DIRTY TRICKS

[Larry Parr]

Evans On Chess. Copyright Chesstours. All rights reserved. DIRTY TRICKS (Today's guest column is by former Chess Life editor Larry Parr) On December 6, 1992, the Policy Board of the U.S. Chess Federation voted 6-0 with one abstention to allocate $1000 to investigate five-time national champion Larry Evans. They hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to determine whether mailing labels on an anti-Semitic letter to USCF voters from a phony person with a phony address in San Luis Obispo, Ca., were photocopies of labels used in an earlier separate mailing by grandmaster Evans. Here's the story. During the 1992 campaign for a seat on the board between Nigel Eddis of New York and Donald Schultz of Florida, a fraudulent letter accused Eddis, a political outsider, of being an agent of Russian Jews seeking to take over American chess. Eddis lost in a landslide. Schultz and his friends promptly claimed the enemy camp was behind this dirty trick. But two of his avid supporters, who were both already on the board of directors, came under suspicion because of circumstantial evidence reported by Evans in a column he wrote called POISON PEN PLOT. One of them was travelling by car in the area on the very day when and where the fake letter was mailed. The other had used phrases identical to those found in the hate letter. Both hotly denied any involvement. The results of the investigation vindicated Evans. According to the official report of vice president Frank Camaratta, "the hypothesis attempting to link GM Larry Evans with the fraudulent mailings has been disproved." The Pinkertons found that the labels used on the fake letter were NOT copies of labels used by Evans. "A lot of mud was thrown at someone for no good reason," said Camaratta, who chaired the investigating committee. Because of the cost involved in pursuing other leads, he recommended dropping the matter. In the wake of Evans' vindication, questions arise. Was it wise to bring private eyes into chess? Why was Evans the only one investigated even though two board members were suspects? Why were they both allowed to introduce and vote on a motion targeting Evans? Why didn't Schultz, a principal in the election, abstain from voting? The board member who abstained said that he did so "because there had to be not only fairness, but also the appearance of fairness." "Fairness!" exclaimed David Saponara, who served on the board from 1988-91. "Fairness had nothing to do with this hideous business. There can be no excuse for a group of interested parties to use our dues money for a witch hunt against the journalist who dug up facts implicating some of them." The final twist in this bizarre tale is that AFTER Evans was exonerated, five red-faced board members who voted to fund the investigation against him decided to split the Pinkerton bill of $670 among themselves. (Note: This newspaper column first appeared on June 13, 1993. Reprinted from Compuserve Chess Library courtesy of Chesstours) Larry Parr