Robert Maxwell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ian
Robert Maxwell MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991),
born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch, was a British media
proprietor and Member of Parliament (MP). Originally from Czechoslovakia, Maxwell rose from poverty to build an
extensive publishing empire. After his death, huge
discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including his fraudulent misappropriation of the Mirror
Group pension
fund.[1]
Early
in his life, Maxwell escaped from Nazi occupation, joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile in World
War II and
was decorated after active service in the British Army. In subsequent years he worked in
publishing, building up Pergamon Press to a major publishing house. After
six years as an MP during the 1960s, he again put all his energy into business,
successively buying the British Printing Corporation, Mirror Group Newspapers and Macmillan Publishers, among other publishing companies.
Maxwell
had a flamboyant lifestyle, living in Headington Hill Hall in Oxford, from which he often flew in his
helicopter, and sailing in his luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. He was litigious and often embroiled in
controversy, including about his support for Israel at the time of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In 1989, he had to sell successful businesses,
including Pergamon Press, to cover some of his debts. In 1991, his body was
discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean, having fallen overboard from his yacht.
He was buried in Jerusalem.
Maxwell's
death triggered the collapse of his publishing empire as banks called in loans.
His sons briefly attempted to keep the business together, but failed as the
news emerged that the elder Maxwell had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds
from his own companies' pension funds. The Maxwell companies applied for bankruptcy protection in 1992.
Early
life
Maxwell
was born into a poor Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family in the small town of Slatinské
Doly (now Solotvyno, Ukraine) in the easternmost province of
pre-World
War II Czechoslovakia.[2][3][4] His parents were Mechel Hoch and
Hannah Slomowitz. He had six siblings. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary. Most members of his family died in Auschwitz after Hungary was occupied in 1944
by Nazi Germany, but he had already escaped to France.[2] In Marseille, he joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile in May 1940.[5]
After
the defeat in France and the retreat to Britain, Maxwell
(using the name "Ivan du Maurier",[6] or Leslie du Maurier[7] the surname taken from the name of a
popular make of cigarette, Du Maurier) took part in a protest against the leadership of the
Czechoslovak Army, and with 500 other soldiers he was transferred to the Royal Pioneer Corps and later to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He was then involved in
action across Europe, from the Normandy beaches to Berlin, and achieved the rank of sergeant.[2] He gained a commission in 1945 and
was promoted to the rank of captain. In January 1945, he received the Military
Cross from Field Marshal Montgomery. Attached to the Foreign Office, he served in Berlin during the next two
years in the press section.[4] Maxwell naturalised as a British
subject on 19 June 1946[8] and changed his name by deed of change of name on 30 June 1948.[9]
In
1945, he married Elisabeth "Betty" Meynard, a French Protestant, and the couple had nine children over the
next sixteen years: Michael, Philip, Ann, Christine, Isabel, Karine, Ian, Kevin and Ghislaine.[10] In a 1995 interview, Elisabeth talked
of how they were recreating his childhood family, victims of the Holocaust.[11] Five of his children – Christine,
Isabel, Ian, Kevin and Ghislaine – were later employed within his companies.
Daughter Karine died of leukemia at age three, while Michael was
severely injured in a car crash in 1961, at the age of fifteen, when his driver
fell asleep at the wheel. Michael never regained consciousness and died seven
years later.[12][13][14][15]
After
World War II, Maxwell used contacts in the Allied occupation authorities to go into business,
becoming the British and US distributor for Springer Verlag, a publisher of scientific books. In 1951,
he bought three-quarters of Butterworth-Springer, a minor publisher; the
remaining quarter was held by the experienced scientific editor Paul
Rosbaud.[16] They changed the name of the company
to Pergamon Press and rapidly built it into a major
publishing house.
In
1964, representing the Labour Party, Maxwell was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham and re-elected in 1966. He gave an
interview to The Times in 1968, in which he said the House of Commons provided him with a problem. "I
can't get on with men", he commented. "I tried having male assistants
at first. But it didn't work. They tend to be too independent. Men like to have
individuality. Women can become an extension of the boss."[17] Maxwell lost his seat in 1970 to
the Conservative William Benyon. He contested Buckingham again in both
1974 general elections, but without success.
