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Published on January 27, 2008

The American-born Fischer moved to Iceland in 2005 and I had the pleasure of meeting him last January in Reykjavik while visiting my Icelandic friend Thorsteinn Thorgeirsson.

There had been a change in government in Thailand and I was no longer Foreign Minister but I was president of Thailand's Chess Association. Thorsteinn told me that Fischer was in town and he would try to invite him to dinner. I agreed, even though it was well known that Fischer did not like to socialise.

But Fischer accepted the invitation and arrived with his partner Miyoko Watai. He said he had come after Googling my name and coming up with some interesting information. He wanted to meet me.

He expressed his well-known views on the United States and the Jewish community. He then impressed me with his knowledge of Thailand and the political situation here, explaining that over the years, he had spent much of his time every time listening to the BBC World Service.

As far as chess was concerned, he said it was no longer a strategy game. Instead of coming up with original moves, players would only use strategies memorised from books. That was the reason he introduced what he called "Fischer Random", which requires pieces to be placed on the board randomly at the beginning of the game, so players cannot revert to old strategies from memory.

After I returned to Thailand, Bobby Fischer began to e-mail me. He had kind words for me, saying it had been "truly a great pleasure and honour" to meet me.  He also said, "I'm glad to see that there are still some people in the heart of things who are full of good will!" 

He asked me about the "red rain phenomenon that fell over Kerala, India in 2001", saying that I should check it out via Google.  In a later e-mail, he expressed concerned about news reports that Israel may have been planning a nuclear strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. He mentioned that one of the reasons why he was "so unpopular" to certain people was because he had "a long memory".

In one of the last e-mails to me, he discussed the new airport in Thailand. He then asked me whether I had a Siamese cat. He wrote that Siamese cats were very different from Western cats and that he remembered them from an old Walt Disney movie.  He concluded that Siamese cats were "very aristocratic!"

That was the side of Fischer that I got to know.  It was a human side showing a man with deep interest in world affairs and with a sense of humour.

Dr Kantathi Suphamongkhon was the 39th Foreign Minister of Thailand and is presently the University of California Regents' Professor at UCLA. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Burkle Centre for International Relations in Los Angeles.

Kantathi Suphamongkhon, 

Special to The Nation