Soviets indeed did rig the games and Fischer was labeled paranoid and crazy for calling it out.Paul Keres for example was often told by KGB to play to draw or lose in Us VS USSR tournaments and other ones so jewish players can get ahead of him.
I happened to do alot of research on this topic because of Paul Keres(he is Estonian like me so i wanted to know more about him).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keres
As wiki says - ""The unofficial
Chessmetrics system places Keres in the top 10 players in the world between approximately 1936 and 1965, and overall he had one of the highest winning percentages of all grandmasters in history ".
"Many chess historians consider Keres one of the greatest players in history, and the strongest player never to become
world champion.
Super grandmaster is an informal
neologism to refer to the world's elite players, usually players who are serious contenders for the World Championship and Keres fits this description. He was nicknamed "Paul the Second", "The Eternal Second" and "The Crown Prince of Chess".Keres,
Viktor Korchnoi and
Alexander Beliavsky defeated nine world champions—more than anyone else in history."
Sad that for last couple of decades Keres had to play rigged games for the soviets or his score might have been even better.
After soviets occupied Estonia he was almost executed together with all the other intelligent people but was saved to play chess for soviet union.Chess was a big deal kinda,it was like battle between whose ideology is more intelligent .
Fun fact - Bobby Fischer learned Estonian language in his early age to read chessbooks written by Keres because they were only available in Estonian language.I dont recall how many languages he spoke in total. While he was in Japan his passport was canceled (by the orders of George Bush Sr) ,all his belongings were confiscated and then sold or destroyed.He had big collection of books and all kinds of stuff ,so yeah,he got looted.And on top of that they released,without asking his permission - movies,chessbooks,PC-games etc where they used his name and didnt give him any $$.
They tried to destroy him and called him crazy when he fought back ,and eventually i guess they succeeded because he was pretty devastated and destroyed in his later years.
Keres Vs Fischer ,Photo from 1959,Belgrade. 2 great players in chess history,both got wrecked in their own way by the "chosen ones".
Fischer radio interviews - people maybe should read them and decide for themselves if he was crazy or not .I have watched his every chessgame in YT and no crazy man can play like that.He worked himself up from young age (i been playing chess since age 5 but i still suck at it lol).Love the game though,aint none other like chess.