REPLY TO FIDE APOLOGIST TIM REDMAN

By Larry Parr


Tim, if I may. I presume to address you directly, since I ended up
in the second person in your message below.

Concerning the drug question questionnaire being distributed to the
top 100 American players, I have little doubt that it will end up reading as a
list of questions explaining why we can do nothing except to accept FIDE
diktats. Questions of the unadorned Parr-Evans kind, quoting the regulations
and asking whether players support the drug code, will likely not be included.

Tim, you understandably do not wish to discuss what the FIDE
regulations say. Your new line is that to quote them and to point out what they
say is a form of paranoia.

The line you are now peddling is that the regulations, though
unfortunately worded, are not to be taken at face value. They may be a horror
to read, but horror is not what they portend. Indeed, you have told us that
you have the assurances from a drug testing functionary that there is no
intention to grow the bureaucracy. Perhaps, too, Casto "Totie" Abundo, the
permanent secretary of FIDE's Medical Commission, has "personally assured" you
he wishes to keep his fiefdom as tiny as possible.

Against the assurances that you pass on, we have the regulations
themselves and, indeed, the entire history of drug testing in other sports and
in the workplace. That history is one of relentless growth and intrusiveness.

Once again, Article 3.1 of the FIDE code reads, "FIDE is entitled to
carry out doping control on any competitor in any FIDE Competition." No
exceptions are made, not even for young children, who most definitely face a
desensitization process. "Any]competitor" may be tested. Period.

Article 3.4 of the FIDE code reads, "At all other events (Except
where doping control is carried out under the rules of another sporting body)
the NCF conducting the controls or in whose territory an event is held shall be
responsible for conducting doping control and shall inform and report the
results to the FIDE Medical Commission."

"At all other events?" Which events?

The code deliberately does not say, just as it did not define the
phrase in earlier versions. This is the tunnel through which you and other
pro-drug testers hope to drive the lorry containing the testing equipment to
major Swiss and scholastic tournaments. There is a role here for USCF
officials, who will conduct the tests, assign contracts, and report results.

There is more in the regulations, such as the lifetime ban provision
and the call for out-of-competition testing, which may be at any time, any
place, for any reason, stated or unstated. The USCF is obligated to provide
"whereabouts information" of its members to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and the other
men of FIDE.

Oh, Tim, I know. It's paranoia to quote the regulations. The
horrors they contain will not be so horrible in practice. I agree -- at first.

Your second point below is that you and your FIDE friends are tired of
hearing the litany of FIDE corruption and dictatorial practices. Sorry about
that.

One imagines that even thinking back to the motion to declare IM
Ricardo Calvo "persona non grata," let alone having the history of that event
recited here, induces a languor of soporific force.

I understand your point. The spirit, no matter how willing, sags.

GM Seirawan's animadversion to the recent scandal in which "Honorary
President" and convicted felon Florencio Campomanes, your old comrade-in-arms,
took a quarter million Swiss francs and spent them to promote chess in the
Olympic Games without receipts or, perhaps, did not spend them -- well, that's
just the kind of "minor scandal," which is the phrase used by FIDE "team"
member Bill Kelleher, you have wearied of hearing about.

Wearied? Nay, sick and tired.

Tim, you are bushed when hearing about FIDE's president being a
killer and a thug. You are fatigued from hearing about how our "team"
supported turning over what is still FIDE's most valuable property, its
decaying world championship, to a company owned by its president! You grow
faint at the mention of Campomanes and current Medical Commission Permanent
Secretary Casto "Totie" Abundo toting away 60 percent of the FIDE treasury in
1995. Allusions to Kirsan distributing gold Rolexes to FIDE delegates poop you
out. Allusions to FIDE governance -- the bribes, the sleaze -- produce what
Kierkegaard called existential nausea.

THE SAME OLD PLOY

Tim, you are back to the same old ploy of offering false policy alternatives.
Your alternatives are either to accept the status quo, so cunningly prepared by
our FIDE "team," heh-heh-heh, or to leave FIDE tomorrow morning at 9:17 a.m.

Such are not the alternatives. You ask what can be done?

WHAT, THEN, IS TO BE DONE?

First, the USCF contacts all of the English-speaking chess countries
along with the countries of Scandinavia, most of Western Europe and some
selected Caribbean and Asian nations. The Federation explains that it wishes
to form a caucus of nations within FIDE that will press for radical reform or,
failing that, will establish a new world chess organization.