At
the beginning of 1969, it emerged that Maxwell's attempt to buy the News of the World had failed.[18] The Carr family, which owned the
title, was incensed at the thought of a Czechoslovak immigrant with socialist politics gaining ownership and the
board voted against Maxwell's bid without any dissent. The News of the
World's editor Stafford Somerfield opposed Maxwell's bid in an October 1968 front page
opinion piece, in which he referred to Maxwell's Czechoslovak origins and used
his birth name.[19] He wrote, "This is a British
paper, run by British people ... as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding ... Let us keep it that way".[20] The tycoon who gained control was
the Australian Rupert Murdoch, who later that year acquired The Sun, which had also previously interested
Maxwell.[21]
Pergamon
lost and regained
In
1969, Saul Steinberg, head of "Leasco Data Processing
Corporation", was interested in a strategic acquisition of Pergamon.
Steinberg claimed that during negotiations, Maxwell falsely stated that a
subsidiary responsible for publishing encyclopedias was extremely profitable.[22][23] At the same time, Pergamon had been
forced to reduce its profit forecasts for 1969 from £2.5 million to £2.05
million during the period of negotiations, and dealing in Pergamon shares was
suspended on the London stock markets.[23]
This
caused Maxwell to lose control of Pergamon and he was expelled from the board
in October 1969, along with three other directors in sympathy with him, by the
majority owners of the company's shares.[24] Steinberg purchased Pergamon. An
inquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) under the Takeover Code of the
time reported in mid-1971:[4] "We regret having to conclude
that, notwithstanding Mr Maxwell's acknowledged abilities and energy, he is not
in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of
a publicly quoted company." It was found that Maxwell had contrived to
maximise Pergamon's share price through transactions between his private family
companies.[22]
At
the same time, the United States Congress was investigating Leasco's takeover practices.
Justice Thayne Forbes in September 1971 was critical of the
inquiry: "They had moved from an inquisitorial role to accusatory one and
virtually committed the business murder of Mr. Maxwell." He further
continued that the trial judge would probably find that the inspectors had
acted "contrary to the rules of natural justice".[25] The company performed poorly under
Steinberg; Maxwell reacquired Pergamon in 1974 after borrowing funds.[26]
Maxwell
established the Maxwell Foundation in Liechtenstein in 1970. He acquired the British
Printing Corporation (BPC) in 1981 and changed its name first to the British
Printing and Communication Corporation (BPCC) and then to the Maxwell Communications Corporation. The company was later sold in a management buyout and is now known as Polestar.
Later
business activities
In
July 1984, Maxwell acquired Mirror Group Newspapers from Reed International plc.[27] for £113 million.[28] MGN, now part of Reach plc, formerly Trinity Mirror, published
the Daily Mirror, a pro-Labour tabloid, and other popular newspapers in England and Scotland. At a press conference to publicise his
acquisition, Maxwell said his editors would be "free to produce the news
without interference".[27] Meanwhile, at a meeting of Maxwell's
new employees, Mirror journalist Joe Haines asserted that he was able to prove
that their boss "is a crook and a liar".[29][30]Haines quickly came under Maxwell's
influence and later wrote his authorised biography.[29]
In
June 1985, Maxwell announced a takeover of Sir Clive Sinclair's ailing home computer company, Sinclair Research, through Hollis Brothers, a Pergamon Press
subsidiary.[31] The deal was aborted in August 1985.[32] In 1987, Maxwell purchased part
of IPC
Media to
create Fleetway Publications. That same year, he launched the London Daily News in February after a delay caused by production
problems, but the paper closed in July after sustaining significant losses
contemporary estimates put at £25 million.[33] At first intended to be a rival to
the Evening Standard, Maxwell had made a rash decision for it
to be the first 24-hour paper as well.[34]
By
1988, Maxwell's various companies owned, in addition to the Mirror titles and
Pergamon Press, Nimbus Records, Macmillan Publishers (of which Collier was a part),
Maxwell Directories, Prentice Hall Information Services and the Berlitz language schools. He also owned a half-share of MTV in Europe and other European television interests, Maxwell Cable TV and
Maxwell Entertainment.[26] Maxwell purchased Macmillan, the
American publishing firm, during 1988 for $2.6 billion. In the same year, he
launched an ambitious new project, a transnational newspaper called The European. In 1991, he was forced to sell Pergamon
Press and Maxwell Directories to Elsevier for £440 million to cover his debts;[26] he used some of this money to buy an
ailing tabloid, the New York Daily News. The same year, Maxwell sold 49 percent of
the stock of Mirror Group Newspapers to the public.[4]
Maxwell's
links with Eastern European totalitarian regimes resulted in several
biographies (generally considered to be hagiographies[35]) of those countries' leaders, with
interviews conducted by Maxwell, for which he received much derision.[4] At the beginning of an interview
with Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu, then the country's Communist leader, he asked, "How do you
account for your enormous popularity with the Romanian people?"[36]
Maxwell
was also the chairman of Oxford United, saving them from bankruptcy and attempting to merge them
with Reading in 1983 to form a club he wished to
call "Thames Valley Royals". He took Oxford into the top flight
of English football in 1985 and the team won the League Cup a year later. Maxwell bought into Derby County in 1987. He also attempted to buy Manchester United in 1984, but refused owner Martin
Edwards's
asking price.
