The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 6

The Ottawa Journal The Beaches PublLshea by The Journal Publishing Co. ot Ottawa Ltd. 365 Laurier Avenue West. Ottawa, Ontario WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1972 Turmoil in Egypt It is much too early in the game to be sure about either the cause or the consequences of Egypt's decision to send its Russian advisers back home. Did President Anwar Sadat feel that he was on the verge of being overthrown, jAith an assist front, the Soviet visitors? Were the Egyptians angered because the Russians refused to supply more offensive weapons? Are rumors of a serious internal crisis in Egypt about to be confirmed? Sadat's" decision a ast-ditch effort to cling to "power' by sending home" Russians who had- become unpopular in much of the country? Dbes1he development mean that Egypt and the Middle East will become even less stable because the Soviets are losing whatever control they had oyer the hawks who want to take on Israel even at the cost of big-power confrontation? If 'there are no certain answers yet to such queries, it is clear that a great ideal is going on under the surface.

The Russians have not. gone home because their job is done. Only time will tell whether Russia Thas in fact suffered a diplomatic set--: pack. Only history will reveal whether Israel has cause for relief or anxiety. probability is that events may be; of the hands of even the Egyptian leadership -and that it is as unsure everyone else about the next moyes.

Lost Horizons What a carload of political pap and fre'ndy jargon in Health Minister John "New Horizons" program! il.t is a sham, a gimmicky pre-election rick calculated to offset the giveaways youth by giveawaysid older persons. is a sham because there are some million Canadians ever tne age ot By Mr. Munro's most optimistic 'estimate only some 120.000 retired persons will ever receive a nickel from ilia nmanm HqTf tha numl -tnore realistic figure and that may be It is a sham because Mr. Munro is -fostering the delusion that participation the program by the few who want it land who work out acceptable projects nieans remaining "active in the main-Stream of Canadian life." Since when are silversmithing, black-'smithing, quilting, survey-taking Mr. own suggestions activities "in The Government is going to pay for hobbies, a little travel (everyone seems to be-travelling at public expense these days so why not the retired?) and some harmless busy-work, 'ft will provide a little geriatric therapy.

But let us have no more pretension from Mr. Munro about removing "the barriers which cause social isolation and feelings of loneliness." The Government is not going to buy off much loneliness for $10 million or whatever is left for successful applicants after deducting the costs of a new bureauracy including, undoubtedly, the usual "social animators." Moreover, the greatest number of persons qualifying for grants willmost likely be those who are the least in need of assistance: the active smd, Jjrobably, the well-heeled. "The men and women in their lonely rooms will not have the interest or the ability to work up a program to satisfy Munro's people sitting in judgment. Certainly, persons who heed help most are not going to have much luck "competing for grants with those retired at age 55, who also are eligible for funds, fhat is too young a qualifying age by 10 years. We shall be having persons going immediately from Opportunities For Youth to New Horizons! Fortunately for the country and for themselves, thousands more older persons than the relative few who will receive grants from New Horizons (what a dreadful euphemism) are much in the mainstream of Canadian life.

They "are 'engaging in "meaningful 'activities without thought of help from Mr. Munro. Now comes the flurry of ideas! A controller wants to forget about the water and beaches close to Ottawa and go farther down the" Ride'au to where the water is less polluted. Another would go on a pool-building drive. One alderman wants adult-sized (four feet deep) wading pools in the city parks.

Another would revive the outdoor pools, at Britannia and New Edinburgh. We're almost expecting former Mayor Fogarty to resurface with his plan to bus swimmers into Gatineau Park! City Hall has come to resemble a coop of the proverbial headless chickens. The politicians feign surprise at the closing of beaches they had not ex-' pected to be opened in the first place. Board of Control will not at this late date impress anyone with its frenzied approval of a $250,000 study of pollution on our two rivers. Why wasn't this done two years ago, or even last year? How much will it reveal that is not already known? This sudden concern for pollution a few months before a municipal election isn't going to fool anyone.

