Meeting Raul

"The Soviet government machine placed its bets on [Raul], a rising star in the chess firmament, who was obedient and easily manageable."

According to the Publisher's website, regarding one of the principle authors of the book:

Former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov, who left Russia in 1996 and now lives in Canada, was one of those who had worked all his life for the KGB and was responsible for the sport sector of the USSR.  It is only now for the first time that he has decided to tell the reader his story of the KGB’s involvement in Soviet Sports.  This is his first book, and it...dares to name names of secret KGB agents previously known only as famous chess masters, sportsmen or sport officials.

Explosive sounding stuff alright.  We'll meet Raul later though; Vladimir is not Raul.

Yuri Felshtinsky is a historian with a Ph.D. from Rutgers University.  Though born in Moscow, he emigrated to the US in 1978.  He is the author of a number of volumes documenting the Soveit experience.  He also looks like Hollywood's idea of what a KGB agent should look like.  We'll meet Raul later though; Yuri is not Raul either.

Of course, the other two authors should need no introduction to serious chess players, but just in case you missed the last 40-50 years of chess here is a short synopsis of each, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The KGB Plays Chess tells the story of how the Committee for State Security, aka the Soviet Secret Police, aka the KGB, stole the world chess championship, and kept it hostage for more than a decade, defending it against all comers.  Told from both an insider's point of view, as well as from the vantage point of the persecuted, this is a unique and important addition to our understanding of Soviet society, as well as how chess was used to serve that society.

After an introduction to the authors, we are treated to a seven page Introduction written by Boris Gulko.  Gulko discusses "...the relationship between the Soviet Union's leading chess players and its government."  He begins with Botvinnik ("an ideological communist"), Smyslov ("not the 'Soviet man' that the Communist Party imagined him to be"), Petrosian ("actively collaborated with the KGB"), Tal ("apolitical, and took a lot of grief from the government, the party, and the KGB") and so on, right on through to..."Raoul":

[Raoul] made splendid use of the opportunities which opened up before him as an agent of the KGB.  He forced some chess players to become his assistants...

Andropov, the head of the KGB, had regular meetings with [Raoul] himself in order to stay fully informed about his problems and wishes, since [Raoul] was a favorite of the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev.

We'll meet Raul, or Raoul as Gulko spells it, later.

The meat of the book is the next 62 pages, co-written by Vladimir Popov and Yuri Felshtinsky.  This section consists of a detailed exposition of the how and the why of KGB involvement in, and manipulation of, the Soviet chess world.  The spying, the wiretapping, the threats, the psychological pressures that were brought to bear will astound you.  Or maybe not; there have certainly been plenty of reports in the past from various sources.  Here, in this book, is corroboration.

Will some of the names of the KGB agents and collaborators identified in this book surprise you?

• Vitaly Smirnov, the vice president of the International Olympic Committee, recruited in 1978;

• Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee;

• Viktor Baturinsky, director of the Central Chess Club [of Moscow], recruited in 1947;

• Tigran Petrosian, the 9th World Chess Champion, recruited in 1973;

• Alexander Nikitin, Grandmaster and Garry Kasparov's first coach, recruited in 1980;

• Lev Polugaevsky, Grandmaster, recruited in 1980;

• Rafael Vaganian, Grandmaster, recruited in 1983;

• Eduard Gufeld, Grandmaster, recruited in 1981;

• Florencio Campomanes, head of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), recruited by Pishchenko;

• Nikolai Krogius (codename Endshpil), Grandmaster and head of the Chess Directorate at the State Sports Committee of the USSR, recruited in 1980;

• Alexander Roshal, editor-in-chief of the journal 64 - Chess Review, recruited in 1978.

These are just some of the players who are outed by the authors in this book, accused by them of being KGB agents, most often with detailed accounts of their involvement.  We'll meet Raul later though; none of these men are Raul.

