This interview, unlike the others, took place with a radio station in Reykjavik, Iceland. Previous interviews were with Radio Bomba in the Philippines, except for the first two, which were from a station in Hungary.
Detractors will be disappointed to learn that Fischer makes no mention of the Attack on the World Trade Center. He also makes almost no mention of the political issues which have been the focus of his 19 previous broadcasts, except that he says that Iceland should close down Keflavik Air Base and break relations with the US. He does talk about the US federal indictment against him.
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Fischer says that in Japan he is working on a project to complete his chess clock. When asked whether he has a girlfriend in Japan. Fischer says, "I don't want to go into that."
The Icelandic interviewer appears to remind him, by name, of one of his old girlfriends in Iceland from 1972. "I had a couple of them. I thought you were talking about that stewardess," says Fischer. However, interviewer is not talking about a girlfriend but rather about his own daughter. He replies, "She has a daughter now. ... She will be [unintelligible] years old on your birthday. That's you."
It was not exactly clear what the interviewer was intending to imply by this remark. Does Fischer have a daughter in Iceland? However, it seems that, by coincidence, the granddaughter was born on Fischer's birthday.
Regarding the federal warrant for his arrest and what he has been doing for the past few years, Fischer says that he has been to Germany, Hungary a lot, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Regarding the fact that he has traveled so freely without being arrested, Bobby says, "The US hasn't got the guts to catch me." (This is probably true, because there would be no legal basis for arresting him, in my opinion.)
Fischer reads the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and explains the ways in which his Fifth Amendment rights are being violated.
Chess players will find his comments about chess to be most interesting. He expresses detailed familiarity with current developments in high level chess, especially with the controversial Kasparov - Kramnik match. Fischer says that he has studied these games and has learned a lot from them. He says that these are very beautiful, very interesting games which were created by very intelligent and very good chess players who worked in teams and created these games with the aid of a computer. "I have learned so much from these pre-arranged matches and all these cooked up notes, they're wonderful." Fischer's sole complaint is, since the games were all worked out in advance move by move, that the players are misleading the public by not revealing that all the moves of all these games were pre-arranged.
Fischer compares the Kasparov-Kramnik games to "White to Play and Win" problems composed by Pal Benko. He says that the games are very interesting and he has learned a lot from them. His only complaint is about the fact that the games are fake.
Fischer says that the address which I have on my much maligned e-mail list is in fact his real e-mail address. Fischer gives out his website address, even to the point of spelling his own name F-I-S-C-H-E-R. Fischer talks a lot about the Internet, this being the first time he has mentioned the Internet in any of these broadcasts. He denies that he has ever played the "old chess" on the Internet. When asked by the interviewer about the fact that English Grandmaster Nigel Short believes that he has played Fischer on the Internet, Fischer says, "That's not true. They want to distract people from all of the crimes that they have committed against me."
Fischer says that he was in the process of writing a book on the 1984-85 Kasparov-Karpov matches, but "the Jews stole" all his files.
Fischer calls Kasparov a liar and a criminal. When asked who was better, Fischer at his peak or Kasparov at his peak "which has passed", Fischer asks, "How can you compare me with a crook?"
Fischer denies that there is a warrant for his arrest because of income taxes. (I agree. There would be no legal basis to arrest Fischer at this point on income tax grounds.) However, Fischer states that there is no question that they want to put him in jail for the rest of his life and that they would like to kill him.
When asked how he likes it in Japan, Fischer says: "I am happier than being in an American jail."
Fischer was interviewed by Egill Helgason. Joining in on the interview was Saemundur Palsson, who was Fischer's bodyguard and close friend during the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match. When Fischer says the name "Sammy", he is using a nickname for Sæmundur Pálsson. He talks with Sæmundur about old times, including the time Saemundur was robbed in San Francisco when he came to Pasadena, California to visit Bobby. Saemundur, a professional bodyguard, says that he escaped "thanks to my judo training".
I had trouble downloading these interviews. I had to try several times before I finally succeeded. They are 2,406,590 and 1,028,265 bytes in length respectively. The addresses are:
http://home.att.ne.jp/moon/bobby_c/F_20_1.MP3
http://home.att.ne.jp/moon/bobby_c/F_20_2.MP3
I do wonder why Fischer has not been interviewed by Radio Bomba since 9-11.
Sam Sloan