2010/March/06 , Inside Chess column, by Yasser Seirawan
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/yaz103.pdf
EXCERPT:
Larry Parr:
When Yasser beat World Champion Garry Kasparov in the 27th Olympiad at Dubai [in 1986], [USCF Executive Director Dr. Gerad J.] Dullea didn’t feel this win was worthy of any great media publicity blitz, other than a routine USCF press release.
During the Olympiad that November, [USCF President E. Stephen Doyle] Doyle had ordered a news blackout from Dubai. I heard this from several other sources, including our FIDE delegate Don Schultz, who said the same thing to Lev Alburt. Don told me this after he got back to America when I phoned him in white hot anger about the lack of news. Don excused himself by saying he was merely following President Doyle’s orders. Frank Elley (who had returned to work for the USCF by then) told me the actions of these politicos made him extremely uncomfortable.
In order to get news into Chess Life under a deadline, we both phoned Dubai quite literally every hour on the hour for several days. We both went to Dullea’s office to complain about the failure of our FIDE delegation to send us promptly Seirawan’s win over Kasparov. Dr. Dullea said, “No one would be much interested anyway.”
Larry Evans:
Why was the news blackout imposed?
Larry Parr:
Mainly to hide the failure of our FIDE delegation to strike the FIDE’s exclusion statute, which allowed the boycott against Israel in that Olympiad. USCF delegates, our highest governing body, had mandated that our team “withdraw immediately,” unless our FIDE delegation succeeded in striking that statute.
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// GeneM’s reaction:
[1]
Don Schultz’ book titled “ChessDon”, in its chapter titled “Dubai Olympiad”, does not mention Schultz’ participation in the news blackout, unfortunately.
However, clearly there were many sensitive issues about this Olympiad involving international politics and negotiations all during this time. A general news blackout might have been prudent, despite Mr. Parr’s half-implication to the contrary. Parr’s statement that the blackout was implemented – “Mainly to hide the failure of our FIDE delegation to strike FIDE’s exclusion statute…” seems inaccurate.
But that does not mean the blackout should have extended to such on-the-board activities as Seirawan’s victory over Kasparov.
[2]
The Larry-Larry interview implies that FIDE laws remained unchanged by the Dubai Olympiad’s exclusion of Israel. I could be wrong, but I believe the implication is false. Israel’s chess fed approved a draft change of FIDE laws, and said ratification of the change by FIDE would be accepted by Israel as a compromise for Israel tolerating the exclusion of Israel from this Dubai Olympiad.
On ChessDon page 129 Schultz says the FIDE law change proposal was ratified.