Secondly, the USCF dispatches a circular letter to all FIDE nations
stating its position on drug testing forcefully and its intention not to foist
such testing on American players in any way.

Thirdly, the USCF states that the killer-thug from Kalmykia is no
longer acceptable as FIDE president and that his rule is destroying sponsorship
and damaging the game itself.

Your response is to quote a letter from Morten Sand that we must go
quietly into the sweet night. Readers of this letter, which will likely appear
here soon, will recollect that Mr. Sand was part of a FIDE "reform" ticket led
by Ignatius Leong of Singapore. The leaders of this ticket dropped out and
accepted appointments and preferments from Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at the highest
level of FIDE. The last election was actually cancelled. That's fact.

We may expect that lawyer Sand will now counsel our quietude.

A HISTORY BEHIND A STATEMENT

Tim, there is a history behind a statement you make below. You write,
"Withdrawing from FIDE would de-legitimize the USCF and it is not hard to
imagine another national body being formed to replace it. It is not hard to
imagine because it seems that some people are already talking about a new
national body."

You will recollect adopting this line in FIDE Advisory Committee
discussions about the fate of Jim Eade as the USCF's zonal president in FIDE.
You were asked by John McCrary and others to explain your meaning, and you
coyly kept your peace thereafter. But we understood the threat: if relieved
of his FIDE duties, Mr. Eade would seek to form a chess body that could garner
USOC and FIDE recognition. That threat lost steam because the USOC not only
refused to recognize chess as a sport deserving of a place in the Olympics, it
refused to admit that chess was a sport at all!

Tim, the gloves of political dissimulaton have come off during these
exchanges. We understand that you and other FIDE politicians in America are
going to push for the USCF to enforce FIDE drug testing policies. All doubts
now have been laid to rest.

The response will be a major campaign among Federation members in the
form of dozens, likely a few hundred petitions being circulated, demanding that
this Executive Board repudiate FIDE's drug code. We are certain that a
significant number of USCF members will not support an organization that
intends to impose this form of social control over chess.

I want to thank you for a new frankness.

Yours respectfully,

Larry Parr

ORIGINAL MESSAGE FROM TIM REDMAN TO USCF INSIDERS

Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 11:52 PM

Subject: Actions to be taken about drug testing

Al [Lawrence] is correct that any questionnaire should emphasize consequences.
The new rules are written to conform to the new WADA regulations, but WADA
acknowledges that chess is a low-risk activity when it comes to drug use.

(Reading some of the postings on this subject, one might come to the
conclusion that it is high risk when it comes to paranoia.)

I hope that Don [Schultz] might circulate the comments from Mort Sand on this
controversy. He is a Norwegian lawyer who is on the Presidential Board. He
points out that only the U.S. is protesting this policy. So if we walk out of
FIDE, don’t expect any nation to follow.

That is what it comes down to – what effective ACTION does Mr. Parr
recommend. Please give us Agent, Action, and Time Frame. Not his long history
of FIDE grievances and name-calling. Not his recital of what we failed to do.
Not his fevered imaginary future. What the USCF should do NOW. We have
several choices:

1) Since drug testing will be enforced at the next Olympiad in Spain, we
could boycott that event, and not send either team. I don’t think the top
players would favor that course of action, but it should be presented to them
as an option on the questionnaire. As a protest, it would certainly be noted.
Or we could send teams whose members are comfortable with the possibility of
drug testing.

2) We could withdraw from FIDE. As Al points out, that would deprive
young players of the chance of FIDE titles. No country would follow us out of
FIDE. The International Olympic Committee recognizes FIDE as the sole
international governing body of chess. FIDE recognizes the USCF as the sole
governing body of chess in the United States. Withdrawing from FIDE would
de-legitimize the USCF and it is not hard to imagine another national body
being formed to replace it. It is not hard to imagine because it seems that
some people are already talking about a new national body. They may be talking
about a new international body for chess.

I would welcome concrete suggestions, in the form of an Executive Board or
Delegate motion, about what course of action to take. Feel free, Larry, not to
repeat all of your usual anti-FIDE rantings. We’ve heard them all before,
some of us endlessly.

I’ve tried to omit the names of those who have requested they be left off
of this discussion. I apologize in advance if I have missed deleting your
address from the copy list.

Cordially,

Tim