Thank you for the excellent
articles on Viktor Korchnoi, especially the great account from Yasser
Seirawan about his days as a Korchnoi second.
While
I commend your account as generally accurate, it still contains
remnants of the Cold War. When Korchnoi defected, he abandoned his wife
and son in favor of chess. He soon took up with Petra Leeuwerik, who the
Western press, led by "Chess Life", insisted on calling his
"dietician", even though she was obviously much more to him than a
dietician. When Korchnoi's wife was allowed to leave the Soviet Union,
he promptly divorced her and married Petra.
The
quality of "Chess Life" is currently the highest it has been during my
50 years of reading it. However, I think your magazine still has some
responsibility to correct the errors and excesses of the past, which
were particularly outrageous during the period of 1984-1988, when you
had an editor, Larry Parr, who was more interested in fighting the Cold
War than in presenting factual information about the wonderful world of
chess.
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