Subject: 1956 Photo from "Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman T.
Whitaker"

On 14 June 2004 Jud McCranie wrote in
Message-id:

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:51:51 GMT, (Sam Sloan)
wrote:

In the book "Shady Side: The Life and Crimes of Norman Tweed Whitaker"
by John S. Hilbert on page 246 there is a group photo from the 1956
Eastern States Open in Washington DC.

I have a little story about Whitaker and what is likely that photo.

I knew Whitaker in the late 60s and early 70s. A few months before
the 1972 Spassky-Fischer match, he showed me a glossy black and white
8 x 10 of him, young Fischer, and a group of chess players. It its
likely to be that photo. He said that he was going to make copies of
it and go to the match in Iceland and sell them. I don't know if he
actually did that because it was one of the last times I saw him, and
I didn't see him after Spassky-Fisher.

I don't remember much about the photo. In the same conversation he
told me about a match that he, Fischer, and others played in Mexico,
or somewhere. He said that he played board 1 and Fischer played board
2, so the photo could have been from that match.

I haven't heard of that match, except from Whitaker. Does anyone know
anything about that?

---
It's very possible that the photo you're talking about is one that was taken in
early March 1956, when Fischer went along with members of the Log Cabin Chess
Club in New Jersey for a tour of Havana, Cuba. Fischer played at the Capablanca
Chess Club in Havana, where he gave a 12-board simul, winning 10 games and
drawing 2. Whitaker might have been a member of that Log Cabin Chess Club
contingent. The driving force behind that club was E. Forry Laucks, who had
Fischer play in the Log Cabin 50-50 Tournament in February 1956, during the
Washington's Birthday weekend, in West Orange, N.J. It is unknown, I believe,
how well Fischer fared in that 50-50 event. The tournament was won by Saidy
ahead of Sherwin.

George Mirijanian