From: "Yasser Seirawan"
To: sloan@ishipress.com
Subject: FW: FIDE Throws Down the Gauntlet
Dear Sam,
Could you post this message to the Yahoo! newsgroup. Thank you.
Yasser
-----Original Message-----
From: Yasser Seirawan
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 3:03 PM
Dear Sam,
In your message below, you state:
"Here I must point out that the blame for this entire situation must rest on Steve Doyle and Jim Eade. Doyle told the USCF delegates in no uncertain terms at the USCF meeting at Cherry Hill in August that there would be no drug testing in Bled. He repeated this statement loudly many times, virtually yelling it. Doyle was lying, because he knew that there would be drug testing at Bled. -- Sam Sloan"
Sam, you have made an oversight. Where was the USCF's FIDE Delegate, Bill Kelleher, in all of this? Mr. Kelleher was in Istanbul and in Cherry Hill. During the USCF meetings in Cherry Hill, Mr. Kelleher could have spoken and corrected Mr. Doyle from telling his brazen fibs. He did not. Mr. Kelleher has a position of trust and responsibility, so he too deserves a major portion of the blame/credit for the situation. (Note my choice of blame/credit in this sentence, similar to a "?!" in a chess annotation. Some folks actually believe the actions of our FIDE Team were for the highest and best.)
In e-mail exchanges with the USCF Executive Board I've consistently maintained that it has been the FIDE team of Mr. Doyle, Mr. Eade and Mr. Kelleher that collectively failed the USCF and its members.
Since Istanbul, all the double talk that we've read from our FIDE team has been an attempt to confuse their collective actions. As we were both at the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad we knew our team favored drug testing. The chest thumping that occurred during the 2001 and 2002 US Open tournaments surely deserved Oscar nominations. Borrowing a line from Mr. Bjelica, USCF's FIDE team should each get a Black Oscar. That is three and not just two awards.
To be fair to our FIDE team, they will certainly, and collectively, disagree with how I have judged their actions and refuse their Black Oscar awards. In fact, so much so that according to Don Schultz, Mr. Doyle has threatened me with a libel lawsuit for smearing his good name. (I hope the readers will share my mirth on the latter point.) Mr. Eade has cursed me. Even John Fernandez, a very likable fellow, has bluntly informed that I don't know what the "hell" I'm talking about. The vulgar language and extreme hostility directed against me is simply amazing and unfortunately, continuous.
In a democracy, there is no shame in losing a good fight. The shame is that the USCF team didn't fight at all.
In August 2002, after returning from a most enjoyable month-long goodwill tour of China, I was one of the first persons to inform USCF President, John McCrary, and the USCF Board, that the USCF will be sending its Olympiad Teams to Bled where its ten team members face potentially career destroying sanctions. I urged the USCF to legally protect itself by having its players sign a release agreeing to hold the USCF harmless. I thought this prudent and helpful advice would be well received. At that time, John and the USCF Board were being told that I was wrong (other words might have been used), so my helpful advice has been ignored. Readers get three guesses to correctly identify who contradicted me and said Bled would not be having drug testing.
Sam, to sum up, please correct your oversight.
As a footnote, Mr. Eade has stepped down as the FIDE Zonal President. I thank him most sincerely for taking this honorable decision. I remain hopeful that Mr. Doyle and Mr. Kelleher will also act as honorably, accept the responsibility for their misdeeds, and resign their positions. Their legacy will be long remembered.
I'm very pleased to inform that Robert Tanner has agreed to replace Mr. Eade as Zonal President. I know Robert from a number of US Championships that he has organized and I admire his hard work and the many positive contributions that he has made to our chess world. I look forward to working with Robert in his new position.
Sincerely,
Yasser Seirawan