The Day the Earth Held Its Breath

Announcer: Welcome to another edition of Our World, I’m Edward Farnsworth, you host. I want to take you back to April 17, 1978. At the time this was known as the day the Earth held its breath as a seventeen-year-old high school student Warren Spencer defeated Yurik Chenchenkio in a game of chess in Reykjavik, Iceland. Today, Warren Spencer has passed away peacefully at his home in Connecticut from Alzheimer’s. His wife Henny was by his side along with his two children Jason and Denice.

Yurik passed away in 1983 after dropping out of sight. Many believed he was sent to a work camp in Siberia after being defeated by Warren. While I have no information to support that conjecture, I do have a guest with me today who wanted to set the record straight in that fateful day in 1978. I’d like to welcome Warren’s brother Jerome Spencer who helped Warren rise to prominence as a chess master. I’d like to welcome you to our show, Jerome Spencer.

Jerome: Thank you, Mr. Farnsworth for having me on your show.

Announcer: First I’d like to offer condolences for Warren.

Jerome: I appreciate it. I just wanted everyone to know that my brother now rests at peace with God.

Announcer: You were there at Reykjavik with him, correct?

Jerome: I was. I was only two years older than Warren. We were just two kids on the world’s stage. It was overwhelming.

Announcer: So, you were there staring at the most famous chess master in the world. What was that like?

Jerome: (coughs) Oh God, it was mind numbing. He sat there with a team of advisors and security. Just as we got settled in, he glanced over at us with his frosted eyebrows and that icicle stare of his. I told Warren not to let him psyche you out.

Announcer: What was his reaction?

Jerome: He just patted me on my shoulder and told me not to worry about it. He had this.

Announcer: Most people remember your brother as a cool confident customer.

Jerome: Glad he was, because I was sweating bullets. I opened his bag. My hands were shaking as I handed him his water bottle.

Announcer: It’s been a while and people may not remember how he ended up in Reykjavik staring down his Russian opponent.

Jerome: Warren learned how to play chess in second grade, and he was obsessed with how each of the pieces moved. He was able to finish his homework at school, so when he came home he would spend four or five hours practicing.

Announcer: By himself? In his room?

Jerome: Well, I started out playing him, but by the following year he would beat me every time. I happened to be fairly good at it, but I was no match for him. Anyway, he started a chess club at school. During an assembly at school, he invited the members of the club, there were ten in all. He set up a chessboard for each of them and proceeded to beat every one of them. There were a couple of eighth graders in the club. I knew better than to join the club and have my kid brother beat me in a match. (Laughs).

Announcer: What was he like when he was playing?

Jerome: (Sighs) It is hard to describe. He was completely focused on the game. It was if he became part of what was going on. You could say his name, and he would not respond. It was kind of scary at times. (Pauses) When he started getting sick a couple of years ago, he would forget my name, but then he’d recall a move he had made during a tournament as if it happened yesterday. (Shakes his head) Bishop to knight or rook to queen. It was uncanny. (sighs again) It was hard in the final months, because he had no idea he had ever beaten Yurik. He had a wall filled with trophies and newspaper clippings of his accomplishments. There wasn’t enough room on his walls.

Announcer: After that day the world held its breath, Warren seemed to retreat into anonymity. While other celebrities were making big time deals with advertising, he seemed to drop out of sight.

Jerome: My brother was a complex man. After he beat Yurik, he went shopping at the grocery store when he got home. I can still remember the fury this caused with the security forces. He didn’t tell anyone he was going to the store. He just went.

Announcer: I can understand what a kerfuffle that might cause.

Jerome: You could say that (muffles a chuckle), but the thing is he didn’t care. He had just won the match against Yurik, and he came home thinking everything was just like it was when he left. He had no idea what an impact he had on the world. No clue. I remember he called up a restaurant to order some dinner to go and they sent over an entourage, men and women dressed in formal attire with his dinner served on silver plates. All he said was the meat was a little tough in places. Chrissakes, they sent over a whole new steak. There were dozens of paparazzies snapping photographs as soon as he opened the door. He did not seem to even notice. (Folds his hands together) Even flying first class to Reykjavik, he ordered an orange juice and there were three flight attendants right there. It was crazy.

Announcer: It was my understanding that the entire match was filmed.

Jerome: Correct. Right from the opening bell, the cameras were rolling.

Announcer: Weren’t you afraid that this would be a distraction?

Jerome: No, I had seen him play in a standing room only arena. The audience was respectfully quiet, but there was all kinds of commotion going on behind the scenes. He did not flinch once. When it was over he asked why all the people were in the arena. (Laughs) I told him that they came to watch him play. He seemed quite perplexed by this. That was Warren. That was my brother in a nutshell. When we got to Reykjavik there were over ten thousand people jammed into the arena. I was told by one of the KGB agents assigned to security of Yurik that the master was used to having large crowds attend his matches, but when I sat next to my brother, I got stage fright. I asked him if he was alright and he looked at me as if I had lost my mind, he said, “Of course I’m alright.”

Announcer: Now I know this is a sensitive subject with the family, but do you think there’s any creditability that your brother had Asperger’s Syndrome?

Jerome: (Pauses, puts his hand to his chin, shakes his head. A program assistant pours Jerome a glass of water. Jerome takes a sip) I hate that question. An affirmative answer takes away some of the fame he had earned and if I deny it, people will doubt my sincerity. People have already made up their mind about my brother one way or the other. I am not a psychiatrist. I have never wondered if he had some sort of mental thing that produced the results it did. I have read the DSM-V and it seems to me that my brother did fit all of the things listed on the page for Asperger’s, but he did not desire to find out. All I knew was he was who he was.

