Poor, naive Andre Lilienthal (1911-2010) thought he had limited opportunities because of national security concerns; he had an uncle who was an atomic scientist who was head of the atomic committee in the United States.
David E. Lilienthal (1899-1981) was an American-born attorney and public administrator, who was the oldest son of Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary. His mother came from Szomolany (now Smolenice) in Slovakia, emigrating to America at age 17. His father had served several years in the Hungarian army before emigrating to the United States in 1893. David is best known for his Presidential appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to early in 1950.
It was because of him that Andre claimed that the Soviet Union stopped letting him out of the USSR to go to tournaments. Despite Andre's claims, the actual family connection, if any, is not known.
Jan Timman felt that Botvinnik suffered from the “paralyzing realization of having achieved everything” when he became world champion in 1948 and after he lost the title, “a load had been taken off his shoulders” and he developed “an energetic style which was even better than the way he played just after the war.”
Botvinnik admitted that in his match with Petrosian that he "played under unusually great pressure and tension.” After losing to Petrosian he had no rematch for which to prepare and so the tension was gone.
Although his playing career was winding down after the match with Petrosian, as late as February 1965 he hoped for another shot at the title. He harbored the hope that FIDE might order a rematch before Petrosian played his 1966 challenger. When that didn't happen Botvinnik tried to reach the top through his students and through developing a winning computer chess program.
In 1963 the Botvinnik School of Chess had students spread across the country. It wasn't much of a school. Botvinnik met with the kids three or four times a year and gave classes and simultaneous exhibitions with clocks. The school failed after 18 months for lack of support.
In 1969 it was revived with face-to- face sessions with students twice a year and in between Botvinnik assigned homework such as analyzing an endgame or opening which was done by correspondence. His star pupil was 10-year-old Garry Kasparov.
Kramnik recalled how the school worked. Students would show four of their games, two wins, a draw and a loss and Botvinnik and Kasparov would add their comments. The next two days would be devoted to Kasparov simuls followed by two training games at a slow control.
Not everybody was impressed with the school. Alexey Shirov thought Botvinnik was too stubborn and Lev Psakis left in disgrace after a day devoted to training games. The reason? After scoring an easy win with black against "some girl," as white he played a highly speculative piece sacrifice on move 4. Apparently it wasn't appreciated and they stopped inviting him to training sessions.
After winning the 1973 World Junior Championship Alexander Beliavsky was invited to Botvinnik’s apartment in Moscow. He described how Botvinnik was using a badly chipped vintage chess set from the 1930s and after dinner they'd go through Beliavsky's games which Botvinnik would soundly criticize. The result was Beliavsky always left in tears believing he didn't understand anything about the game and never would.
Botvinnik’s last hurrah final was supposed to be a match with Bobby Fischer in the spring of 1970. The two negotiated through the Dutch organizers. Botvinnik wanted a best of 16 game match, but as usual, Fischer wanted no limit on the number of games; the winner would be the first to score six wins.
Of course, that was way too much for an ageing Botvinnik, but at some point he came to believe that he and Fischer had reached a compromise on a best of 18 games. It was then that Botvinnik began training with Boris Spassky.
However, Fischer was having none of it and insisted on the first to six wins. As a result the match collapsed because of what Botvinnik called Fischer's maniacal fear of returning to actually play.
The Dutch organizers replaced the match with a four-player tournament where they met each other four times. Spassky was first, Donner second and Botvinnik and Larsen tied for third and fourth. Botvinnik only scored +1 -2 =0.
After that tournament Botvinnik was through with competition because according to his daughter Olga, “He couldn’t create beautiful games anymore.”
During his final days Botvinnik stated that he would die at home...all he needed was two to three good months to finish his scientific work. He spent them dictating ideas about his computer chess program.
When Botvinnik died he didn’t want any VIPs at his funeral and no chessplayers! He wanted to leave quietly, he said.
He was cremated and buried next to his mother and wife at Novodevichy Cemetery, not too far from the graves of Anton Chekhov ( a Russian playwright and short-story writer) and Mikhail Bulgakov (a Russian writer, medical doctor and playwright).
Here is one of his last games from a clock simul played in London in 1981.
