israel is in an easy position, but they are far from lily-pure here.
Several--there was that nut a few years back who massacred all those Palestinians praying.
But the reason Isreal doesn't have suicide bombers is because they have a GNP 10000 times larger than the Palestinians. They've got bombs. Recall that operation recently where they blew up an apartment complex to get one guy? That isn't because the majority of Isrealis support things like that, but because in any conflict there will be crazies. You could be sure that if the situations were reversed (hell, if you put any two groups of people in the world in that situation) suicide bombings would be used by the weaker side. Hell, just look at all those nutty settlers. They are camping out in Hebron now (with Sharon's voiced approval).
The fact is that the Palestinians have a reason for grief, after being driven out (or leaving voluntarily, depending on the historian) during the war of Isreali independance. And after that, having their land occupied (after a war Isreal had with someone else) since the '67 war.
Anytime you have something like that, you can depend on people not simply giving up. You can depend on them using whatever means are at their disposal to fight. And on the Israeli side, Isreal was founded by Jews running from European persecution--and later the holocaust--and now it is populated mostly by people who have been living there their entire lives, and have no other home.
You could have predicted all this from the first kibbutz built in British Palestine. Or maybe since the first Jew burned by the Inquisiton. There is overwhelming blame to go around, but it will never be enough. The responsibility of leaders on all sides is to build a peace however they can.
Any system that allows something as evil as a racist holocaust because of "manifest destiny" is hopelessly flawed and should be eliminated as quickly as possible.
Except none of that was built into our constitution. Our past may be shameful, but it's not like our government explicitly permitted raping and slaughtering the natives in our Constitution. You seem to be defending- or at least apologizing for- the CSA based on legal reasoning, but it was founded based on a largely untenable principle. FYI, importation of slaves was already illegal long before the Civil War (I believe 1809), but hundreds of thousands were brought in illegally anyway.
There is no moral or ethical difference between strapping a bomb to your chest in order to kill innocent people and driving a tank into a Palestinian town in order to launch tank shells at innoocent people. Both groups have great roots in terrorism and both engage in terrorism now. The only difference is that today's Israeli terrorism is legitamized because we are backing them. By the way, for those that doubt the claim of Israeli terrorism, do a Google search on the Stern Gang, a group of terrorists who went to great lengths to kill and terroize as many British as they could in order to pursuade them into granting them a state in Palestine (what would become Israel). Stern was such a fanatic, that he actually *supported* the Nazis, because he was hoping they would destroy the British. Another terrorist group in Israel is the Jewish Defense League, a group who has attempted to bomb several mosques.
Fischer is the greatest chess player who ever lived, and several pegs above the likes of Kramnick and Kasparov. The idea that he's a Russian spy is absurd. Fischer hates the Russians. He accused them of conspiring to keep the chess champion a Russian. He said the games between Kramnick and Kasparov were pre-determined. He is certainly not a Russian spy.
The other ridiculous thing that the US gov't has done to Fischer is threatned to arrest him should he ever return to the US, because he played a chess tournament in a nation which was under "sanctions" by the US. Fischer tore up a letter from the US gov't demanding that he not play in that nation. He has the right to play chess where-ever the fuck he wants to. He shouldn't face punishment for carrying out his livelihood in a nation the US "doesn't approve of". He could play fucking Chess in Iraq and make millions for the Iraq government. That's his fucking right.
Yes, Fischer has some obnoxious views, and has said some cruel and hateful things about the Jews, and has said some outrageous things about 9/11. Again, that's his right. He has the right to say whatever the fuck he wants to. Quite frankly, I can understand him for hating the US. He is the only US citizen who has brought honor to the US in the chess arena -- the only American who's ever been anything in chess. And not only was/is he good, he was/is the best. The US government repaid him by threatening to arrest him because he played Chess in a "sanctioned nation". That doesn't mean its right to say that the 9,000 people who died at 9/11 deserved it, but he still has the right to say that.
As for his hatred of the Jews, though I'm not saying its good, he still has the right to hold whatever opinions he wants. Though it would make more sense if he hated Christians, as he was scammed by the "Worldwide Church of God". But from his perspective, he's been wronged by Jews. He's particularly enraged about all of the profiteering that has been going on around his name, while he hasn't received a dime. Movies like "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and biographies of him were made, yet he's received no compensation. In short, other people are making billions of dollars off of his name, and he attributes this mainly to the Jews. That doesn't justify hating all Jews, but its still his right to do so.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You consider a destroying a neighborhood a localized response? I pray you never get a law enforcement position. "Well, we knew that the suspect was somewhere in the neighborhood, so we blew the whole thing up."
