PROPHET WITHOUT HONOR

By Larry Parr

These two newspaper columns by GM Larry Evans were reprinted with permission
from THE CHESS BEAT (Pergamon Press, 1981, page 57). Bear in mind that they
were written in 1978! The chess politicos were extremely unhappy with these
reports by GM Evans. Does anything sound familiar?

USCF IN TROUBLE (#147, 1978)

The annual business meeting of the U.S. Chess Federation was held in
conjunction with the Open Championship. A slate of insurgents was elected
overwhelmingly to the Policy Board, a mandate for change in this
deficit-plagued outfit.

The USCF frittered away the greatest opportunity ever presented to any chess
organization. They were totally unprepared for the Fischer boom when membership
soared to 70,000. It has now dwindled to around 50,000 and is stagnant.

An emergency arose as soon as the new officers stepped in. President Gary
Sperling, a lawyer who also heads a large consumer group in New York City,
reported that rosy figures showing a profit for the last fiscal year concealed
a substantial loss. The budget inherited from the outgoing officers was also
"found to be far awry."

On top of all that five senior staff officers resigned. They cited their
"increasing concern with a growing tendency in the Federation towards
divisiveness and hostility."

"The USCF will take its cue from the city in which we last met -- Phoenix --
and rise from current difficulties to far greater success," predicted Sperling.

THE REFORM SLATE (#148, 1978)

The truth and beauty and justice that exist on the chessboard, alas, are seldom
reflected in the organizations that govern the game.

The new Policy Board of the near-bankrupt U.S. Chess Federation was swept in
with the hope they could set matters right. Despite their good intentions, one
of the early acts was to uphold a ban on an ad for a new magazine called WHAT'S
GOING ON IN U.S. CHESS?

Who should know better than its editor, Fred Townsend, a former board member
recently defeated in his bid for the presidency? His obscure journal might have
died a natural death were it not for the publicity surrounding this censorship
controversy.

His ad was suspended after running for two issues in CHESS LIFE & REVIEW, the
only nationally distributed major chess magazine. [Later an ad from the Friends
of the USCF submitted by Wayne Praeder was also rejected by the magazine.]

The reason given at first was "the ad seems to imply that members have to pay
$10 in addition to their dues in order to know what is going on."

I wrote to president Gary Sperling: "This reflects precisely the kind of petty
mentality that I complained of in vain to the last Policy Board. It is ironic
that a former member should become the first victim."

Mr. Sperling replied: "The decision was not based on censorship considerations,
but instead on legal factors. USCF's ad for a publication containing material
facts which we know to be wrong could involve liability that we hardly need at
the present juncture."

This argument received a stinging rebuke from John Larkins, head of the
Association of U.S. Chess Journalists, who wrote:

"The notion that the USCF could be successfully sued for what might be written
in the pages of another magazine, merely advertised in Chess Life seems
farfetched. Chess Life occupies a special monopoly position...There simply
isn't any comparable alternative advertising medium. The overall impression
given by the Policy Board's apparent supersensitivity on this matter is bound
to be that of a group which campaigned on a platform of criticizing the
then-incumbents...but who are too thin-skinned themselves to take the heat now
that they are in the kitchen. Whether or not such an impression is accurate, in
the long run this negative public image is surely more dangerous to the
Federation than any critical commentary in a minor magazine."