THE ROBERT GRAYSMITH "i AM IN CONTROL OF ALL THINGS" CARTOON IN 1978

On April 24th 1978, the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac Killer stating "Dear Editor:​ This is the Zodiac speaking I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here, I have always been here. That city pig toschi is good - but I am smarter and better he will get tired then leave me alone. I am waiting for a good movie about me. who will play me. I am now in control of all things".

Seventeen days later, on May 11th 1978, Robert Graysmith had a cartoon featured in the San Francisco Chronicle "Letters to the Editor" page. It depicted Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (leader of the Soviet Union) swinging from a tiger's tail, with the phrase "I am in control of all things" (with only the word "now" dropped from the April 24th 1978 letter).  

In Robert Graysmith's book "Zodiac Unmasked" in 2002, he wrote of a typewritten letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19th 1978 (two months after his cartoon). It read "I am the ZODIAC and I am in control of all things. I am going to tell you a secret. I like friction tape. I like to have it around in case I need to truss someone up in a hurry....I have my real name on a small metallic tape. You see, while you have it in your possession, I want you to know it belongs to me and you think I may have left it accidentally. I am athletic. It could be swim fins, or a piece of scuba gear. But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape....My tape is waiting for me all over California. Do you know me? I am the ZODIAC and I am in control". 

​The wording in this letter exactly mimicked the wording from the Robert Graysmith cartoon, also dispensing with the word "now". The day before this letter arrived, on July 18th 1978, the opening game in the World Chess Championship between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi took place in the Philippines. Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi were two Soviet Union chess grandmasters. The story of their drawn match featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper on July 18th 1978, alongside a Zodiac Killer story entitled "SF Chief Says Inspector Didn't Write Zodiac Letter". The following day, the July 19th 1978 letter was mailed according to Robert Graysmith. It carried the phrase "But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over". This means we have a possible connection between the beginning of the World Chess Championship featuring two Soviet Union grandmasters and the phrase "I am in control of all things" from a cartoon featuring the Soviet Union leader, ​Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev.

So did Robert Graysmith copy most of the phrase from the April 24th 1978 "Zodiac" letter to use in his cartoon on May 11th 1978, subconsciously leaking the "I am in control of all things" phrase and the "Soviet Union" theme of the cartoon into a forged letter on July 19th 1978, the day after two "Soviet Union" grandmasters opened the World Chess Championship? Writing "But maybe you play chess with me". Did Robert Graysmith forge both letters on April 24th 1978 and July 19th 1978? Or did the Zodiac Killer author both letters - and Robert Graysmith plagiarized the Bay Area murderer? In later years Robert Graysmith spoke of the Zodiac Killer's "game of chess" with the police and newspapers.