Maxwell
was known to be litigious against those who would speak or write against him.
The satirical magazine Private Eye lampooned him as "Cap'n
Bob" and the "bouncing Czech",[38] the latter nickname having originally
been devised by Prime Minister Harold Wilson[39] (under whom Maxwell was an MP).
Maxwell took out several libel actions against Private Eye,
one resulting in the magazine losing an estimated £225,000 and Maxwell using
his commercial power to hit back with a one-off spoof magazine Not Private Eye.[40]
Israeli
connection
1948 war
A
hint of Maxwell's service to the Israeli state was provided by John Loftus and Mark Aarons, who described Maxwell's contacts with
Czechoslovak Communist leaders in 1948 as crucial to the Czechoslovak decision
to arm Israel in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Czechoslovak military assistance was both unique and
crucial for the fledgling state as it battled for its existence. It was
Maxwell's covert help in smuggling aircraft parts into Israel that led to the
country having air superiority during their 1948 War of Independence.[41]
Mossad allegations; Vanunu case
The
British Foreign Office suspected that Maxwell was a secret
agent of a foreign government, possibly a double agent or a triple agent, and "a
thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia." He had
known links to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to the KGB, and to the Israeli intelligence
service Mossad.[42] Six serving and former heads of
Israeli intelligence services attended Maxwell's funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized him and stated: “He has
done more for Israel than can today be said."[43]
Shortly
before Maxwell's death, a former employee of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate, Ari Ben-Menashe, approached a number of news organisations
in Britain and the US with the allegation that Maxwell and the Daily
Mirror's foreign editor, Nicholas Davies, were both long-time agents for Mossad. Ben-Menashe also claimed that in 1986,
Maxwell had told the Israeli Embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear capability to The Sunday Times, then to the Daily Mirror.
Vanunu was subsequently kidnapped by Mossad and smuggled to Israel,
convicted of treason and imprisoned for eighteen years.[44]
Ben-Menashe's
story was ignored at first, but eventually The New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh repeated some of the allegations
during a press conference in London held to publicise The Samson Option, Hersh's book about Israel's nuclear
weapons. On 21 October 1991, two MPs, Labour's George Galloway and the Conservative's Rupert Allason (also known as espionage author Nigel
West), agreed to raise the issue in the House of Commons under parliamentary privilege protection,[45] which in turn allowed British
newspapers to report events without fear of libel suits. Maxwell called the
claims "ludicrous, a total invention" and sacked Davies.[46] A year later, in Galloway's libel
settlement against Mirror Group Newspapers (in which he received
"substantial" damages), Galloway's counsel announced that the MP
accepted that the group's staff had not been involved in Vanunu's abduction.
Galloway referred to Maxwell as "one of the worst criminals of the
century."[47]
On 5
November 1991, Maxwell was last in contact with the crew of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, at 4:25 a.m. local time, but was
found to be missing later in the morning.[46] Maxwell was presumed to have fallen
overboard from the vessel, which was cruising off the Canary
Islands,[46][48] and his naked body was subsequently
recovered from the Atlantic Ocean.[44] The official ruling at an inquest
held in December 1991 was death by a heart attack combined with accidental drowning,[49] although three pathologists had been
unable to agree on the cause of his death at the inquest;[44] he had been found to have been
suffering from serious heart and lung conditions.[50] Murder was ruled out by the judge
and, in effect, so was suicide.[49] He was buried on the Mount
of Olives in Jerusalem.[51]
Prime
Minister John Major said Maxwell had given him
"valuable insights" into the situation in the Soviet
Union during
the attempted coup of 1991. He was a "great character",
Major added. Neil Kinnock, then Labour Party leader, spoke of him as
a man with "a zest for life" who "attracted controversy, envy
and loyalty in great measure throughout his rumbustious life."
