It has long been known that Fan Adams virtually rules US Chess. When the Manhattan Chess Club got into financial trouble some years ago after its traditional wealthy patrons died, it is said that Fan Adams whipped out his checkbook and wrote a check for one million dollars or to buy a building for the club and for the American Chess Foundation, of which Adams became the President. The building is located at 353 West 46th Street, New York NY 10036.
Fan Adams is regarded as the strong man behind the muddly brained President, Dirty Don Schultz. Adams tells Schultz what to do. There is one thing which Don Schultz respects: Money. Adams has it. Schultz wants it.
Adams has received high marks for some of his accomplishments on the USCF Policy Board. Adams has never charged a dime of his personal expenses to the USCF. When Adams flies, he pays for his own ticket. When Adams traveled abroad to represent the US in numerous FIDE Congresses, he paid his own way, unlike Schultz and Denker, who traveled first class, ran up hefty bills, and charged it all to the USCF.
When George Filippone, the "Acting Executive Director" of the USCF from August, 1996 until February, 1997, repeatedly threatened to file a lawsuit against the USCF if he was not bought out of his six-month's job (Filippone was demanding severance pay in excess of one hundred thousand dollars), Adams, the only board member with big time corporate experience, was assigned the task of easing Filippone out with a minimum of exposure to the USCF. The terms of the departure of Filippone have never been disclosed, but one report indicates that, in the end, Filippone got nothing at all (which is considerably more than Filippone deserved to get).
The Adams letter came just prior to the USCF election and the USCF delegates meetings, set for August 8-10. I decided not to go to the meetings, which I originally had planned to attend, because I only got 6 votes for my own election, so I figured that the people don't want me, so why go? However, I did not receive the Adams letter directly and therefore did not know that the Adams letter contains a promise to resign if he does not receive a vote of confidence at the delegate's meeting. It also states that Jim Eade has promised to resign at the same meeting.
If both men are true to their word, it seems unlikely that they both will remain in office after the meetings are concluded, because the chances of their accommodating each other seem extremely remote.
The Adams letter contains 10 pages of enclosures, consisting of "THE SAYINGS OF DORSCH" and "THE SAYINGS OF EADE", with notes by Adams. The very first saying of Dorsch, as reported by Adams, is: "8 April 97 ...I'm looking forward to candidate Sloan telling the truth about lying scumbags like Schultz for the next three months."
I feel that the Adams letter will backfire. He provides 10 pages of attacks by Eade and Dorsch, with his own notes, but he does not really answer any of them. What Adams has done is provide a forum for their views, whereas he seems to have none of his own. Also, Adams shows ignorance of the workings of the Internet. He keeps deriding Eade and Dorsch for saying that the USCF "must go to the expense of operating a server" whereas Adams clearly favors giving the rights to the USCF name to Interplay. Adams does not seem to understand that just about any high school kid could be given an after school part time job of maintaining the USCF web site, and do a better job than Interplay has done, and that for example in my own case my "expense of operating a server" is $35 per month for my more than 500 web pages combined, many more pages than the USCF would ever have.
Interplay is mentioned more than a dozen times in the August issue of Chess Life, apparently in return for the paltry sums that Interplay has paid to the USCF for allowing Interplay products to be marketed on the USCF Web site, which Interplay maintains. The USCF has revenues of more than $6 million annually, and yet refuses to pay for its own e-mail address, using instead a free e-mail address provided to anybody by JUNO, which displays advertisements for Welsh's Grape Juice and other commercial products every time someone uses the USCF e-mail address. Even I have not allowed commercial advertisements on my web site, and I get 5,000 hits per day, much more than the United States Chess Federation gets.
Adams also fails to appreciate the fact that Eade's wife is Senior Vice-President of Novell Computers and that Eade and his wife live in Silicon Valley, as does Dorsch. Eade has forgotten more than Adams will ever know about the Internet. Adams would have done well to listen to those who know much more about this subject than he does. Adams says of Eade: "By long odds he is the weakest member of the Policy Board." (But, by the way, with the exception of Adams, Eade has the most money of any member of the Policy Board and, unlike Adams, he did not inherit it.)
I am providing, by separate later e-mail, the full text of the Adams' letter, but without the 10 pages of enclosures and notes:
Sam Sloan
Adams several times quotes from this in his annotated "THE SAYINGS OF EADE".
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