Whether poor result against Botvinnik was due to threats by soviets or he was just unable to cope with Botvinnik's playing style is another matter. I'm unable to answer that.

As for Alekhine (and this not necessarily in context of Keres), Pachman felt that AAA was remarkably not-stressed, in fact, was happy and jovial during the two War tournaments in Prague. It was a stark contrast with practically all others: Saemish, Foltys, Keres, ... You just must not have challenged any of Alekhine chess ideas. Then he immediately puffed up.

<presumably you include Euwe and Reshevsky, so it wasn't just Keres who inexplicably played below his normal level against Botvinnik> This requires further analysis and more time, I don't feel like doing it. The controversy has arisen only in connection with Keres and Botvinnik.

In non-Botvinnik games Keres scored only 0.5 points worse than Botvin in non-Keres games. This indicates that quality differences cannot be quite high.

Nonsense; Fischer scored 0-4 against Tal in the 1959 Candidates Match. It is the law of small numbers. Results do not always match the statistically expected outcomes.

Gligoric said something like 'Botvinnik looked armed to the teeth against unarmed opposition'. Botvinnik's strength lay in strategic understanding, supported by deep opening preparation. The effect of this is not necessarily a high score on Rybka - it can be to make the opponents play more weakly as they are put in positions they understand less well. Not only Keres but Euwe and Smyslov sometimes looked quite helpless against Botvinnik in 1948.

The similarities between badminton in China today and Soviet chess more than 50 years ago aren't many. At the same time I wouldn't be totally surprised if there had existed a reasoning along the same lines in chess, after all the 1940s were tough times in the Soviet Union. Preferring a politically correct Russian World Champion rather than an Estonian that had been playing in tournaments in Germany during the war doesn't sound strange. But that doesn't have to mean that anything decisive really was done to accomplish this.

Not a good comparison. Keres was considered world championship caliber in 1948. Fischer wasn't considered world championship caliber in 1959. In other words, a betting man might have picked Keres to post a winning record against Botvinnik, but would have been quite unlikely to have expected a young Fischer to beat a Tal in his prime.

Crafty ranked him #12 out of 14. However, Rybka is a lot better, I analyse more deeply and she surely will estimate Botvinnik's playing strength more objectively.

To be honest, I am surprised that Keres seemed to be rehabilitated so quickly. I wouldn't have been surprised if the Soviets had shot him out of hand. Not only did that not happen, Keres competed in and won the XV Soviet championship in 1947. It's enough to make me believe that Botvinnik really did intervene for him. But I suppose what really transpired for Keres between 1945 and 1948 will never be known for certain.

Perhaps a better comparison would be Keres himself scoring 3-1 against Tal in the 1959 Candidates. Also, to repeat myself, Keres always scored badly against against Botvinnik, though not quite as badly as he did in 1948.

As great as Keres was he was never Botvinnik's equal. He never played a WC match. He was always just good enough to get close to qualifying. I suppose a contempory comparison would be Ivanchuk.

Has this been definately proven? I was under the impression the evidence was still somewhat speculative and nothing conclusive had been brought to the table.

If the Soviets were so interested in manipulating matches for political purposes, Tal would never have beaten Botvinnik in the first place, since he was probably the most apolitical Soviet that ever breathed, and every match Botvinnik played was symbolic.

People only remember the winner.

Not in this tournament, people still even remember the guy who declined to play :)