The Palestinian suicide bombers and ambushes are morally reprehensible, and those organizing the attacks should be arrested, tried for thier crimes, and sentenced. However, destroying the homes of family members of suicide bombers, destroying neighborhoods, and assassinating various people suspected (but not tried in court) of orchestrating these attacks is just as wrong. Is it any wonder that the Palestinians are desperate? Did your father act as a suicide bomber? Say goodbye to your home. Accidentally live too near to a terrorist and become an accidental casualty to an Israeli bomb or bullet? Tough luck.
The entire situation is a giant mess. The leaders on both sides are acting like idiots and getting alot of innocent people killed. Both sides are left feeling desperate and lashing out randomly at each other, reinforcing their desperation.
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The Soviet Union would have fallen apart even if they never started the Afghanistan campaign. It's economy was altogether inefficient, corrupted and rotten, producing poor quality goods that no-one needed. This was made worse by the fact that "quality" of production was measured by quantity - the "best" factories were those that produced a lot of crap. Add the fact that no-one was allowed to critisise this unil Gorbatchov's glasnost, when it was already too late, and the result is clear for all to see. The Soviet Union was not only stagnated, it was recessing and it was too big and slow to turn around. Game over.
If some rich country would supply the palestinians with politically correct weapons like Apaches and F16:s, I am sure the palestinians would gladly use those instead of suicide bombers.
When the Israeli army evicts the family of a suicide bomber and blows up their house, thereby damaging nearby houses and killing the suicide bombers 8 year old neighbor, how is this behavior morally superior to the palestinians just because the Israeli bombers are not suicide bombers?
there are people who advocate hatred in every society. the nazis rounded up millions of civilians and slaughtered them. israelis have not. for you to equate the israelis with the nazis is ignorant.
Just because there are people advocating hate in every society doesn't make it right. And you may want to check your own level of ignorance, last time I checked there were millions of Palestinians rounded up into the West Bank and Gaza, having been evicted by force from land they had lived on for centuries. And as for slaughter, check up on the activities of the Jewish forces during the foundation of Israel - murdering Arab civilians was common place.
I can and will equate the extremists in Israeli society with Nazis, because they are very vocal about the policies I attributed to them in my previous post. The proposals to ethnically cleanse the West Bank by any means necessary is not conjecture, but the avowed policies of some of the parties represented in the Knesset. It's also the view of the head of the Israeli land forces.
israel invades neighbors defensively, in response to attacks, such as missiles and mortar fire coming from across the border in lebanon
Israel threw the first stone. It's a state born out of violence, and perpetuated by violence.
try educating yourself about the facts if you want to post about such issues. most likely you're just being a troll, though, i don't know why i waste my time responding to you.
I've been to Israel, met many different people both Arabs and Jews. Go back far enough in my family tree and you'll find Jewish blood on my fathers side. I'm not a troll, I'm simply cheesed off with the misinformed gibberish that most people spout about the Middle East. Having lived in America, I can understand the bias there - the popular press is rabidly pro-Israeli, and any politician who upsets the Jewish lobby can kiss their career goodbye. The sad thing is there are people on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide who are level headed and reasonable, but their voices are drowned out by populist bullshit from all sides. Even when the cheif Rabbi in Britain questioned Israeli human rights abuses, he was shouted down by the loudmouted Israeli apologists in his won society.
Chris
If you have studied chess you will know that Fischer did things that other chess players, grandmasters (GM) included, can only dream of.
For example, in 1971 when he defeated Taimanov 6-0 in the first round of the Candidates matches for the World Champs. Taimanov was not only a GM but one of the world's elite players
A match score of 6-0 is practically unheard of at this level, the weaker player always manages to pick up at least a draw or two. Certainly such a result was a first in World Championship history.
That Fischer was able to then beat Larsen 6-0 in his next match was verging on unbelievable. Larsen was without doubt in the world's top 10, probably top 5.
Then there was the time Fischer won the US Champs with a perfect 11/11 score, something never repeated before or since.
To achieve such results, and whats more achieve them without the backing of a team of grandmasters such as Karpov or Kasparov had, requires a level of dedication and intensity way way beyond the average grandmaster.