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Robert Maxwell - Ghislaine Maxwell's Criminal Father Documentary — Transcript

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0:00On the 5th of November, 1991,
0:04the body of the Czechoslovak born
0:06British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell
0:10was retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean,
0:12floating off the Canary Islands.
0:15Investigations initially suggested that
0:18Maxwell had drowned after suffering a
0:21heart attack and falling into the water
0:23from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine.
0:27But, in the months that followed,
0:29suspicions arose that Maxwell had taken
0:32his own life.
0:34His business empire had been on the
0:37verge of collapse and he was facing
0:39criminal charges.
0:42What crimes had Maxwell allegedly been
0:45engaged in and did he really take his
0:48own life?
0:49This is the story of Robert Maxwell,
0:53Britain's most notorious media tycoon.
1:10The man known to history as Robert
1:13Maxwell was born on the 10th of June,
1:161923
1:18in the small town of Slatinske Doly,
1:22which was then in Czechoslovakia, but
1:24which is now the town of Solotvino in
1:28the far west of Ukraine along the border
1:31with Romania.
1:33Maxwell's name during his childhood was
1:36Jan Ludvik Hoch, Benjamin Hoch. The name
1:40by which he is known today, Ian Robert
1:44Maxwell, was adopted later in his life
1:47after settling in Britain.
1:52Jan's father was Mechel Hoch, a farm
1:56laborer.
1:57His mother was Hanna Hoch.
2:00The family were poor Hasidic Jews who
2:03lived within a large Jewish community in
2:06Slatinske Doly.
2:08Jan was one of nine siblings, several of
2:12whom died in infancy owing to the
2:14poverty in which the family lived.
2:17Jan's youth was not easy
2:20and his life only became more difficult
2:23in his teenage and young adult years.
2:27The family was poor and anti-Semitism
2:30was at its most virulent in Europe
2:33during the interwar era, albeit there
2:35were worse countries to live in from a
2:38Jewish perspective than Czechoslovakia.
2:42Their home was a two-room house with
2:45beds arranged in one room and a latrine
2:48outside serving as a bathroom.
2:51His mother doted on him,
2:54but his father beat him regularly.
2:57Maxwell later reflected of his childhood
3:00years that the three things which he
3:02remembered from it were how cold I was,
3:05how hungry I was,
3:08and how much I loved my mother.
3:11His recollections do have to be treated
3:13with some skepticism.
3:15While there is no doubt that the Hochs
3:18were extremely poor, Maxwell grew up to
3:22become an inveterate liar as an adult
3:25and there is no way of knowing if his
3:28description of his childhood was
3:30truthful
3:31or not.
3:32We do know that the family lived in a
3:35melting pot of cultures, languages, and
3:38religions.
3:40After the collapse of the
3:41Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918,
3:45Slatinske Doly found itself at the
3:47crossroads of Ukraine, Czechoslovakia,
3:51Romania, and Hungary.
3:53Living here ensured that Jan developed
3:57an immense capacity for speaking and
3:59understanding multiple languages from a
4:02young age, an ability that would serve
4:05him well in his later years.
4:08As well as Yiddish and Slovak, he spoke
4:12Czech, Hungarian, French, Russian,
4:15German, and English.
4:17He achieved this despite only having 3
4:21years of formal schooling.
4:24The Great Depression in the 1930s
4:27meant that he worked from a very young
4:30age.
4:31Then came the rise of the Nazis in
4:34Germany and the steady descent into the
4:37Second World War from 1935 onwards as
4:41conflicts broke out from Spain to
4:43Ethiopia to China,
4:46and then in Poland in 1939.
4:52The lives of the Hoch family were
4:54disrupted even before the war broke out
4:57when the Nazis annexed Czechoslovakia in
5:01March 1939
5:03and began imposing the anti-Jewish
5:05Nuremberg laws in the newly conquered
5:09territory.
5:10Less than a year later, 16-year-old Jan
5:14was in Marseille serving with the
5:16Czechoslovak resistance in the Battle of
5:19France.
5:20After the rapid German conquest of
5:23Western Europe, he headed to Britain
5:26where his skill as a linguist ensured
5:28that he quickly rose to become a
5:30sergeant.
5:32In what was probably the finest hour of
5:35his life, he served with distinction in
5:38France in 1944 after the D-Day landings
5:42and was later awarded the Military
5:44Cross.
5:45After the war though, there was no
5:49family to go back to.
5:51His parents and four of his siblings
5:54died in Hungary in 1944,
5:57the deadliest year of the Holocaust
5:59there after the Nazis largely took over
6:02direct control of the country in the
6:05last stages of the Second World War.
6:09The exact plight of some of the Hawks is
6:12hard to track.
6:14For instance, Jan's 19-year-old sister
6:17disappeared in Budapest late in 1944.
6:22She may have been one of the 20,000
6:25Jewish people in the city and
6:27surrounding area who were executed by
6:30the Danube
6:31and thrown into the river.
