It is rather sad, really, but this could have been an extremely good book. The subject is fascinating: how the Soviet Union, from the 1920s onwards, systematically used chess as a propaganda tool and proxy for war. And yet the undoubted eloquence of the author – a distinguished journalist – is no consolation for the book’s pervasive factual sloppiness. Anatoly Karpov (born May 23, 1951) was not 54 in 2007; the grandmaster title was introduced in 1950 and not “the 1960s”; it is Andor Lilienthal, not “Andrea”; the Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia is in Europe, not Asia (although I admit that, having been there, it does feel like another planet).

Certainly, some of these errors are trivial, but they are nevertheless irksome. Daniel Johnson is an intelligent man, but sometimes I fear his critical faculties desert him altogether. The hoary, old chestnut, about chess being a game on which more books have been written than on all other games put together, is repeated yet again. One should just look next time one is in a bookshop, to see how implausible this claim is. The author, who is clearly seduced by the highly charismatic Garry Kasparov (now retired from the game and engaged in overt political opposition to Vladimir Putin), also succumbs to the mythology of the notorious 1984/5 world championship match, which was scandalously stopped after five months by Florencio Campomanes, the then president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Johnson states, “Although Karpov still led by 5-3, the odds now favoured Kasparov.” How so? On the very next page, Kasparov himself contradicts this in a quote from the Moscow press conference at the time – “for the first time in five months I have certain chances, let’s say about 25% or 30%”. The momentum had abruptly swung his way, but it still meant, by Kasparov’s estimation, he had about a 70-75% chance of losing the match – hardly what one might describe as “favourable odds”.

The apex of cold-war chess rivalry (and of this book) is unquestionably the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match in Reykjavik. Bobby Fischer, the erratic American genius who at first showed little inclination to appear at all, was fortified with patriotic encouragement from Henry Kissinger, who recognised the match’s enormous symbolic importance. The Soviets had, more methodically, begun collecting material for their psychological and analytical files on Fischer years earlier. Boris Spassky’s government provided him with all the personnel and facilities necessary for preparation, but ultimately to no avail. After losing the first game and defaulting the second, the irrepressible Fischer stormed to a breathtaking victory.

It is an oft-told story, so why tell it again unless you have something fresh to say, like David Edmonds and John Eidinow, whose masterfully researched, definitive Bobby Fischer Goes to War appeared in 2004? Johnson clearly acknowledges his sources in his bibliographical essay, but if you are not contributing anything new, your synthesis has to be exceptional. It is then that the details become paramount. Why mention that Emanuel Lasker used the Berlin defence to the Spanish opening to defeat Siegbert Tarrasch in 1908, when his interpretation of this opening bore no resemblance to the one used by Vladimir Kramnik, to which it is compared? Why not cite the much earlier game, Harmonist-Tarrasch, Breslau 1889, which, in Kasparov’s words, was “effectively the original source of a fashionable variation” and that “disclosed many of its basic ideas for Black”? These are the gripes of a professional chess player and not the general reader, to whom the book is primarily addressed, but, still, one is entitled to a little precision.

Anyone reading this somewhat damning review may imagine that White King and Red Queen is a disaster. It is not. It is brightly written, though its deficiencies make it hard to recommend warmly. I only wish the author, who was kind enough to mention me in the acknowledgments, had sent me a draft first. I would have gladly suggested some improvements.

White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War Was Fought on the Chessboard

by Daniel Johnson (Atlantic £22 pp372)

Available at the Sunday Times Books First price of £20 (incl p&p) on 0870 165 8585

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