Politicians and Chess

Image Credit: Chessimo

We have often noted (see the "Political Leaders and Chess" label) that David Ben Gurion was a chess fan, despite being a weak player. The 'Chessimo' blog linked to above adds a whole slew of other politicians who were related to chess, although without sources.

One of the many newspaper articles linked to in the thread mentioned here (found by Moshe Roytman) notes that Ben Gurion gave his support to the 1964 Olympiad in a letter reported in Davar on Jan. 31st, 1963, p. 3 (link in Hebrew) in which he adds inter alia that he himself is a chess fan, and while he had to 'cease from chess activity' in recent years, it 'does not harm his love of the game'.