The Honolulu Advertiser Honolulu, Hawaii Friday, December 10, 1982 - Page 40
Chess Group Plans Edmund B. Edmondson Memorial Tourney By Ken Kobayashi
The Hawaii Chess Federation will hold a memorial tournament this weekend for Edmund B. Edmondson, the former executive director for the national chess organization who helped pave the way for Bobby Fischer to become world champion in 1972.
Edmondson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who had lived in Kaneohe the past four years, suffered a heart attack while playing chess at Kuhio Beach. He died Oct. 21 at Tripler Hospital without regaining consciousness. He was 62 and was buried at Punchbowl National Cemetery.
A well-known and highly-respected figure in the chess world, Edmondson is credited as being the prime mover in Fischer's successful world championship bid against Boris Spassky in Iceland.
Edmondson became the mentor for Fischer and accompanied him to the match. Following the victory, Fischer dropped out from the chess world and refused to play another official game. Edmondson's wife, Nancy, received a sympathy card sent by Fischer from Pasadena, Calif.
Edmondson was a strong chess player, but he never attained a master ranking. His forte was in organizing and mediating disputes.
Edmondson served as president of the United States Chess Federation before taking over as executive directory from 1966 to 1977 when the organization's membership rose to 60,000. During that period, he also was the publisher of Chess Life, the federation's magazine.
Edmondson's diplomatic skills gained him respect from practically everyone, including the Russians — no small feat in the volatile world of chess championships with its aggressive and sensitive egos.
In 1978, he served as one of six jurors mediating disputes in the world championship match in which champion Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union defeated challenger Viktor Korchnoi at Baguio City in the Philippines.
The tension was heightened by Korchnoi's defection from the Soviet Union a couple of years earlier. Edmondson later wrote about the match in his book “Chess Scandals.” He said he wanted to provide an account by a “neutral principal” of the “toughest pressure-cooker imaginable.”
Just as he befriended Fischer, Edmondson also helped Yasser Seirawan, a promising 23-year-old Seattle grandmaster who had lived in Hawaii briefly. Edmondson accompanied Seirawan to international qualifying championships in Mexico City, returning about three weeks before the heart attack.
Edmondson was about to concentrate more of his efforts in organizing chess in Hawaii when he died.
In notifying the national federation about the death, Ken Kuniyuki, vice president for the local group, wrote about Edmondson's skill at working out agreements and compromises.
“If all the world's leaders had Ed's intelligence and compassion,” Kuniyuki wrote, “then international conflicts could be confined to playing fields and across the board in sports and games of skill.”
The tournament will be held tomorrow and Sunday at Room 317 of the Physical Science Building at the University of Hawaii Manoa campus. Registration is 9 a.m. tomorrow with matches starting 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. each day.
