I guess I have a slightly less demanding standard for greatness. Let’s use a less easy target than Gandhi and MLK for greatness and Hitler or Stalin for un-greatness. Was LBJ a ‘great man?’ I’ve read plenty that suggest he could be a royal SOB, hard to deal with, a temper that could go off in an instant (sort of like these examples of un-greatness related to chess defeats). On the other hand, he championed some of the landmark civil rights legislation of the last century and was known to treat ‘the hired help’ pretty well. Pretty complex guy - and I would argue that he was, indeed, a ‘great man.’ Korchnoi was a pretty complex guy as well.
Accomplishing much for the benefit of others might be one standard. I thought about adding “without doing so at the expense of others” but that seemed to open a Pandora’s box of meaningless politicizing.
In my opinion, LBJ was a great politician with a number of values that I greatly admired. I wouldn’t label him a great man, but I can see an argument for that being made.
There is a story, true from what several friends in politics and the military told me, that LBJ flew into an air base on Air Force One and discovered that his favorite soft drink, Fresca, was not in stock on the base. He had a tantrum of sorts. From that point on, virtually every US military base in the world had a supply of Fresca that far outlasted LBJ’s term of office. There’s also the story of his cementing the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a senator whilst he, LBJ was sitting on the can off the Oval Office. Perhaps that’s a measure of greatness in itself.
In death as in life, Viktor Korchnoi still stirs controversy. I like to look at his great games and contributions to opening theory to get inspiration. He never held back on playing theoretical novelties. When questioned on why he had played an important TN in a minor event, he said that he would just come up with something new. What impresses me about him as a player is that he made no excuses. In his Olms books, he selects games that are fights and frequently criticizes his own play. In many other biographies and autobiographies games are selected that show only a player’s best games or games with weak resistance which gives the impression that chess is easy for them. Korchnoi style and grit are shown at their best when he was in a dogged, dynamic fight across the whole board. His record against World Champions and USSR champions is impressive.
And given that Muhammad Ali’s funeral is today, he was a great man for civil rights and he embodied the human spirit and not only fought in the boxing ring, but fought for the rights of all humans. Like Bobby Fischer, I admired his chess games but not the person, and the same could be said about Korchnoi as he fought the Russian Hierarchy tooth and nail, along with his hard fought, valiant efforts in the World Championship matches against Anatoly Karpov. It is also coincidental that Muhammad Ali’s greatest fight was in the Philippines and so was the first World Championship match against Karpov.
