Dorfman replies to the Ogoniuk article
Steven Rix
A few weeks ago, someone posted a translation of the Ogoniuk articles,
in which it is alleged that Josef Dorfman passed information to the
Karpov camp during the 1984-5 World Championship match. What follows
is a (crude and not particularly literal) translation of a "Josef
Dorfman replies" article, published in <<Europe Echecs>> September 1993.
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In July 1984, Clara Chaguenovna (the mother of the World Championship
challenger, Garry Kasparov), proposed that I worked for Kasparov as a
second during the title match. After thinking about it for three days,
I accepted. The unlimited match took place in Moscow between September
1984 and February 1985. My duties as a second to Kasparov for his first
three matches with Karpov (Moscow, then London/Leningrad in 1986 and
finally Seville in 1987) took up all of my time during this period.
Our collaboration came to an end after the match in Spain. I met the
World Champion occasionally after 1989, our most recent encounter
taking place in Auxerre in May this year (1993), after the French Team
Championship match between Lyon Oyonnax [Dorfman's club -SR] and Auxerre
[Kasparov's -SR].
Towards the middle of July, I received an unexpected phone call from the
Moscow correspondent of The Sunday Times newspaper, asking me if I was
prepared to comment on the serious accusations against me published in
the russian magazine Ogoniuk. However I had not yet seen the articles, so
it was difficult for me to reply. Moreover, I felt that this journalist
had not phoned me merely out of idle curiousity.
A few days later, I got hold of a brief summary of the article, distributed
by the agency France Presse, but this was not particularly enlightening.
Only today, now that I have received a copy of the actual article, do I feel
able to reply.
The authors of the article are very close to Kasparov, being his mother,
V.Melik-Karamov (press attache) and Viktor Litvinov (former lieutenant-
colonel of the Azerbaijan KGB). The last named has been associated with
kasparov since the early 1980s.
My first reaction (which must be that of all readers) was to think that
this heralded a new episode in the confrontation between Kasparov and
Karpov, in the run-up to the Kasparov-Short and Karpov-Timman matches
this September. An old russian proverb captures my feelings: "when you
cut wood, sawdust flies everywhere". Who would think about little old
me, at a time when the chess world has much greater problems?
Nevertheless, after studying each phrase of the text, I reached the
conclusion that it said nothing at all against Karpov, apart from a few
insults. This article, put together in a hurry, is full of contradictions
and can be considered as a pack of lies designed to discredit me.
This is why Melik-Karamov tries to explain "the inexplicable collapse of
Kasparov in the first games of the match" in 1984 in terms of *my* "deals"
with Karpov. The harsh reality is that this collapse was simply due to
the fact that the inexperienced challenger had underestimated his opponent
and had adopted a poor match strategy.
For my part, I was not only unaware of many of Kasparov's prepared ideas,
but, up until the tenth game, I didn't even know which of the lines we had
analysed were going to be adopted. Moreover, it was thanks to my work on
the Rauzer variation that Kasparov then secured two easy draws as Black.
The article does not contain a single precise fact. The only thing that
is apparent is a general hostility. *I* supposedly initiated a scheme for
winning money during the World Championship match. *I* supposedly pressed
Karpov for large sums of money, which I would have been utterly daft to
have never touched (*I* had been offered tens and hundreds of thousands
of dollars!). In the attempt to persuade me, *I* had apparently been
dined in the best restaurants and taken to pornographic films. *I* was so
clearly lacking in moral principles that *I* had betrayed not only Kasparov
but also Karpov, because I apparently "didn't even care which of the two
won", as Kasparov's mother says in Ogoniuk. Whilst remaining correct
in her tone, unlike the others quoted in the article, she adds that I
"handed over notebooks containing preparations for the first World
Championship match". These "notebooks" never even existed. For a start,
Clara Chaguenovna is clearly unaware that there are hundreds of books of
opening analysis, and that those we were using never left the residence of
A.I.Chakarov. Also, the records of the team's work remained in the care of
Chakarov after every session of analysis.