6:34His parents and other family members
6:36were killed at the Auschwitz death camp.
6:42After the war ended, Jan, who legally
6:45adopted the name Ian Robert Maxwell in
6:481948,
6:50lived between Britain and Germany.
6:53For many years, post-1945
6:56Germany was under Allied occupation.
6:59War trials were underway, and there was
7:02a very complicated array of post-war
7:04reconstruction measures being initiated.
7:08The entire country had to be denazified
7:12and rebuilt from scratch, including the
7:15media, which had effectively been a
7:17branch of National Socialism between
7:201933
7:21and 1945.
7:23Maxwell's abilities as a translator
7:26meant he was in high demand in this
7:29complex post-war German environment.
7:32He was appointed to the Berlin
7:34Information Control Unit and worked as
7:37part of the Control Commission for
7:39Germany.
7:40This was a commission associated with
7:42the director of the press and publicity
7:45branch of the British Information
7:47Service, a complicated name for the
7:49British body established to redevelop
7:52the media system in their part of
7:55occupied Germany and Berlin.
7:58Maxwell was specifically employed to
8:01reestablish the paper named Der
8:03Berliner,
8:05which was later renamed as Der Telegraph
8:08in the British zone of Berlin.
8:11Papers like this were carefully managed
8:14to keep the Allied message on point
8:17after the war.
8:18The Nazi leadership were being
8:20prosecuted for having led Germany so
8:23astray, but if the German people agreed
8:26to reform themselves, then they would be
8:30welcomed back into the community of
8:32Europe's nations.
8:34Maxwell's job was logistical to a large
8:37extent.
8:38There were huge post-war shortages of
8:41everything in Germany, and he spent a
8:43lot of his time in Berlin ensuring that
8:46Der Telegraph had enough ink and paper
8:49to be printed, as well as petrol to run
8:52generators to power the printing
8:54presses.
8:56He worked with the major German printer,
8:59Ferdinand Springer, on some publishing
9:02ventures.
9:03Maxwell also married Elisabeth Meynard
9:07in 1945,
9:08a Frenchwoman whom Robert met in France
9:11after the liberation of the country in
9:131944.
9:15They were to have nine children over the
9:18next 16 years,
9:21four sons named Michael, Philip, Ian,
9:24and Kevin, and five daughters, Anne,
9:28Christine, Isabel, Karine, and
9:32Ghislaine.
9:33As we will see, Ghislaine has become
9:36notorious today, but back in the 1990s,
9:41it was Robert's sons, Ian and Kevin, who
9:45were in the public eye after being
9:47implicated in their father's crimes.
9:50Maxwell became a naturalized British
9:53citizen in 1946,
9:55and he and Elizabeth lived in Britain
9:58with Robert traveling back and forth
10:00between his adopted homeland and
10:03Germany.
10:06Maxwell's future career was shaped by
10:09his experiences in Central Europe.
10:13There, he became involved in the early
10:15formation of Butterworth Springer, an
10:18academic publishing company which was
10:20driven by Springer's know-how in the
10:22field, transferring into war German
10:25ideas about academic publishing to
10:28post-war Britain.
10:30The company's headquarters were
10:32established in England in 1948,
10:35operating between London and Oxford in
10:38order to be in close proximity to the
10:40university there.
10:42In 1951,
10:44Maxwell acquired a controlling interest
10:46in the company, and its name was changed
10:49to Pergamon Press.
10:52The Pergamon imprint is still a going
10:54concern to this day, and is a leader in
10:58academic publishing in Britain, though
11:00now it is a subsidiary of Elsevier, a
11:04major conglomerate in the sector.
11:07Maxwell was responsible for building it
11:09up into a major player in publishing
11:12academic books, journals, and reports in
11:15post-war Britain, eventually publishing
11:18hundreds of different journals that
11:20produced thousands of research articles
11:24every year.
11:25It also became the publisher to the Club
11:27of Rome, the Italian think tank that
11:30produced a number of prominent books in
11:33the late 1960s and early 1970s
11:37about the future economic trajectory of
11:40Europe.
11:44In 1958 with Pergamon reaching a new
11:47level of success and money coming in,
11:50Maxwell acquired the lease of Headington
11:54Hill Hall in Oxfordshire.
11:56This was an early sign of his desire to
11:59live the high life even before he was
12:02making truly large sums of money.
12:05Headington Hill Hall was built back in
12:08the 1820s by James Morrell, the head of
12:12a wealthy family of brewers in Oxford.
12:16It was an elegant Italianate manor house
12:19replete with large columns around the
12:21exterior, balconies for the upstairs
12:24rooms, a huge staircase entryway up to
12:28the main doors, and all set on a large
12:31forested estate.
12:34Many a major Victorian and early 20th
12:37century high society event had been
12:39hosted there before the Morrells sold
12:42the estate to Oxford City Council in
12:461953.
