I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I saw a preview for the movie Pearl Harbor. And they showed the Japanese airplanes coming in to bomb Pearl Harbor, and I applauded. Nobody else in the theater applauded.
Americans really don’t know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.
As Olafsson showed me, White can win… It’s hard to believe. I stayed up all night analysing, finally convicing myself, and, incidentally, learning a lot about Rook and Pawn endings in the process.
When I won the World Championship in ’72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.
Well, I’m not sure I know what you mean by a prima donna, but if something doesn’t interest me or if someone bores me, or if I think they’re a phony, I just don’t bother with them, that’s all.