Perhaps come polling day the voters will pay about as. much attention, to some of these councilmen as the civic politicians have paid to the beaches until now. Hull and Trudeau Letter From The Editor I'm up in the woods on holiday but a national emergency obliges me to take pen in hand! Will all those who, like me, feel Bobby Hull should go to Russia please count to ten. Not about Bobby, but Pierre. The man who.

said the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation has taken it into the arena locker rooms. This time he is on. the right side so we are glad he is running interference against the NHL power barons. Next time? Will governments henceforth tell Jean Boggs what paintings she is to send abroad to represent Canada? If the man selecting Canada's track team to the Olympics doesn't meet the popular taste, will the Prime Minister request a change? If Film Board and CBC entries into "internationar competition displease the Cabinet, will they be substituted by, say, Anne of Green Gables? If so, it's a new ball game. The Prime Minister's telegram to the NHL said "I would ask you to keep the best interests of Canada in mind and to make sure that they are fully respected and served." That's an eminently reasonable thing to say, specially as we would all rather beat Russia than cry Uncle to the NHL, he being mostly American.

But the NHL was within the law in its lousy decision. It is a private company, as free to do selfish or unselfish things within the law as the rest of us. Will a company selling tractors or totem poles abroad be pressured to send only those which "a government deems in the best interests of Canada? If the heads of all the universities of the world are gathering in Hawaii for a conference, will the half dozen selected by Canadian universities be subject to government okay? Brutus, I mean. Pierre, is a reasonable man. But suppose a successor, or Himself if he wins the next three elections, becomes enamored of power? Would he argue that in the truly national interest of Canada the team should represent each province equally, that it, should have proportional ethnic, even Scottish, representation and at least one woman? And how send a Team Canada abroad without a man from where all the ice is an Eskimo? We must of course put forward our best skate.

But I think, like Bobby Fischer, we should demand a year's postponement in which we could devise a fit way to choose our entry. IL, the Team Trudeau idea, is found to be the best, then it must purely, as all other government acts, be subject to parliamentary approval, appeal to the Supreme Court and, in this case, vice-' regal veto. If, however, the government's team is upheld by Parliament and the Supreme Court and His Excellency, but defeated by the Russians, the Government should resign. Which is why I wrote this letter. 4 'Spassky now appears to be employing a classic Russian defence REYKJAVIK.

fHE world chess championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Reykjavik marks a new high in public awareness of a game which has radically altered its old image, of an introverted refuge for slow-moving greybeards. The column inches written on Fischer's delay in" turning up, on the tangled anc acrimonious match negotiations (the International Chess finances "suffered very heavy blows" from the 139 telegrams sent out to Moscow, New York, Belgrade, and Reykjavik at a cost of nearly $2,400 between January and this year), and on Fis-cher's heavyweight-style training (complete with 300 pound punch-bag, skipping rope, and underwater deep breathing exercises) have already given the contest more write-ups than all the other world championship put together. Fischer, of course, is a journalistic gift with his stance as a Muhammad Ali cum George Best at one moment fighting the cold war single-handed is really-the free world against the ly-i cheating, hypocritical and at another casually dismissing the champion's chances with a throw-away little thing with me and Fischer's Russophobia dates back at least to the J962 Candidates' tournament, where he accused his five Russian opponents of cheating by arranging routine draws with each other while going full out against the non-Russians. Later in 1962, Bobby claimed that the then- world champion, Botvinnik, took advice from his team captain during the USA-USSR match. Nobody believed it, and even the captain of the U.S.

team declined Bobby's request to lodge a protest Botvinnik told me after this game that Fischer had only spoken three words to him in his life. Upon being introduced, Bobby said before the game in 1962 they almost bumped heads when they sat down and Fischer said "Sorry! and as the game ended, Fischer said "Draw!" gOBBY'S suspicion of Russians is still very when, in their match last year, Taimanov drew the envelope allotting him the white pieces in the first game. Fischer checked the other enve- lope. Yet Bobby's paranoid streak, powerful though it is, remains subsidiary to his lifelong devotion to chess and his passion for perfect and flawless play. Fischer combines chess with the life of a well-to-do Bohemian: he has no home, no permanent address.

Unlike the Russians, who emphasize teamwork in training, Bobby works alone with his pocket set. "No grandmaster analyzes as much as Bobby," says another U.S. grandmaster, Robert Byrne. Gligoric, of Yugoslavia, describes Bobby's dedication like this: "Whenever I am in pleasant company, sipping fine rose wine, or when I am playing football or watching a Chess No Longer Considered A Game for Slow-Moving Greybeards Written for the Manchester Guardian and The Journal By LEONARD BARDEN -good film, I cannot help remembering Bobby. And I think: at this moment, just like at any other moment, he is sitting by his chessboard, completely indifferent of all pleasures that life offers to him.