12:48By that time, it was relatively run-down
12:52having served as a military hospital
12:54during the war.
12:56The council had been considering
12:58demolishing it and redeveloping the
13:00estate before Maxwell acquired a 32-year
13:04lease of the 51-bedroom house and the
13:07surrounding estate.
13:09Robert and his family lived there for
13:12the rest of his life in a home that was
13:15replete with a swimming pool and a
13:16tennis court while Maxwell moved some of
13:20Pergamon's operations to the house and
13:22in later years had a helipad set up on
13:25the vast lawns so that he could fly in
13:28and out of London quickly for business
13:31meetings.
13:32Maxwell once described it as "The best
13:36council house in the country."
13:38The property is currently leased to
13:40Oxford Brookes University.
13:46While Maxwell was professionally
13:48successful during these years, tragedy
13:51was never far from his personal life.
13:55In 1957,
13:57Karine, Robert and Elisabeth's
13:59three-year-old daughter, was diagnosed
14:02with leukemia and she died not long
14:05afterwards.
14:07Then, in the final week of 1961,
14:10their 15-year-old son, Michael, ended up
14:14in a coma after a car crash when his
14:17driver lost control and hit another
14:20vehicle head-on.
14:22He never regained consciousness and died
14:26seven years later.
14:28Biographers have suggested that
14:30Maxwell's fondness for his youngest
14:32daughter, Ghislaine,
14:34may have been owing to the fact that she
14:37was born on Christmas Day, 1961,
14:40two days before Michael's car crash, and
14:44he focused his energies on raising her
14:47after the tragedies of recent years.
14:51The impact on his older children was
14:54brutal.
14:55Maxwell became an overbearing father,
14:58especially towards his sons, physically
15:01disciplining them and becoming paranoid
15:04about their safety.
15:06Maxwell's psychology and life
15:08experiences have to be kept in mind in
15:11any assessment of him as a father and as
15:15a businessman.
15:16He came from terrible poverty,
15:19ended up fighting in the war when he was
15:2216 years old, lost virtually his entire
15:26family in the Holocaust, and then lost
15:30two children in a series of further
15:32family tragedies between 1957
15:36and 1967.
15:41In 1964,
15:43Maxwell entered politics.
15:46The United Kingdom had gone through a
15:48series of emergencies in the late 1950s
15:51and early 1960s,
15:53including the Suez Crisis of 1956
15:57that heralded the collapse of Britain's
15:59colonial empire in Africa, and domestic
16:03crises like the Profumo affair.
16:06This resulted in a swift turnover of
16:09conservative leaders and several general
16:12elections.
16:13Alec Douglas-Home called fresh elections
16:16in 1964,
16:18and Maxwell was recruited to stand for
16:21election in the constituency of
16:23Buckingham as the Labour Party
16:25candidate.
16:27He won election in October that year,
16:29while Harold Wilson became the new Prime
16:32Minister leading the Labour Party back
16:35into government.
16:37Maxwell was reelected in the 1966
16:40election after Wilson called a snap
16:43election to benefit from a surge in
16:45popularity for his party.
16:47But, in 1970,
16:50as Labour suffered a surprise defeat,
16:53Maxwell was one of the Labour Party MPs
16:56who lost his seat.
16:58He made over 700 contributions in the
17:01House of Commons during his six years as
17:03an MP, but ultimately, his parliamentary
17:07career was undistinguished.
17:10A major concern of his was the move to
17:14split the old British Museum into two
17:17distinct bodies, the British Museum and
17:20the new British Library.
17:23This project came to fruition in 1973
17:27after Maxwell had left Parliament.
17:30In 1968,
17:32Maxwell attempted and failed to buy the
17:36tabloid The News of the World, Britain's
17:39biggest-selling Sunday newspaper.
17:42The owners of the paper, the Carr
17:45family, were incensed by the prospect of
17:48it being owned by a Czechoslovak
17:50immigrant with socialist views.
17:54The paper's editor at the time, Stafford
17:56Somerfield, wrote a front-page opinion
17:59piece in which he said that The News of
18:02the World was a British paper run by
18:05British people, as British as roast beef
18:09and Yorkshire pudding. Let us keep it
18:12that way.
18:13The newspaper was later bought by the
18:16Australian tycoon and media rival Rupert
18:20Murdoch.
18:24In 1969, while he was still a sitting
18:27member of Parliament, Maxwell faced the
18:30first major crisis of his publishing
18:33career.
18:34This involved the Leasco Data Processing
18:38Corporation headed by Saul Steinberg.
18:42Steinberg, an American businessman, had
18:45made a fortune in the 1960s from leasing
18:48out some of the earliest computer models
18:51on the market to institutions before the
18:54age of personal computing really
18:56accelerated in the 1970s.
19:00In the late 1960s, Steinberg was
19:03aggressively buying up businesses, and
19:06he became interested in acquiring
19:08Pergamon.