Announcer: Can you tell me in your own words who he was.

Jerome: He was a good man. He was honest and he had a good heart. He never lied about anything that I know about.

Announcer: What about that incident when he came home?

Jerome: He is gone. Why the hell can’t you let that go?

Announcer: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.

Jerome: You know how things get blown out of proportion after you become a celebrity. (pauses) It was his first talk show. Dick Cavat. The interview went well, but when the stage manager touched him, Warren got upset. He didn’t like being touched. It was one of his quirks, but everyone who knew him knew that about him.

Announcer: It seems no one told the stage manager.

Jerome: Who apologized profusely even after my brother slapped him. I hate to relive that moment because it caused him a great deal of pain. (Shakes head) Why do you think I stuck close to him? Why do you think I played his guardian angel as it were and believe me, I’m no angel, but I had to be when we traveled. Mom and dad relied on me to be there. Mom had Hodgkins’ Disease. He was bullied at school, and I was there to protect him. I paid for it. When someone made fun of him because he was different or did something to him that was uncalled for, I took care of them. And each time, I was the one they sent to the principal’s office. I did not regret it one bit and if need be I will continue to defend Warren.

Announcer: I’m sorry, I did not mean to bring up bad blood.

Jerome: It’s just my reflex, Edward, because so many people don’t remember the day the world held its breath, all they can remember is his struggle with social behavior. When he moved out and got his own place, the first thing he did was to go to an animal shelter and get himself a kitten. I went with him, because I knew they would have reservations about letting him have a kitten. He loved that kitten. He took care of that poor little thing as if it was his child. I have a picture in my den of him holding that kitten he named Spunky. And then one day several years later, Spunky was not able to get out of her cat bed, I took her to the veterinarian to have Spunky euthanized. He put her in her bed and dug a hole in the yard to bury her. It was me and him standing there at Spunky’s graveside saying prayers. He didn’t cry as much as I thought he would. He just told me that God had himself one heck of a cat. (wipes a tear from his eye) So, you tell me, was he a kook? Maybe he had some unorthodox behavior, but he was good man. He came to our mother’s funeral and a couple years later to our father’s as well. He said his prayers, and he was sincere when he prayed. I think of all the able-bodied people I’ve known in my life who haven’t done as much.

Announcer: Is it true that Yurik Chenchenkio’s son is planning on attending Warren’s funeral?

Jerome: Yes, Ed, Boris will be there. You do know when Warren heard that Yurik Chenchenkio was sent to Siberia when he lost to him, Warren sent a lot of letters to have Yurik released.

Announcer: No, I was not aware.

Jerome: Three months before he died, Gorbachev had Yurik Chenchenkio released. We went to Moscow to greet him. Yurik Chenchenkio embraced my brother and told Warren; he loved him like his own son for helping him. Boris drove us all over the city. We kept a low profile, and he got to shake Gorbachev’s hand. He did not say a single thing about the red mark on Gorbachev’s head which was a first for him. I was proud of him. I told him as much on the flight home. He wrote Boris letters and Boris wrote back.

Announcer: This is the first I’ve heard about this. I am amazed.

Jerome: That was the wonderful part about Warren. So many of the things he did were not noticed. Sure, everyone remembers the day the world held his breath as he called “Check” black queen to white king. Yurik shook his head and with his right hand, knocked over his king. Checkmate. The world exploded in cheers. Everyone in the arena were on their feet cheering. Some were even standing on their seats. Warren looked at me and asked, “Can we go home now?” I grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks as it was the European way. He could not believe how many people greeted us at the airport. There were banners and signs and placards. What a time it was.

Announcer: There was talk about perestroika and the end to hostilities, but that would have to wait another decade.

Jerome: That wouldn’t have been on Warren’s mind. He was just happy to be home, and he waved to all the people who were there welcoming him home. He saw President Carter on television talking about perestroika.

Announcer: It was also reported that Warren had an early onset of Alzheimer’s.

Jerome: Yes, he began showing symptoms around the age of fifty-eight. That’s early, but then it was brought to my attention that he also had autism. Warren was not distressed by this. I protected him. I didn’t want people saying things about him that would hurt his feelings. He did not want people to call him that autistic man who beat that Russian chess player like a few of the newspapers had been doing. If he had taken medication like he was supposed to, he might have lived a few years longer, but it just wasn’t worth it to him. So, I did what I could to keep his autism a secret. I wanted him to be known as the kid who beat Yurik Chenchenkio the chess master. Sometimes we pay more attention to the labels we give to people and not the great things they did when they were alive.

Announcer: Point taken. (nods) I want to thank you for being on this show. I like the fact that we got to know someone we all thought we knew, but thanks to you Mr. Spencer, we got to know a little bit better. (shakes Jerome’s hand)

Jerome: Thank you, Ed for listening to his story. Oh, I have one more things to add. This may sound morbid, but Warren requested he be buried next to Spunky. At first I told him that we couldn’t do that under current residential mandates, but he told me he wanted to be cremated, and his ashes put next to his beloved cat.

Announcer: Are you going to do it?

Jerome: Of course, it’s the least I can do for my brother.

(Audience applause)

Announcer: Alright, this is Edward Farnsworth wishing you a good evening from Our World reports where we have covered the day the world held its breath. (Waves as audience continues to cheer)