A
production crew conducting research for Maxwell, a biographical film by the BBC, uncovered tapes stored in a suitcase
owned by his former head of security, John Pole. Later in his life, Maxwell had
become increasingly paranoid of his own employees and had the offices of those
he suspected of disloyalty wired so he could hear their conversations. After
Maxwell's death, the tapes remained in Pole's suitcase and were only discovered
by the researchers in 2007.[52]
Aftermath:
Theft of pension funds, collapse of a publishing empire
Maxwell's
death triggered a flood of instability, with banks frantically calling in their
massive loans. His sons, Kevin and Ian, struggled to hold the empire together,
but were unable to prevent its collapse. It emerged that without adequate prior
authorization, Maxwell had used hundreds of millions of pounds from his
companies' pension funds to shore up the shares of the Mirror
Group to save his companies from bankruptcy.[53] Eventually, the pension funds were
replenished with money from investment banks Shearson Lehman and Goldman Sachs, as well as the British government. This
replenishment was limited and also supported by a surplus in the printers'
fund, which was taken by the government in part payment of £100 million
required to support the workers' state pensions. The rest of the £100 million
was waived. Maxwell's theft of pension funds was therefore partly repaid from
public funds. The result was that in general pensioners received about 50
percent of their company pension entitlement.
The
Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992. Kevin Maxwell was
declared bankrupt with debts of £400 million. In 1995, Kevin and Ian and two
other former directors went on trial for conspiracy to defraud, but were
unanimously acquitted by a twelve-man jury in 1996.
In
November 1994, Maxwell's widow, Elisabeth, published her memoirs, A
Mind of My Own: My Life with Robert Maxwell,[54] which sheds light on her life with
Maxwell, when the publishing magnate was ranked as one of the richest
individuals in the world.[55] She devoted much of her life to
researching the Holocaust and to Jewish-Christian dialogue. She died on 7
August 2013.[56]
In
popular culture
·
Maxwell was used as inspiration for the
villainous media baron Elliot Carver in
the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies as well as its novelisation and video game adaptation.[57][58]At
the film's end, M orders a story spun
disguising Carver's demise, saying that Carver died after falling off his yacht
in the South China Sea.
·
A BBC drama, Maxwell, covering
his life shortly before his death, starring David Suchet and Patricia Hodge, was aired on 4 May 2007.[59] Suchet
won the International
Emmy Award for Best Actor for his performance
as Maxwell.[60] A one-person show about Maxwell's life, Lies Have Been Told,
written by Rod Beacham, was performed by Phillip York at London's Trafalgar Studios in 2006.[61]
·
The Fourth Estate, a 1996 novel by Jeffrey Archer, is
based on the lives of Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch.[62]
·
Max, a novel by Juval Aviv, is
based on Aviv's investigation into the death of Robert Maxwell [63]
See
also
References
1.
^ "A Notorious Fraud – the Robert Maxwell
Farrago". Australian Guardians.
Retrieved 12 December 2017.
2.
^ Jump up to:a b c Марк
Штейнберг. Евреи в войнах тысячелетий. p. 227. ISBN 5-93273-154-0 (in Russian)
3.
^ Иван
Мащенко (7–13 September 2002). Медиа-олигарх из Солотвина. Зеркало недели (in Russian) (#34 (409)).
Archived from the
original on 22 December
2012.
4.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e Whitney,
Craig R. (6 November 1991). "Robert Maxwell, 68: From Refugee to the Ruthless Builder
of a Publishing Empire". The
New York Times. p. 5.
11.
^ Witchell,
Alex (15 February 1995). "AT LUNCH WITH: Elisabeth Maxwell; Questions Without
Answers". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
14.
