Remembering Kavalek

‘I began my escape from the communist Czechoslovakia 42 years ago, on Sunday, September 1, 1968. According to Wikipedia, I bought several crates of vodka with my winnings at the Akiba Rubinstein Memorial in the Polish spa of Polanica Zdroj, bribed the border guards and drove to West Germany.’ Thus began an article written by Lubomir Kavalek in the Huffington Post in 2010. How curious to write ‘according to Wikipedia’ about oneself! Was this, I speculate, a gentle hint to the reader that the story might be apocryphal?

The Soviet tanks in Prague were decidedly real. Born on 9 August 1943, ‘Lubosh’ Kavalek had studied journalism, and was the reigning chess champion of Czechoslovakia when he defected. Initially, he went to West Germany, where his father already lived, but by 1970 Kavalek had settled in the United States. In 1972, he shared first place at the US Championship, and later that year attended the fabled Fischer–Spassky match in Reykjavik as a journalist for Voice of America.