19:09He approached Maxwell with a large
19:11offer, and Maxwell was not opposed to
19:15selling, especially so because Pergamon
19:18had expanded in an aggressive manner in
19:20the 1960s and was facing cash flow
19:23problems by 1969.
19:26However, the negotiations became
19:29problematic after Robert provided
19:32information to Steinberg, which
19:34exaggerated the profitability of the
19:36company, particularly its sales of
19:39encyclopedias.
19:41When Steinberg revealed this, Pergamon
19:45was suspended from operating on the
19:46London Stock Exchange owing to concerns
19:49over share price manipulation by
19:52Maxwell.
19:53A five-year-long battle ensued in which
19:56Maxwell lost his position on the board,
19:59and he had to fight to reclaim control
20:02over the company from Steinberg, who had
20:04also come under investigation in the US
20:08for his aggressive business expansion
20:10practices.
20:12Maxwell only survived the Lisko scandal
20:15and reclaimed control over Pergamon
20:18after the heads of many of the most
20:20important journals in the company's
20:22portfolio insisted that their continued
20:25involvement with the company was
20:27conditional on Maxwell returning as
20:30chairman.
20:32On the one hand, people who had known
20:34and worked with Maxwell for years were
20:37aware that he was an effective
20:39businessman in the field.
20:41Conversely, there was no denying that
20:44his behavior had fallen well short of
20:47typical ethical standards.
20:50He had sought to manipulate the value of
20:53the company to get Steinberg to pay
20:56significantly over the odds.
21:01When the protracted fallout from the
21:03Lisko scandal came to an end in 1974,
21:07Britain was entering into a prolonged
21:10economic crisis following from the 1973
21:14oil crisis.
21:16Even so, Maxwell pressed ahead with
21:19expanding Pergamon.
21:21He moved into the publication of
21:23computer science journals in the 1970s,
21:26predicting how personal computing was
21:29about to lead to a boom in that field.
21:32Maxwell was also one of the first major
21:35academic publishers to foresee that
21:37databases of journals and articles would
21:40shape the industry in the future.
21:43He was entirely correct.
21:47Academic publishing is dominated today
21:49by databases of hundreds of journals,
21:53rather than individual publications.
21:56His ambitions were expanding, too.
22:00In the 1970s, he began moving more
22:02aggressively into print media, and in
22:051981, he acquired the British Printing
22:08Corporation.
22:10This was a foretaste of the extremely
22:13rapid manner in which he built up one of
22:16Britain's most important media empires
22:18in the 1980s.
22:21This would ultimately prove to be his
22:24undoing as he tried to expand far too
22:27quickly, and all of his worst
22:29personality traits came to the fore.
22:35Maxwell courted controversy throughout
22:38his life.
22:40He also became a magnet for conspiracy
22:42theories that frequently contradicted
22:45each other.
22:46As a Jewish man who had lost most of his
22:49family in the Holocaust, he was a firm
22:52supporter of the state of Israel when it
22:55declared independence in 1948, and
22:58remained so throughout his life, later
23:02using his media influence to promote
23:05Israel's cause in Britain.
23:07A number of studies have gone further,
23:11arguing that Maxwell was effectively an
23:14agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret
23:17services, over many years.
23:20He did have a background in clandestine
23:23work.
23:24Immediately after the war, while he was
23:26working for the British in Germany, he
23:29was occasionally called upon to take
23:31part in interrogations owing to his
23:33linguistic abilities.
23:36The inference is that he had
23:38associations with MI6, and this brought
23:42him to the attention of Mossad, who
23:44asked him to begin spying for them in
23:46Britain. While another theory suggests
23:49that Maxwell acted as an intermediary
23:52between weapons traders and
23:54Czechoslovakia and Israel in 1948,
23:58as the fledgling state tried to acquire
24:01extra weapons at a time when many
24:04Western countries were wary of its
24:06decision to declare independence.
24:09Later, more elaborate theories emerged,
24:13including the notion that Maxwell helped
24:16the Israeli government distribute a spy
24:19software known as Promise to Western
24:23countries, and that he was also
24:25connected to intelligence gathering for
24:27Israel's nuclear weapons program.
24:31Certainly, the British Foreign Office
24:33considered it likely that Maxwell's ties
24:36to the Israeli government were
24:38sufficient that he could be classified
24:41as a foreign agent. While Maxwell also
24:44invested heavily in Israel and owned
24:48many businesses there.
24:50Beyond this, he was suspected at various
24:53times of potentially being a KGB asset
24:57and of having connections to the Soviet
24:59regime going all the way back to his
25:02time in Germany immediately after the
25:05war.
25:06One lengthy book has even argued that
25:09Maxwell was involved in running a
25:11complex network of criminal enterprises
25:14that extended into Eastern Europe with
25:17strong connections to the Bulgarian
25:19underworld in particular.