^ "Free Research Papers – Information Intelligence,
1991".
free-researchpapers.com. 28 March 1999. Archived from the original on
3 November 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
15.
^ Rampton,
James (28 April 2007). "'Maxwell was a monster -
but much more, too'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
19.
^ Greenslade,
Roy (2004) [2003]. Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda. London: Pan. p. 395.
22.
^ Jump up to:a b Dennis
Barker and Christopher Sylvester "The grasshopper", – Obituary of Maxwell, The Guardian, 6
November 1991. Retrieved on 19 July 2007.
23.
^ Jump up to:a b Nicholas
Davenport "Money Wanted: A Board of Trade inquiry", The Spectator, 29 August 1969, p.24
28.
^ Roy
Greenslade Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda, London: Pan, 2004 [2003], p.395
39.
^ Reuters "Murdoch conclusion stirs memories of his old foe
Maxwell", Chicago Tribune, 1 May 2012
43.
^ Gordon Thomas, Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 23)
44.
^ Jump up to:a b c Robert
Verkaik "The Mystery of Maxwell's Death", The Independent, 10 March 2006
46.
^ Jump up to:a b c Ben
Laurance and John Hooper, et al "Maxwell's body found in sea", The Guardian, 6 November 1991
49.
^ Jump up to:a b Larry
Eichel "Maxwell's Legacy Of Money Troubles Maxwell's
Own Daily Mirror Newspaper Now Routinely Calls Him 'The
Cheating Tycoon'", Philadelphia
Inquirer, 14 December 1991
50.
^ Marlise
Simons "Autopsy Indicates Maxwell Did Not Drown", The New York Times, 12 December 1991
51.
^ Clyde
Haberman "The Media Business; Maxwell Is Buried In
Jerusalem", The New York
Times, 11 November 1991
53.
^ Prokesch,
Steven (24 June 1992). "Maxwell's Mirror Group Has $727.5 Million
Loss". The New York
Times. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
54.
^ Diski, Jenny (26
January 1995). "Bob
and Betty". London Review of Books. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
55.
^ MacIntyre,
Ben (1 January 1995). "A Match for Robert Maxwell". The New York Times. Retrieved 22
May 2010.
57.
^ Kempley,
Rita (19 December 1997). "'TOMORROW NEVER DIES':
JAMES BOND ZIPS INTO THE '90S". The
Washington Post. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
58.
^ Turner,
Kyle (30 May 2018). "There's No News Like Fake News: Tomorrow Never Dies
Today". Paste Magazine.
Retrieved 9 August 2018.
59.
^ "Suchet in title role of BBC Two's Maxwell". bbc.co.uk. 16 February 2007. Retrieved 31
October 2013.
60.
^ Luft,
Oliver (25 November 2008). "UK scoops seven International Emmys". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August2014.
61.
^ Benedict Nightingale. "Portrait of a megalomaniac." The
Times, London, 13 January 2006: pg 39.
62.
^ Archer,
Jeffrey (1996). The Fourth Estate (First ed.). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0002253186.
Further
reading
·
Department of Trade and Industry report on Maxwell's
purchase of the Mirror Group at
the Wayback Machine (archived
28 October 2004)
·
Hersh, Seymour
(1991). The Samson Option:
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House. ISBN 0-394-57006-5.
·
Thomas, Gordon and Dillon, Martin.
(2002). Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a
Media Mogul, Carroll and Graf, ISBN 0-7867-1078-0
·
Henderson, Albert, (2004) The Dash
and Determination of Robert Maxwell, Champion of Dissemination, LOGOS.
15,2, pp. 65–75.
·
Robert N. Miranda (2001) Robert
Maxwell: Forty-four years as Publisher, in E. H. Frederiksson ed., A
Century of Science Publishing, IOS Press ISBN 1-58603-148-1
·
Roy Greenslade (1992) Maxwell: The
Rise and Fall of Robert Maxwell and His Empire. ISBN 1-55972-123-5
·
Roy Greenslade (2011) "Pension plunderer Robert Maxwell remembered 20
years after his death". The Guardian, 3 November 2011. Accessed 20 October 2013
·
Coleridge, Nicholas
(March 1994). Paper Tigers: The Latest, Greatest Newspaper Tycoons. Secaucus,
NJ: Birch Lane Press. ISBN 9781559722155.
External
links
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento