Names in the News : Father Blamed in Chess Defection
Soviet chess authorities today blamed the father of 14-year-old chess player Gata Kamsky for his defection in New York last week, saying he was forcing his son to become “a robot for dollars.”
The newspaper Sovietsky Sport quoted Alexander Roshin, the head of the Soviet chess delegation taking part in the New York tournament, as saying Kamsky’s progress in the game had halted because of too many demands from his father.
“Gata Kamsky is destined to become a robot for earning dollars and his father has consciously agreed to that, for fear that his son’s talent will not last,” Roshin declared.
The teen-ager told a New York news conference Monday that he had asked for political asylum in the United States because he was discriminated against at home.
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