Florencio Campomanes (22 February 1927 – 3 May 2010) was a Filipino political scientist, chess player, and chess organizer. Education Campomanes was born in Manila and earned his B.A. in political science from the University of the Philippines in 1948. Then, he studied at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), where he earned his M.A. in 1951. He undertook doctoral studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., from 1949 to 1954. Chess career as a player Campomanes was a National Master strength player during his peak years, and was Philippine national champion on two occasions (1956, 1960). He represented his country at five Chess Olympiads: Moscow 1956, Munich 1958, Leipzig 1960, Varna 1962, and Havana 1966. He met some distinguished opposition as a result, losing games against Pal Benko and Ludek Pachman at Moscow 1956, Oscar Panno at Munich 1958, Mikhail Tal and Miguel Najdorf at Leipzig 1960, and Lev Polugaevsky at Havana 1966. Involvement with FIDE Campomanes became involved in FIDE as a national delegate, and worked his way into prominence in Asian chess organization. Campomanes often boasted that he was close to the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. Campomanes helped organize the World Chess Championship match held in 1978 at Baguio, Philippines, between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. Campomanes is best remembered as the President of FIDE, to which post he was elected in 1982, and held until 1995, through several controversies, most notably the abandonment of the 1984–85 match between Karpov and Garry Kasparov without result, after 48 games, and the break-away from FIDE of the Professional Chess Association in 1993. The cancellation threw the international chess calendar into disarray for the next several years, since a series of matches had to be held to resolve the matter, and these affected other qualifying events. The membership of FIDE grew by about fifty member nations during his tenure as president. Campomanes was succeeded in 1995 by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. He was appointed FIDE Honorary President, and was often present at significant international competitions such as zonal and continental championships, chess olympiads, and world chess championships. Campomanes remains the only non-European to ever hold the presidency of FIDE, which is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Accused KGB asset According to the book The KGB Plays Chess (Boris Gulko, Korchnoi, Vladimir Popow and Juri Felschtinski), Campomanes, then Vice-President of FIDE, was recruited as an asset by the KGB in exchange for Soviet support for