25:22Many of these claims are unlikely.
25:26Others are much more plausible.
25:32By the start of the 1980s, Maxwell
25:35appeared to be a very wealthy man,
25:38largely based from his astute management
25:41of Pergamon.
25:42It was at this juncture that his
25:44ambitions expanded.
25:47He wanted to become a second Rupert
25:49Murdoch, the Australian who had muscled
25:52his way into the British media landscape
25:54and become a dominant figure within it.
25:58Wishing to rise to a position of equal
26:00prominence, in 1984,
26:03Maxwell purchased the Mirror Group for
26:06113 million pounds, the flagship of
26:10which was the Daily Mirror, a
26:12sensationalist daily newspaper that had
26:15become the best-selling paper in Britain
26:17in the 1960s, peaking with average sales
26:21of 5 million copies a day at that time.
26:25By 1984,
26:27it was facing stiffer competition, and
26:30Maxwell acquired it along with other
26:32titles in the Mirror Group, like the
26:34Sunday Mirror and The Sporting Life.
26:38Maxwell convened the board's first
26:41meeting in 1984 after he bought the
26:43group at 2:45 a.m. and declared that he
26:48wanted total control over the papers'
26:51finances, an ominous sign of things to
26:55come.
26:56Thereafter, he followed up on his
26:58ambitions to rival Murdoch by launching
27:01The European and acquiring the New York
27:05Daily News, a financially troubled US
27:09newspaper.
27:10He also continued to expand the rest of
27:13his publishing empire in the 1980s by
27:15acquiring Macmillan Inc., one of the
27:18world's largest publishers, for $2.6
27:22million
27:23in 1988.
27:25This was a significant move.
27:28It proved ultimately beyond Maxwell's
27:31financial capacity and would play a role
27:34in his downfall in the years that
27:37followed.
27:40Maxwell had business interests beyond
27:43publishing and the media.
27:46In 1982, he became the owner of his own
27:49football team, which was unusual in
27:52British football at the time.
27:55Today, English football teams are
27:57billion-pound businesses overseen by
28:01extremely wealthy families and even
28:04nation-states
28:05with season tickets costing thousands of
28:08pounds and matches played on pristine
28:11pitches.
28:12In 1982,
28:14there was a more rugged element to
28:16football and the money men had not yet
28:19taken over.
28:21Ken Bates famously bought Chelsea
28:24Football Club for £1 the same year that
28:27Maxwell acquired a controlling interest
28:30in Oxford United Football Club.
28:33The club dated back to 1893
28:36and was prominent locally, but it was
28:39facing bankruptcy in 1982 and was
28:42languishing in the old third division
28:45when Maxwell stepped in and rescued it
28:47from insolvency.
28:49His takeover became controversial the
28:52following year when he put forward a
28:54proposal to unite Oxford with Reading
28:57Football Club to form a new super club
29:00called Thames Valley Royals.
29:03Maxwell owned 18% of Reading and
29:06geographically the two clubs were
29:08located near each other.
29:11However, a merger like this was unheard
29:14of and was opposed by fans of both
29:17teams.
29:19It never materialized.
29:21Surprisingly, Oxford then went on to
29:24enjoy a golden age.
29:27Under Maxwell's stewardship, they won
29:29the third division in 1984 and repeated
29:32the feat in the second division the next
29:34year. This brought them into the first
29:37division where they remained for nearly
29:40a full decade, even winning the League
29:43Cup in 1986.
29:46After Maxwell's death, the club became
29:49insolvent and plummeted down the
29:52divisions and into the less prestigious
29:54Conference League.
29:59Maxwell was known for his scandalous
30:02behavior, his love of money, his many
30:04affairs, and his eccentricities.
30:08Legend has it that he once gave his wife
30:11a list of six rules for a perfect
30:13marriage, which included advice not to
30:16nag or criticize.
30:19Robert spent large amounts of time
30:22living in London near his mistresses in
30:24later years.
30:26The full extent of his eccentricities
30:28and extreme behavior was only revealed
30:30after his death in numerous biographies
30:33and articles that quoted journalists and
30:35editors who had worked for Maxwell over
30:38the years.
30:40For instance, the Labour Party's
30:42strategist and fixer under Tony Blair's
30:45New Labour government, Alastair
30:47Campbell, recalled visiting Ethiopia in
30:511984
30:52in the middle of a well-documented
30:55famine there.
30:56Maxwell appeared to give an address
30:58before the press there as though he was
31:01a world leader.
31:03He then left without telling anybody,
31:06instead leaving behind a note saying,
31:10"My work here is done. I've gone back to
31:12London to resolve the miners' strike."
31:15A reference to the standoff between
31:18Britain's Prime Minister Margaret
31:20Thatcher and the miners' unions in
31:22Britain in 1984.
31:25Maxwell had nothing to do with the
31:28negotiations surrounding it.
31:30Family dramas and disputes were common,
31:33and he notoriously was a ferocious bully
31:36to his staff.
