September 1965 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, our two 'On the Cover' American chess magazines featured recurring, contrapuntal themes of the mid-1960s: Fischer on the one side and the World Championship on the other.

Left: 'Fischer Returns'
Right: 'World Championship Challengers Round - Quarter Finals Bracket B'

Chess Life

'Fischer Returns' by J.F.Reinhardt • At 8 PM on Wednesday, August 25, Robert J. Fischer's chess clock began ticking for the first time in more than a year and a half.

As we saw in July 1965 'On the Cover', 'Fischer Returns' was also the subtitle on the CR cover that month. The sole photo illustrating the Reinhardt article on the Capablanca Memorial was used in a post on this blog two years ago, Goichberg as Fischer's 'Gopher'.

Chess Review

Mikhail Tal of the Soviet Union outpointed Bent Larsen of Denmark by 5.5-4.5 and will therefore meet his compatriot Boris Spassky on the final match to determine who will play Tigran Petrosian next year for the world crown. Larsen was the last non-Russian to be eliminated [...]

No, he wasn't. Tal wasn't Russian, either; he was Latvian. At the height of the Cold War, Soviets = Russians = Communists.