Getting back to Kortschnoi, Popov & Felshtinsky write:

With respect to Kortschnoi, the Soviet government pursued a policy of outright harassment, and he was left with no other choice than to leave the Soviet Union forever.

Later Kortschnoi would contest the World Chess Championship twice with Anatoly Karpov, even while his son was held hostage, on trumped-up charges, in a Soviet prison.  Kortschnoi was the "defector" a "renegade" and a "traitor to his homeland."

The battles on the chessboard were not the only ones that took place during the [world championship] chess match in baguio in 1978.  Pishchenko, the Spanish-speaking officer from the third Division of the Fifth Directorate who was attached to Karpov, following orders from the leadership of the KGB, established close, informal relations with the vice president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), Florencio Campomanos.  Through Pishchenko, [Raul] then established a relationship of trust with Campomanos as well.  At the same time, the KGB began to "cultivate" Campomanos as a "candidate for recruitment."  his Achilles Heel was soon discovered: the vice president of FIDE dreamed of becoming the president of FIDE.  In return for a promise that his candidacy would be supported by the USSR and the entire socialist bloc in the FIDE elections, Campomanos agreed to become an agent of the KGB and to promote the Soviet union's chess policy and Karpov's interests.

We will meet Raul later though; Campomanos is not Raul.

The collusion between FIDE and the KGB wasn't the worst that Kortschnoi had to worry about, however:

According to the plan worked out by the KGB, if the match were to take a turn that was unfavorable for Karpov, Kortschnoi would be given a toxic substance that caused congestive heart failure leading to death.

But Kortschnoi lived, because he lost.  Karpov once again retained the world title.  The Soviet Union had a second victory when it succeeded in displacing Olafsson, the head of FIDE who was hated by the Soviet authorities, and electing the Filipino Florencio Campomanes, a KGB agent recruited by [Vladimir] Pishchenko, to his post.

The next 78 pages are devoted to Gulko's account of his time as a refusenik, those Soviet Jews who were refused permission to emigrate, a group which included Gulko and his wife.

The Soviets were afraid that if Gulko was allowed to leave the USSR, he would become a trainer for Kortschnoi, and possibly help him defeat their favorite, Karpov, for the world title.

Gulko tells about the constant harassment, the surveillance, the hunger strikes, the letter-writing, the arrests and the beatings.  He tells, finally, about the victory - approval to leave the Soviet Union, a victory born more of perseverance than of any specific act on the part of Boris or his wife.  Gulko writes:

Our seven years as "refuseniks" were also the achievement of [Raul] and his colleagues with the KGB.  Now, when the leadership of the KGB has partly privatized Russia, [Raul] has also received his piece of the pie.

A six-page 'afterword' from Viktor Kortschnoi and a letter from Vladimir Popov complete the book.

Popov warns that even though the Soviet union was dissolved, and the KGB now known by another name, danger persists.  He mentions the case of Alexander Litvinenko, murdered in London in 2006, reported Anna Politkovskaya and that of Vladistav Listyev, a popular television anchorman, "a purely political murder."

I have been living in Canada, but Russia's fate has continued to trouble me.  In recent years, what is happening in Russia has become a constant source of alarm for me... the idea of retaliation - and of power coming back into the hands of KGB officers - lived on in the minds of many...

The checkists passionate desire to bring back the old power in the country was fulfilled by a small and ordinary-looking person, Vladimir Putin... Putin achieved what none of his colleagues from the KGB could achieve.  The full power of the Russian government came into his hands.

This book serves to confirm much of what so many have whispered about and written about over the years.  It should convince even the most hardened skeptic of the complicity of the Soviet establishment in maintaining their iron grip over the world chess championship.  It should serve as a warning to all of us about the dangers of concentrating too much power in too few hands, and of the lengths an entrenched bureaucracy might go to in order to protect their coveted positions of power.

Oh, Raul?  You need no introduction, you already know him - as the 12th World Chess Champion:

Anatoly Karpov, aka Raul

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