31:38Perhaps the most scandalous story of all
31:41was that Maxwell allegedly used to
31:43urinate off the top of the Daily
31:45Mirror's office building off Fleet
31:47Street in London onto the streets of the
31:49capital below before climbing into his
31:53helicopter.
31:57Maxwell's life and career would come to
31:59a premature end in a haze of scandal and
32:02conspiracy in 1991.
32:06In 1990, a number of journalists had
32:09begun to look into the financial affairs
32:11of the holding company which many of
32:13Maxwell's businesses operated under,
32:16Maxwell Communication Corporation PLC.
32:20Certain transactions had aroused
32:23suspicions about his dealings.
32:26For instance, a press release in 1990
32:29announced that Maxwell was due to sell
32:31some of his Italian publishing
32:33subsidiaries for 60 million pounds, but
32:37when it was investigated, it was
32:39revealed that there was no such deal and
32:43Maxwell was almost certainly announcing
32:45the sale in a bid to create market
32:48confidence about the viability of his
32:51businesses in light of the huge amount
32:54of debt he had taken on to expand in the
32:561980s, notably with the massive outlay
33:00for Macmillan and the New York Daily
33:02News.
33:04As further investigations occurred, it
33:07became apparent that Maxwell had been
33:09using a range of methods to prop up his
33:12struggling empire.
33:14He had created millions of shares for
33:17the Maxwell Communication Corporation
33:19and then passed them to family members.
33:23Another regulator in Britain began
33:26looking into Maxwell's technology
33:28portfolio and determined that Maxwell's
33:31companies were effectively using
33:34hundreds of different types of software
33:37illegally.
33:38Most nefariously of all, it would soon
33:41be revealed that he was illegally
33:44utilizing hundreds of millions of pounds
33:47from the Mirror Group's pension funds to
33:49support his companies and save them from
33:52bankruptcy.
33:54This had been done secretly and without
33:57authorization.
34:02Clearly, the stress of the double life
34:04he was leading as a wildly successful
34:07media magnate in public and a distressed
34:10fraudster juggling money illegally to
34:12keep his empire afloat in private was
34:15taking its toll.
34:17Maxwell had always been a man of heavy
34:20appetites, but as the 1990s began, his
34:24weight increased further as he took to
34:26eating gargantuan meals and drinking
34:29alcohol throughout the day, sedating
34:33himself with sleeping pills and
34:35painkillers at night to stave off the
34:37pneumonia and other health problems that
34:40he was suffering from.
34:42In March 1991, Pergamon, the jewel in
34:46the Maxwell empire, was sold for 440
34:50million pounds.
34:52Even this could only buy Maxwell a few
34:55months of breathing room.
34:57By the late autumn of 1991, he knew
35:01matters were coming to a head.
35:03Regulators were investigating his
35:05financial affairs thoroughly, and he had
35:08no further leeway to try to manipulate
35:11the corporation's share price.
35:14He knew that a series of meetings in
35:16London in November 1991 would spell the
35:19end of the long ruse.
35:22It was in this context that Maxwell
35:25headed for Gibraltar at the end of
35:27October 1991,
35:30where his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, was
35:33being repaired.
35:35He rang ahead to tell his staff to have
35:37the boat ready to take him south to
35:39Madeira and the Canary Islands, as he
35:42hoped that the warmer air would shake
35:44his cold.
35:46Maxwell behaved strangely during this
35:49trip.
35:50Usually, he would be accompanied by
35:52staff bringing half a dozen suitcases
35:55stuffed with papers and tins of caviar,
35:58and driven to the airport in his
36:00Rolls-Royce, but on this occasion, he
36:03traveled with little fanfare.
36:06Staff who did interact with him in the
36:09days that followed remember thinking
36:11that he seemed surprisingly jovial.
36:14Everyone knew that he was in dire
36:17financial straits by then, so this was
36:20regarded as surprising.
36:22After a trip south to Madeira, his yacht
36:26headed for the Canaries.
36:28The 4th of November came and went, a
36:31date on which Maxwell was supposed to
36:34have met with his creditors in London
36:36over an unpaid debt of 50 million
36:39pounds.
36:41That evening, Maxwell spoke to his son,
36:44Kevin, on the phone and was overheard
36:47arguing with him about a scheduled
36:49meeting with the Bank of England.
36:51And then, at some time around 5:00 a.m.
36:55or 6:00 a.m. on the morning of the 5th
36:58of November, 1991,
37:00he fell into the Atlantic Ocean and
37:03drowned.
37:07There are multiple theories about what
37:09might have happened to Maxwell, ranging
37:12from the plausible to the ludicrous.
37:15It is quite conceivable, for instance,
37:18that Maxwell was urinating off the side
37:20of the ship and slipped into the water.
37:23Or, that he was simply wandering around
37:26on the deck and fell off after having a
37:28heart attack.
