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Chess Master Sat, May 27, 1972 – 22 · Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com
Russians On The War-Path?
From two different sources I get the same story:
Leonard Barden of London tells me that Teeside, England, planned for a great international chess tournament and invited Spassky, Petrosian and Smyslov of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Chess Federation told them that Tal and Vasyukov would come. But the day before the start of the Teeside event, a cable arrived saying there would be no Russians “due to unexpected circumstances.”
And from Yugoslavia, I hear: “The Ladies' International Tournament in Belgrade was a yearly happening in March. It always attracted the strongest women players from all over Europe. This year, for the first time in eight years, no Russian women participated. Not even one representative of the USSR …Very curious.”
Can it be that since the Wyk aan Zee event in Holland at the beginning of the year, where the three top Russian players failed miserably, the Russ Chess Federation is “piqued” at its master-players? Or does it have some obscure relationship to the on-again off-again Fischer-Spassky match?
