Max Euwe - FIDE President

FIDE President

From 1970 (at age 69) until 1978, he was president of the FIDE. As president, Euwe usually did what he considered morally right rather than what was politically expedient. On several occasions this brought him into conflict with the Soviet Chess Federation, which thought it had the right to predominate matters because it contributed a very large share of FIDE's budget and Soviet players dominated the world rankings – in effect they treated chess as an extension of the Cold War. These conflicts included:

• The events leading up to Bobby Fischer's participation in the World Chess Championship 1972 match against Boris Spassky, which led to Fischer's becoming the first non-Soviet champion since World War II. Euwe thought it important for the health and reputation of the game that Fischer should have the opportunity to challenge for the title as soon as possible and interpreted the rules very flexibly to enable Fischer to play in the 1971 Candidates Tournament.
• The defection of grandmaster Gennadi Sosonko in 1972. The Soviets demanded that Sosonko should be treated as an "unperson", excluded from competitive chess, television or any other event that might be evidence of his defection. Euwe refused, and no Soviet players took part in the 1974 Wijk aan Zee tournament in The Netherlands because Sosonko competed.
• In 1976, world championship contender Viktor Korchnoi sought political asylum in The Netherlands. In a discussion a few days earlier Euwe told Korchnoi, "...of course you will retain all your rights ..." and opposed Soviet efforts to prevent Korchnoi from challenging for Anatoly Karpov's title in 1978.
• Later in 1976, Euwe supported FIDE's decision to hold the 1976 Chess Olympiad in Israel, which the Soviet Union did not recognize as a country. The Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union then started plotting to depose Euwe as president of FIDE.

Euwe lost some of the battles with the Soviets; for example, in 1973 he accepted the Soviets' demand that Bent Larsen and Robert Hübner, the two strongest non-Soviet contenders (Fischer was now champion), should play in the Leningrad Interzonal tournament rather than the weaker one in Petrópolis. Larsen and Hübner were eliminated from the competition for the World Championship because Korchnoi and Karpov took the first two places at Leningrad. Some commentators have also questioned whether Euwe did as much as he could have to prevent Fischer from forfeiting his world title in 1975.

Despite the turbulence of the period, most assessments of Euwe's performance as president of FIDE are sympathetic:

• Spassky, who had nominated Euwe for the job: "He should certainly not have disqualified Fischer, and he should have been a little tougher with the Soviets ... you get a pile of complicated problems. But Euwe, of course, was the man for the job."
• Karpov said Euwe was a very good FIDE President, although he did commit one very serious error, rapidly extending the membership of FIDE to many small third-world countries. "But neither he nor I could have foreseen what this would lead to. ... This led not only to the inflation of the grandmaster title, but also to the leadership vacuum at the head of the world of chess."
• Garry Kasparov was blunter: "... unfortunately, he could not foresee the dangers flowing from a FIDE practically under Soviet dominance."
• Korchnoi regarded Euwe as the last honorable president of FIDE.
• Yuri Averbakh, who was a Soviet chess official as well as a grandmaster: "... he always sought to understand the opposing point of view ... Such behavior was in sharp contrast to the behavior of the Soviet delegation leaders ... Max Euwe was, without a doubt, the best President FIDE ever had."

He died in 1981, age 80, of a heart attack. Revered around the chess world for his many contributions, he had travelled extensively while FIDE President, bringing many new members into the organization.