37:30This theory was favored by many people
37:33at the time and has been argued for in
37:35many books and news articles ever since.
37:39The idea here is that Maxwell died
37:42because of a fairly typical boating
37:44accident.
37:46An aging man fell into the water and
37:48drowned.
37:50Others elaborate on this and claim that
37:53there were additional circumstances that
37:55led to him falling into the sea and
37:58being unable to pull himself back out.
38:02For example, it has been theorized that
38:04he was suffering from food poisoning, as
38:07investigations did reveal that he had
38:10consumed clams at the Hotel Mencey about
38:139 hours before he fell into the sea.
38:17Alternatively, speculators who were more
38:20inclined towards conspiracy theories
38:22claimed that he could have been
38:24poisoned.
38:26Maxwell certainly did have a lot of
38:29enemies.
38:30Moreover, this theory gained a lot of
38:32credence after Maxwell's death because
38:35both the Forensic Institute of Las
38:37Palmas in the Canary Islands and the
38:40Spanish Toxicology Institute in Madrid
38:43refused to state they could rule out
38:46some form of foul play.
38:48Even more outlandish were ideas that
38:51Maxwell had been killed by the KGB or
38:54the East German Stasi or even by a rival
38:58newspaper baron.
39:00One theory even holds that Maxwell
39:02staged the whole thing, that the body
39:05that was discovered was not his, and
39:08that he went off to lead a different
39:10life in secret after staging his own
39:13death.
39:17The most obvious explanation tends to be
39:19the most credible.
39:21There seems little doubt when the dire
39:23financial circumstances he was in are
39:26considered and the fact that he was
39:28looking at time in prison once his
39:30illegal use of the Mirror Group's
39:32pension funds was revealed that Maxwell
39:36had decided to take his own life.
39:39Still, the debate raged for months about
39:42what had happened to him.
39:44His family denied that he would have
39:46jumped into the ocean.
39:49His wife, Betty, from whom he was
39:51completely estranged during the last
39:53year of his life, insisted he would not
39:56have taken his own life.
39:59The initial reaction to his death was a
40:01deluge of sympathetic eulogies.
40:05The British Prime Minister at the time,
40:07John Major, lauded his role not only as
40:10a publisher and newspaperman, but as a
40:13point of contact between the British
40:15government and foreign countries where
40:17Maxwell had contacts.
40:20Margaret Thatcher called him a unique
40:23figure in British life.
40:25These positive accounts in Britain
40:27aside, Maxwell was laid to rest in
40:30Israel, his hero's farewell having the
40:34air of a quasi-state event when it was
40:37held on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem
40:40on the 10th of November 1991.
40:44Meanwhile, the investigations continued
40:46in England.
40:48In the course of 1992,
40:50the full scale of Maxwell's market
40:53manipulation was revealed.
40:56One wry account later suggested that by
40:591991,
41:01there were only two shareholders in
41:04Maxwell's company,
41:06Maxwell himself and Goldman Sachs.
41:10The real issue, though, was the illegal
41:13use of the Mirror Group's pension fund.
41:16Even with Robert dead, somebody had to
41:19be held to account for this, and his two
41:22sons, who had been most closely involved
41:24with him in running the businesses, Ian
41:28and Kevin, were arrested in June 1992.
41:33They were ultimately acquitted, but all
41:36of Maxwell's businesses were sold off to
41:38try to repay his debts and reimburse
41:42former staff for the money he had
41:45stolen.
41:48Although his family's wealth, business
41:51empire, and reputation were left in
41:54tatters after his death, the businesses
41:57that Maxwell had built up during his
41:59lifetime continued as going concerns in
42:03various guises.
42:05At the time that Elsevier acquired
42:07Pergamon in May 1991 for 440 million
42:12pounds, it consisted of 418
42:16different academic journals, had over
42:203,000 books in print, managed the
42:23publications for around 150 different
42:26organizations, and was affiliated with
42:29100 scientific and academic societies.
42:34Beyond its base in the United Kingdom,
42:37it had offices in the US and Canada and
42:39North America and in Germany, Australia,
42:42Japan, South Africa, Brazil, India,
42:46Israel, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
42:50The end of the Cold War was creating
42:52expanded markets in places like China
42:55and the Soviet Union as well.
42:58Today, it continues as an imprint of the
43:01Dutch academic publisher Elsevier, which
43:05is one of the world's largest academic
43:07publishers with an annual revenue of
43:10over $1 billion.
43:13However, some of Maxwell's newspapers
43:16did not outlive him for long.
43:19The European was taken over by the
43:21billionaire Barclay brothers.
43:24Despite heavy investment to try and turn
43:26its fortunes around under the editorial
43:29leadership of Andrew Neil, the
43:31publication of the paper was terminated
43:34in 1998.
43:36The viable papers within the Mirror
43:38Group merged with Trinity International
43:41Holdings in 1999,
43:44an organization that owned the Liverpool
43:46Echo to become Trinity Mirror.
