EVANS ON CHESS, CHESS LIFE, DECEMBER 2004 (page 42)

BOTVINNIK AND KERES (Cont.)

GM Raymond Keene
London, England

Q. Last May a reader cited Harry Golombek's WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
1948. It was reissued in 2002 as part of a series of classic chess
books (www.hardingesimpole.co.uk) and I wrote the jacket blurb:

'The author of this book was on the spot throughout and at the very
epicentre of all the action. Here he annotates every game and follows
every nuance. An International Master and British Champion, Golombek
had a fluent knowledge of Russian and was alert to every key variation
and possibility. Here are all the games, annotated in detail, of an
historic and controversial event. Readers can make up their own minds
on the evidence -- was Botvinnik the dominating titan of his day or
was his triumph founded on the elimination of a dangerous rival and on
political favouritism extended by the most powerful man in the Soviet
Empire?

"Mikhail Botvinnik, disciple of Josef Stalin and iron man of Soviet
chess, seized the chess crown in 1948 in the 'famous five' Match
Tournament. This was held to settle the question of the World
Championship after reigning champion Alexander Alekhine had died in
possession of the title. 1948 ushered in a long period of control of
world chess by FIDE, the world chess federation, backed, in turn, by
the powerful chess federation of the USSR , the land where chess had
become the iconic national game. Botvinnik dominated the field, easily
outdistancing his main rivals Smyslov, Reshevsky and Keres, while the
hapless Dr. Max Euwe, former world champion, whose sudden and dramatic
descent from world class chess was made brutally apparent by this
event, was left trailing in last place, 6.5 points adrift of the
field.

Inspiration and controversy alike still surround the 1948 match
tournament. At a time when more than one player claims to be world
champion and rival organisations have their own champions, the
resolution brought about by the match tournament is often regarded as
the holy grail of world title definition. Yet critics also persist in
seeing this system as flawed. Why for example was the Polish
grandmaster Miguel Najdorf not invited when US Grandmaster Reuben Fine
dropped out? Was it because Najdorf had defeated Botvinnik in a recent
tournament? Worse, unsubstantiated rumours abound that Paul Keres, an
enthusiastic participant in Nazi-controlled competitions of the early
1940s, came under pressure to lose games in Moscow -- the very heart
of the Soviet Empire -- to Stalin's protégé Botvinnik."

Many people were liquidated or sent to gulags for doing far less than
Keres did during the war, and it would have been a catastrophe for him
if he had somehow stopped Botvinnik and Reshevsky triumphed. For what
it's worth my opinion is Keres did throw the first four games, but I
wonder if Botvinnik knew it.

A. What Golombek wrote was pretty damning -- he was incredulous about
some of Keres' moves -- but to directly accuse the Soviets of cheating
would have been professional suicide for him in those days. See THE
TRAGEDY OF PAUL KERES where I pinpoint the suspicious moves (Chess
Life, October 1996).

One final point. At the 1952 Olympiad in Helsinki -- the first time
the USSR ever entered a squad -- Keres, Smyslov, Bronstein, Geller,
Boleslavsky and Kotov held a majority vote to exclude Botvinnik. It
was outrageous to oust the world champion from their team and
Botvinnik complained bitterly about this conspiracy. Did Keres, who
played board one, thus taste some revenge for 1948? Yet they later
enjoyed friendly relations.




Chess One wrote:
"Taylor Kingston" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Nov 10, 12:13 pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:

Dear Mr. Innes,

I may not be one of the aforesaid scholars, but I am curious to know
what the Russian GMs you cited have to say about this incident... If
you have the time, the inclination and their comments are available in
English.
--

Cheers,
Rev. J.D. Walker, U.C.

Rev. Walker, in this matter the two most relevant GMs are Keres and
Botvinnik themselves, and you can read what I consider to be their
most relevant comments he

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles165.pdf

Look under the headings "Keres and Whyld" and "The Botvinnik
Interview."
Neither Evans nor I was aware of these statements when our
respective articles on the Keres case appeared (10/1996 for Evans,
5/1998 for mine). The Botvinnik interview took place in 1991, but was
published only in a Dutch weekly magazine not devoted to chess, and so
remained obscure until it was translated to English and posted on Tim
Krabbé's web-site in December 1999.
I had been alerted to the possibility by Bernard Cafferty in (as I
recall) 1999, that a friend of his, whom I suspected was Ken Whyld,
knew something important, but Cafferty did not go into specifics at
that time. The Whyld statement did not appear until June 2000, again
on Krabbé's web-site. Knowing my interest in Keres, Krabbé notified me
as soon as he had posted them. Whyld and I later discussed his
encounter with Keres at greater length by e-mail.
It was these statements by Botvinnik and Whyld, more than anything
else, and not any of Evans' arguments or "evidence," that inclined me
to believe that at least indirect pressure, in effect at least
tantamount to coercion, had been applied to Keres, and prompted me to
write the article in the above link. Various Russian and/or Soviet GMs
may know various things and have various opinions, and should by all
means be heard, but it seems unlikely that anything they might say
will carry more weight than the testimony of the two principals.

**Really? If the principals are complicit, then are they not //likely//
compromised?

**And the very first time to wrote to me was on this subject - looking for
material to refute Laurie - and I informed you that very serious Russian
opinion thinks as Laurie and Evans do. That you chose to ignore this, even
knowing subsequently that your future interviewee was thought to - to put
it politiely - to gloss the issue, and less politely - to lie, and that you
were provided with the sources of those who thought so - but in your own
words, 'could not think of any questions to ask them', is merely infamous!
That is not scholarly!

**Why you expose yourself to such suppositional material as above without
any contextual understanding is your own business - but it is not chess
history. It was some form of opportunism to do with your contacts. It is
insensible.

Since the events in question occurred nearly 60 years ago, very few
people are still around with anything like first-hand knowledge.

**And the few that are, were identified to you, and you declined my
introcuction to speak with them!

Of
the Hague-Moscow contestants, Smyslov is the lone survivor. I am not
aware that he has ever made any statement supporting the coercion
thesis. I do know that when GM David Bronstein wrote an article
claiming tampering at the 1953 Candidates Tournament (which Smyslov
won), Smyslov took great umbrage.

**Yes he did, but do you know that Roschal invited that commentary by
Bronstein, since he too knew what was what. It is generally considered that
Bronstein's indifference to 'fixing' is unimpeachable. You want to accuse
him too?

Another Soviet GM of the period,
Yuri Averbakh, is on record as saying coercion did not occur.

**Is this not the gentleman that I suggested to you may not be telling the
truth, by way of 2 Russian sources? Did he tell the truth about his
anti-semitic activities on behalf of the KGB? Have you still not read
Gulko's testimony?

So even
Soviet contemporaries of Keres and Botvinnik have expressed
conflicting views.

**You should not write on subjects where you understand so very little, and
you should protest not at all when serious testimony is offered - especially
since you seem to prefer not to notice that. Above all, you should not
contest any issues with people who have first hand experience of it, which
is what you have done, and cannot admit their worth, compared with your,
what? A California orientation to 'on record' which is a sound-bite from the
active agent of suppression of chess players in Russia, and not asking him a
tough question about 'his record'?

pfft! Parr is right. You rather admire the Devil, no?

Phil Innes