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Fischer (who was hiding out with a friend, Grand Master Anthony Saidy, in Bayside, a community in the New York borough of Queens, while the controversy raged) was adamant. For years he has charged that the Russians were conspiring against him and that F.I.D.E. was controlled by Moscow. During negotiations for the site of the match, Fischer was just as troublesome and demanding. It took months of wrangling to settle on Reykjavík, and even then Battling Bobby was not satisfied. "Iceland, with all due respect, is just too small and primitive to handle an event of this size," he said. "Their hall is inadequate and so is their lighting. But the worst thing of all is that there is no way to telecast the match from Iceland to the U.S. or even Europe. That's why the Russians picked Iceland. They know they're going to lose the match, so they figured they might as well bury it."
Waging a War. Meanwhile, back in Reykjavík, the rumors were flying thick and fast. HAS FISCHER ALREADY ARRIVED? headlined Timinn, the Reykjavík daily, speculating that Bobby had slipped into Iceland. The Icelandic Chess Federation said that it had already spent $200,000 on the match, or $1 for every man, woman and child in Iceland, and could not afford to give Fischer a share of the gate. Fred Cramer, vice president of the U.S. Chess Federation and Fischer's representative in Reykjavík, moaned: "You don't know what we've been going through. We spent over $1,000 on phone calls already."