43:50It has been known as Reach PLC since
43:532018
43:54and continues to publish the Daily
43:56Mirror and other key papers of Maxwell's
44:00former empire.
44:02Thus, while Maxwell corruptly mismanaged
44:05his businesses into the ground in the
44:071980s, large parts of it remained alive
44:12as viable concerns once they came under
44:15new ownership.
44:19Few people were as well known in media
44:22circles in post-war Britain than Robert
44:24Maxwell.
44:26Nonetheless, after the controversy
44:28surrounding his death and the wreckage
44:30of his business empire passed from
44:33recent memory in the 1990s,
44:35he faded to a degree from the public's
44:38memory, eclipsed by Rupert Murdoch's
44:41dominance of the media in Britain in the
44:441990s and 2000s.
44:47What's strange is that there has been a
44:50renewed scrutiny of his career in recent
44:53years, not because of his own
44:55controversial behavior, but because of
44:58the daughter after whom his boat was
45:01named.
45:02Ghislaine was, like her other siblings,
45:05left in a peculiar situation after their
45:08father's death.
45:10She had been a socialite in her 20s in
45:12the 1980s and had worked for her father.
45:16It would be inaccurate to suggest that
45:18the collapse of her father's business
45:20empire left her destitute.
45:23The Maxwells had enough money that
45:25remained untouched by the authorities
45:28that she was able to live in an affluent
45:31manner after she relocated to the United
45:34States in 1992,
45:36where she began a relationship with the
45:38financier Jeffrey Epstein, which was
45:41underway by 1993 or 1994.
45:46The chronology is unclear in places, but
45:50it's evident that over the next quarter
45:52of a century she played a central role
45:54in Epstein's affairs.
45:57Before long, this included identifying
46:00underage girls who were groomed on
46:03behalf of Epstein.
46:05This activity went on into the 2000s
46:08before Epstein was eventually convicted
46:11of soliciting a minor for prostitution
46:13in a Florida court in 2008.
46:17On that occasion, Epstein escaped with a
46:20strangely lenient sentence, but in 2019,
46:25he was re-arrested and charged with the
46:28trafficking of minors.
46:31Epstein died in prison not long
46:34afterwards.
46:35Ghislaine was arrested in the summer of
46:372020 and charged for her role in
46:40Epstein's activities.
46:42In December 2021, she was sentenced to
46:4620 years in prison.
46:48She had rarely been out of the news
46:51since as questions linger about her
46:53former partner's links to many of the
46:56most prominent individuals in American
46:59and international politics, finance, and
47:02business over the last 40 years.
47:09Robert Maxwell was one of the most
47:10important media magnates of the second
47:13half of the 20th century.
47:15While he never acquired the kind of
47:18power and influence that Rupert Murdoch
47:21was able to wield, he was not far away
47:24from attaining that status. Although
47:27ultimately, his attempts to reach the
47:29same heights as Murdoch was Maxwell's
47:32undoing.
47:34His life started far from England in a
47:37Jewish community in the borderland
47:39between Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, and
47:43Romania.
47:44He lost most of his family in the
47:46Holocaust during the Second World War
47:49while serving in the Czech resistance
47:51abroad himself.
47:53After the war, he became involved in the
47:56academic publishing industry while
47:58working for the British government in
48:00Allied Occupied Germany.
48:02From there, he moved into the media
48:05industry in Britain. He had a
48:07multi-pronged career in the decades that
48:10followed, even sitting in Parliament for
48:136 years between 1964 and 1970.
48:17Academic publishing remained the sphere
48:20in which he had the most success, but
48:23Maxwell became known in public for his
48:26ownership of leading British newspapers
48:28such as the Daily Mirror, as well as his
48:31flamboyant lifestyle at Headington Hill
48:34Hall and the ownership of Oxford United.
48:38Underneath the success, though, was a
48:40mirage.
48:42Maxwell had built a large amount of his
48:45success and opulence by the late 1980s
48:48on corrupt mismanagement of the Mirror
48:51Group's pension funds.
48:53Just as the full extent of his
48:56wrongdoing was about to become known, he
48:58mysteriously fell into the water from
49:01his boat off the coast of the Canary
49:03Islands and drowned.
49:06His media empire collapsed within weeks.
49:10There will always be a debate as to what
49:13happened to Maxwell on the Lady
49:15Ghislaine that November morning in 1991,
49:19but the overwhelming likelihood, given
49:23what was about to be revealed about his
49:25conduct, is that Maxwell took his own
49:29life.
49:32What do you think of Robert Maxwell?
49:35Do you think he drowned after having a
49:37heart attack, or did he take his own
49:40life in awareness that his wrongdoings
49:43were about to come to light?
49:45Please, let us know in the comments
49:48section.
49:49And in the meantime, thank you very much
49:52for watching.
52:37>> Mhm.

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