I have to feel, pity and admiration -for him. Such a fanaticism cannot be resisted even by such brilliant "chessplayers as the Russians and I believe Spassky won't resist it either." knowU edge of book variations, particularly after his own almost invariable favorite opening: 1 P-K4, are part of the explanation of Bobby's strength. He has been eight times U.S. champion, starting at age 14; his record of 21 successive victories against world class opponents in 1970-71 will probably never be beaten unless he does so himself. To qualify' fpr his match with Spassky, Bobby defeated Mark Taimanov, of Russia, and Bent Larsen of Denmark, 6-0, and ex-champion Tigran Petrosian, of Russia, kVxlVr.

this exceptional achievement can be judged by the statistic that at this level of top calibre chess about two thirds of the games are normally drawn. International rating lists show Fischer not only the best of all time; the computer prediction is that he will beat Spassky 12Vz-S'i, and Lad-brokes quote him as a 2-1 favorite. Commentators speak of "Fischer-fear" among his opponents; his three match victims in the championship eliminators notched up between them two high- blood pressures and one nervous exhaustion. THERE are other chess pldyers who know a mass of opening systems and play with great ambition to win; the extras which set Bobby apart are an ability to isolate a single winning theme from a mass of complications, and a highly-developed capacity for chess visualization and recall. Before Bobby came into world Capablanca was the player with the greatest natural talent: Capa was simple, direct, logical, always aiming for a favorable endgame where his, advantage could be driven home without unnecessary difficulties or risks.

In Bobby's hands, this pure, classical style is almost a cult "aiming at a special kind of. 2f chess truth. Technically, the Capa element in Fischer's style comes out in his skill in rook and bishop against rook and knight endings, a type of endgame where Spassky's technique is a little suspect. As for visualizing, Bobby is said to remember every major game he has ever played. Even if the claim may be part of the Fischer publicity machine, there is good scientific evidence to show that natural ability in chess can be diagnosed from a single position.

The Dutch experimental psychologist and chess international Adriaan de Groot in his book, Thought ond Choice in Chess, tells of a photo of an actual game which was shown as an Unfamiliar position to chess players of various strengths for five seconds, after which he asked them to reconstruct it from memory. Differences in chess ranking showed dramatically. Dr. Max former world champion, reconstructed it perfectly, and Fischer or Spassky would be able to do likewise. A lower-ranked master made one small errorj but county standard, club- and average players made all kinds of mistakes and ommis-sions.

A master can perceive the position in large units such as supporting pieces or pawn structure, and even has an impression within the five seconds of which side has the better game. WHILE Fischer has talked and trained as if he were already champion Spassky has been preparing with a team of helpers who include Ewfim Geller, the Russian with the best record against Fischer apart from Spassky himself and Uikolai Krogius, a scholarly statistical psychologist whose function seems to be mainly to give homely advice and platitudes. The third member of Spassky's group, Ivo Nei, is an openings expert who specializes in queen's pawn openingsthe minority who forecast Spassky to keep his title reckon that Fischer won't have a good defence if Spassky opens 1 P-Q4. Boris Spassky, 35, and world champion since he beat Petrosian in 1969, is six years older than Fischer but still within the prime of life period for a chess master which runs from the late twenties to the middle thirties Then and Now 25 Years Ago From Th. Journol of July Ji, pRIMO VILLA MICHEL was appointed Mexican ambassador to Canada.

The International Lady Garment Workers Local 216 of Winnipeg endorsed a plan to bring 2,000 skilled tailors to Canada who were displaced persons in Europe. C. B. Black of Halifax was appointed Superintendent of Veterans Insurance. Dalhousie University professor, C.

H. Mercer, was in Ottawa to study religious and Today With Ben Wicks 'We've been hijacked! players have not yet developed the experience and stability for consistently good top level results, while older grandmasters get tired in the final phase of the stamina-testing five-hour session which is universal in international contests). Spassky, the self-confessed "lazy Russian bear," has prepared harder for this match than for any other chess event in his life. Whether the preparations will offset his mediocre form of the past two years is an. open question.

One fellow chess master has claimed that Boris unconsciously wants to lose the match, and in a recent interview he said that he would feel happier when he was no longer champion. Though the champion keeps the title if the match is drawn 12-12. Spassky regards this as a handicap for himself: "That rule lures the champion towards cautious tactics with the motto not to lose the game: and such tactics can be terribly dangerous." SPASSKY has the burden of defending not only the title itself but the whole Soviet chess hegemony of the past 25 years. The paradox is that Spassky, though a hero of the chess public and Sovietsky Sport's Sportsman of the Year in 1969 has a background of conflict with chess officials and was reportedly openly -critical of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. How will the match go and who will win? On results and ratings there is only one player in it Fischer.