I recall that the hungarian Grandmaster Andras Adorjan spent 25 days in
Kasparov's team during October 1984. He had to ask the challenger for
permission to make copies of the analyses to which he had contributed.
Kasparov could not risk losing this material, which would have been
impossible to reconstruct in spite of the challenger's phenomenal
memory and the help of his seconds.
I will not go any further into technical details, but I will just add
that I am astonished that this article was published in Ogoniuk, a
high-circulation weekly magazine, and not in the professional
chessplayers' review, "Chess in the USSR". What therefore is the real
reason behind the appearance of this article in July 1993?
I do not think that the article sets out to discredit all of Kasparov's
seconds, just me. It is well known that besides myself, many prominent
members of the chess world, from different generations and for many
different reasons, have been defamed, oppressed or excommunicated:
M.Botvinnik, V.Chekhov, E.Timochtchenko, E.Vladimirov and A.Nikitin.
At the same time, some agree that Kasparov's ascent was due to his
involvement in the high circles of power.
I think that it would be best to search for the truth in two different
directions:
(1)Some time before Kasparov played in the French Team Championship,
<<Europe Echecs>> published an article on the prodigy Etienne Bacrot.
It included a quote from Karpov, who thought that Bacrot is stronger
than Karpov had been at the same age. But more significantly, I dared
to suggest that the young frenchman is a better player now, at the age
of ten, than Kasparov had been at thirteen! This must have reminded
the World Champion's entourage of what happened to Nikitin: a victim
of Karpov during the 1970s, he discovered a nine-year-old boy who was
destined to settle his trainer's scores with the all-powerful Anatoly,
a young lad called Garry. Two weeks before the Ogoniuk articles were
published, Etienne Bacrot became European Under-10 champion... [and
he has since become World Under-10 champion -SR]
(2) Last year, Fischer announced that he intended to publish a book
containing "proofs" that all the games in the matches between Karpov
and Kasparov had been fixed, including the blunders. My opinion on
this subject is well-known [But don't ask me what it is! - SR]. I
cannot rule out the possibility that Kasparov's team, thinking that
I had passed these proofs on to Fischer (via Spassky, as intermediate),
decided to counter by attacking me.
The second hypothesis seems to be confirmed by Clara Chaguenovna, when
she declares that "the second match was clean, compared to the others".
I am sure that Kasparov's team used dishonest means to get where they
are now.
It is well known that revolutions are conceived by geniuses (the
arrival of a new World Chess Champion is a revolution), carried out
by fanatics and exploited by the unscrupulous.
Iossif Dorfman, Cannes, 1 August 1993.
--
Steve Rix,
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Edinburgh.
E-mail: ste...@chemeng.ed.ac.uk, phone: +44 (31) 650 8565.
Gabriel R.Sanchez
where Dorfman suggests the Ogonyk article came about
because he suggested that French schoolboy Etienne Bacrot
may be a future champion.
Exactly what is a chess prodigy ? Bacrot won the World Boys
-10 Championship this year in Bratislava with a score of
10/11. Does this make him a prodigy ? And what about the
American boy who beat Bacrot ? Jordy Mont-Reynaud of
Stanford, California took the Silver Medal, and beat Bacrot
in the process. Maybe he's a prodigy too ?
Mont-Reynaud, J - Bacrot, E World Boys 10 CH.
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Bb4 6.e4 b5
7.Bg5 Qb6 8.Be2 Bb7 9.0-0 a6 10.Qc2 Nd7 11.Rfd1 Ngf6
12.e5 Nd5 13.Ne4 h6 14.Bh4 0-0 15.Qc1 c5 16.Nf6+ N5xf6
17.exf6 cxd4 18.fxg7 Kxg7 19.Nxd4 Ne5 20.Qf4 Ng6 21.Qf6+ Kh7
22.Nf5! exf5 23.Qxb6 ...and White won
--
Gabriel R.Sanchez gsan...@netcom.COM
Mtn. View, CAlifornia USA