It wouldn't be until 1972 that Fischer would finally reach the pinnacle of chess. By beating Spassky in the historic "Match of the Century" in Reykjavik, he became the first American to be officially crowned the World Chess Champion, breaking what amounted to a 105-year losing streak for the United States. After this titanic battle of wits, he was asked by an interviewer how long he could continue to dominate chess, Fischer replied matter-of-factly, "I figure I can keep the title for 30 years."

As predictions go, this was wildly off the mark. Fischer was about to enter the dormant phase of his career, referred to morosely by chess historians as the "wilderness years." He moved to Los Angeles, joined an apocalyptic religious cult (to which he tithed much of his prize money from Reykjavik), and dropped out of competitive chess entirely. Two decades later, he was broke and virtually homeless. Making matters worse, his mental health had deteriorated. He suffered from acute paranoia, convinced there was a Jewish conspiracy to destroy him. His treasured Russian chess journals were neglected in favor of such anti-Semitic screeds as "Mein Kampf "and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

As a teenager, Fischer was always quick to point out that he was only half Jewish (on his mother's side). But now he denied his Jewish heritage altogether, stressing that his father was a brilliant German physicist.

Then, as abruptly as he had vanished from the chess scene, Fischer miraculously reappeared in 1992, ready to play his old rival, Boris Spassky, again. The $5 million chess match, promoted by a Serbian arms dealer, was to take place in war-torn Yugoslavia, which at the time was under U.N. sanctions and a U.S. embargo. To discourage Fischer from playing a high-profile sporting event in a country rife with ethnic cleansing, the Department of the Treasury sent a cease-and-desist letter, warning that if he played in Yugoslavia, the penalty would be a $250,000 fine, 10 years in prison, or both.

Undaunted, Fischer held a press conference and, with the cameras rolling, pulled the warning letter from his briefcase and proceeded to spit on it. He then rattled off a series of astonishing proclamations: He hadn't paid his taxes since 1976 (and wasn't about to start now); he was going to write a book that would prove that Russian grandmasters ("some of the lowest dogs around") had "destroyed chess" through "immoral, unethical, prearranged games"; he really wasn't an anti-Semite, because he was pro-Arab, and Arabs are Semites too. His assertion that Soviet communism was "basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism" elicited the most quizzical expressions.

After the pre-match pyrotechnics were concluded, play got underway. When Fischer performed beautifully in the first game, the excitement within the chess community was palpable -- Bobby was back! But between occasional flashes of brilliance were long stretches of uninspired play. This was understandable. Bobby hadn't played a competitive game of chess in public since the 1972 world championship in Reykjavik and Spassky was rated 101st in the world, the chess equivalent of road kill. Fischer-Spassky II dragged on for almost six weeks before Bobby was finally declared the victor, with 10 wins, five losses, and 15 draws. He collected a steamer trunk full of tax-free cash and has been living abroad ever since as a free man, primarily in Budapest, Hungary; Baguio City, Philippines; and Tokyo, with stints in Germany and Yugoslavia.

That all changed when Fischer was stopped in Tokyo while trying to board a Japan Airlines flight for the Philippines. The dragnet was set in motion last December, when the consul of the United States of America sent a letter at the urging of the Department of State to Fischer, care of the U.S. Embassy in Manila, a country Fischer is known to visit frequently. The letter warned Fischer that his U.S. passport had been revoked based on a violation of the "Code of Federal Regulations"; in short, preventing anyone with an outstanding federal warrant to possess a U.S. passport. Fischer never received the letter because the U.S. Embassy in Manila had no forwarding address for Bobby. (Of course, if the U.S. government had bothered to call the United States Chess Federation -- or any chess club in the country for that matter -- it would have been advised to send all Fischer correspondence to the Japan Chess Association.) When he was handcuffed and led away for processing, nobody could have been more surprised than Fischer himself. It seemed that the 61-year-old Fischer was finally going to pay the price for that unseemly spitting incident 12 years before.

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