Carl Ja­cobs

What­ev­er role chess may have played in their po­lit­i­cal as­cen­dan­cy no one will ever re­al­ly know, but the clear his­tor­i­cal record is that al­most all Amer­ian pres­i­dents and their close po­lit­i­cal as­so­ciates played the roy­al game as a form of recre­ation, if not dis­trac­tion. From the first, George Wash­ing­ton, to the 44th, Barak Oba­ma, there are sto­ries about their in­dul­gence in the sport with vary­ing de­grees of skill and pas­sion and some­times with a touch of hu­mour. Per­haps the most ar­dent among them, be­lieve it or not, was Jim­my Carter, the mild-man­nered 39th Pres­i­dent, who want­ed to be­come a chess ex­pert af­ter leav­ing the White House. Carter bought sev­er­al chess books and a com­put­er chess pro­gramme but even­tu­al­ly gave up the quest in frus­tra­tion. "I found that I didn't have any par­tic­u­lar tal­ent for chess," he lament­ed. "I hate to ad­mit it, but that's a fact."

Ev­i­dence of George Wash­ing­ton's af­fec­tion for the game may be seen in the beau­ti­ful ivory set which the first Pres­i­dent once owned and which is now housed in the US Na­tion­al Mu­se­um in Wash­ing­ton DC. When asked by his wife what were his favourite forms of en­ter­tain­ment, Wash­ing­ton replied, "I read, my la­dy, and write and play chess." The game, in fact, is cred­it­ed in one sto­ry of help­ing Wash­ing­ton to win one cru­cial bat­tle in the rev­o­luti­nary war of 1776. His plan to at­tack the British across the Delaware was giv­en by a boy in a spy re­port to the British com­man­der, Colonel Rahl. The com­man­der did not want to be in­ter­rupt­ed while play­ing chess with one of his of­fi­cers, so he put the un­read note in his pock­et.

The note was found in the Colonel's pock­et, un­opened, when he died in the en­su­ing bat­tle. Thomas Jef­fer­son usu­al­ly played chess in the evenings with his friends. When he moved in­to Mon­ti­cel­lo, the plan­ta­tion home he built at Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, he was con­cerned about his beloved ivory chess sets which had dis­ap­peared dur­ing the mov­ing. Among the 6,000 vol­umes he col­lect­ed in his li­brary were sev­er­al chess books in­clud­ing his favourite, Analy­sis of Chess, by the leg­endary French com­pos­er Phili­dor re­gard­ed then as the best chess play­er in the world.

In his lat­er years, Jef­fer­son en­joyed joust­ing over the chess­board with mul­ti-tal­ent­ed ex-diplo­mat Ben­jamin Franklin, one of the keen­est play­ers in that dis­tin­guished com­pa­ny. In sev­er­al of his let­ters, Jef­fer­son ap­peared to en­joy writ­ing about Franklin and how pop­u­lar the US diplo­mat be­came in France be­cause he played chess with beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful women. Leg­end has it that the amorous Mr Franklin played chess with the fash­ion­able Madame Bril­lon while she bathed in her tub. While he lived in Paris, Jef­fer­son joined the Sa­lon des echecs in 1786. But he did not re­new his mem­ber­ship, say­ing he was too busy. How­ev­er, David Mc­Cul­lough, in his book on John Adams, says that Jef­fer­son was so de­ci­sive­ly beat­en at the chess club that he nev­er went back. He left Paris in 1789.

An­oth­er of Jef­fer­son's spar­ring part­ners was James Madi­son, fourth US Pres­i­dent, al­so a keen chess play­er. A book on Madi­son by Ab­bot Smith re­calls that the Pres­i­dent once at­tend­ed a fan­cy dress ball in Wash­ing­ton DC, but spent the evening play­ing chess with John Quin­cy Adams, the sixth US pres­i­dent. Adams lost his bid for re-elec­tion af­ter his po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies false­ly ac­cused him of us­ing pub­lic funds to buy and in­stall "gam­ing fur­ni­ture and gam­ing de­vices" in the White House. While in Flori­da, 13th Pres­i­dent Mil­lard Fill­more re­called in a let­ter that he played chess one evening with Ma­jor Gen­er­al Thomas Jes­sup but he found his con­cen­tra­tion dis­rupt­ed by the Semi­nole In­di­ans he saw lurk­ing in the bush­es be­hind him. He lost three games in a row.

One of Abra­ham Lin­coln's chess sets is proud­ly dis­played at the Smith­son­ian. An­oth­er set he bought for his son Tad can be seen at the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um of Amer­i­can His­to­ry. In his book, The Every Day Life of Abra­ham Lin­coln, au­thor Fran­cis Browne wrote: "Mr Lin­coln was fond of play­ing chess and check­ers, and usu­al­ly act­ed cau­tious­ly up­on the de­fen­sive un­til the game reached a stage where ag­gres­sive move­ments were clear­ly jus­ti­fied." A case of life im­i­tat­ing chess? Small won­der that Lin­coln be­came such a great US pres­i­dent.

Part two of this col­umn con­tin­ues to­mor­row