There are just three factors which give Spassky a chance of keeping his title. First is his excellent personal record against Fischer of 4-1, which has been achieved by clever psychological chess, steering the game by pawn sacrifices into just the unclear situations, without positional landmarks which Fischer dislikes. "Yeah, Spassky used to defeat me, but those were awfully bad games," said Bobby to an interviewer. SECONDLY there is the technical factor that the defences which Fischer relies upon against the queen's pawn the Grunfeld, King's Indian and Benoni all have some theoretical doubts attached to them at the moment'. If Spassky can blunt Fischer's attacks when the American is Whtie and can himself score well with 1 P4, then he's in business.

Finally, Fischer's supporters will fear most of all that Bobby's self-destructive streak which has produced walkouts from major world events will produce the first default in a world championship. Bobby has criticized the choice of Iceland for the match as "primitive" and has complained that he will be spied on by the Russians and badgered by the press while he stays there. Bobby finds himself two or three games down, there is a risk that the match will end prematurely. On balance however, I expect Fischer to win comfortably though not overwhelmingly, with a final margin between 12'j-9yi and 2Vi-6Vi. i Letters to the Editors Hockey Squeeze Sirs: The greatest Hockey Squeeze of the Century! American hockey moguls plus Clarence Campbell, nervously conscious of the growing shadow of the WHA, decide to OK a team of Canadians to do battle with the Russians.

Patriotism? International goodwill? Not likely. The American owners buy and use Canadian talent to win American dollars. They couldn't care less about the honor or aspirations of Canada as a country. It amazes and saddens me to know that the officials of Hockey Canada have sucked in on such a deal. They must have been aware of the possibility of players like Bobby Hull transferring to the WHA yet, meekly it seems, they went along with an ultimatum.

A couple of days ago I lis-tened with almost overpowering nausea to a couple of disc jockey graduates giving staunch support to the attitude and ethics of the NHL in the whole affair. The "hot" line specialist intimated that any caller object ing to the exclusion ot Bobby Hull under the circumstances was some sort of "a The other referred to those who would insist upon Hull palying for Canada as "crybaby Canadians." Perhaps both of them1 would be happy if the proposed team confronted the Russians wearing the Stars and Stripes instead of the Maple Leaf. That this is not the plan is what really irks the American club owners. Believe it or not, thousands of their fans will know for the first time mat professional hockey- players are almost exclusively Canadian citizens. You can bet that, if the dominance was in favor oi Americans, ana nun was a citizen of the USA he would unquestionably be facing the Russians in September.

E. L. O'LEARY. 584A Driveway. Praise for OTC Sirs: I was astonished to read a letter from Elmer Dare (July 10) in which he at-tacked the OTC drivers.

I was all the more amazed by his comments because since coming to reside in this city a few years ago I have beard nothing but praise from my co-travellers for this group of good-humored and ever-obliging men. In fact, Mr. Dare's criticism is more applicable to bus drivers in other cities such as Montreal and Toronto than to those in Ottawa! I note that Mr. Dare, although owning a car, uses the bus daily, so presumably he buses to and from work. It is therefore possible that he has discovered the only two drivers that wish to see him "mayled by a fast-starting vehicle, left standing at a bus 'stop just as he approaches the bus door." If he were a non- uiivuig uuuacwuc, as I am, travelling at varied times of the day and on many different routes, he might be more in a position to pass judgment oh OTC drivers in general.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule and Mr. Dare seems to have been unfortunate enough to have more likely that they have found the exceptional disgruntled passenger? Mrs. JOSEPHINE MARTIN. 1468 Edgecliffe Ave. Mooney's Bay Pumps Sirs: Re closing of Moon-eys Bay Beach, I have some questions I should like to ask.

Why were the pumps able to keep the water quality satisfactory last summer and have apparently failed to do so this summer? Is it because for 6ome reason they do not deliver so much water? My own observations backed up by information from the lifeguards would seem to indicate "this. I also notice that the output from the pumps seems to fluctuate. The city paid a considerable sum for these pumps. It would only seem good economy to see that they operate properly. Let's get this situation rectified and our beach open.

MARY 210 Fourth Ave. (Letters carry more weight and meaning if they art ligned. if the writer' name is disclosed to the Editors they may publish letters over pen-name. The beit letter usually the short letter 200 words should be ceding.).