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

On 17 June 2004 Jud McCranie replied in
Message-id:

On 18 Jun 2004 03:17:19 GMT, (Miriling) wrote:

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,

There's a good chance that you're right. Whitaker dedicates his book
"Selected Endings" it to Forry Laucks. And maybe it was Cuba instead
of Mexico.

---
In Hilbert's book about Whitaker, the author confirms that Whitaker and Fischer
were members of the Log Cabin Chess Club team that toured Cuba in 1956. The
club's founder, Elliott Forry Laucks, was also part of the contingent. He was
one of the most controversial chess organizers in U.S. chess history. He died
on July 31, 1965, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was competing in the U.S.
Open. He collapsed and died after the sixth round. He had just celebrated his
68th birthday nine days earlier.

George Mirijanian