Recently, a young chess student of mine was excited to tell me all about the Spy Camp he attended. After describing the “field skills” he learned such as using a grappling hook, my student showed me a couple codes written in simple ciphers. I was happy to see him so enthusiastic about what he learned. I told him that chess has a rich history of spying and that in a future lesson we could discuss spying in 20th century chess.
During the twentieth century, the game of chess was not only a battleground of intellect but also a covert arena for espionage. Spies utilized written chess moves and terminology as a means of encoding messages, allowing them to convey critical information without arousing suspicion (that is until all transatlantic correspondence chess games were temporarily banned in March of 1944.) During World War II, both sides recruited chess masters as code breakers due to their exceptional strategic thinking and problem-solving skills. In particular, noted chess player and author Reuben Fine (who incidentally spoke seven languages) contributed to the Allied efforts by applying his analytical abilities to cracking Nazi codes and predicting the movement of German submarines. During the Cold War, even the World Champions Mikhail Botvinnik and Bobby Fischer have been linked to the world of espionage. These well known examples receive the most attention but many chess players I know personally have stories to add to the history of spying in chess.
When we played chess together, International Master Emory Tate was more open about his past in U.S. Intelligence. A master of linguistics, Emory became fluent in Russian in just a couple of weeks. He regularly showed off his ability to estimate time to the minute without looking at a clock. His skill in martial arts was equivalent to that of special forces. But he gave me a master class in the art of speaking in code.
In his later life, Emory suffered from paranoia so he always assumed “people were listening.” During the years we were close friends, he taught me to use codes at a professional level so that he could speak to me without worrying about eavesdroppers. Some simple examples include the insertion of innocuous phrases to alert me when he needed to leave his class. More advanced techniques were utilized in some of our late night phone conversations when Emory would speak in acrostics and initialisms to evade detection just in case of a wiretap. Even, when drunk, his speed at improvising using acrostic sentences was astounding.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that spy agencies recruit chess players. Both spying and chess require practitioners to anticipate their opponent’s moves and devise intricate strategies. Furthermore, chess players can travel to areas of interest under the guise of attending chess competitions. The final component is, of course, the intelligence factor and that chess generally attracts high I.Q. individuals making chess players an excellent candidate pool for clandestine jobs. For these reasons, although I have no specific knowledge on the matter, I am sure chess players are still overrepresented in the world of 21st century espionage.