Robert Maxwell

   

Ian Robert Maxwell (June 10, 1923 – November 5, 1991) was born in Solotvino (then part of Czechoslovakia, now part of Ukraine), as Jan Ludvik Hoch. He became an officer in the British army during World War II, and afterwards a publisher and Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham (1964–1970). He became involved in publishing enterprises, forming Pergamon Press. Later, he became the owner of Mirror Group Newspapers. He founded The European weekly newspaper to encourage interest in the European Community.

Maxwell's business practices were often considered questionable, but he sued many of those who implied that he was dishonest, notably Private Eye magazine.

In 1971, a Department of Trade and Industry report stated that Maxwell was "not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a public company".

He died under mysterious circumstances in May 1991, apparently falling into the sea from his yacht, the Lady Ghislane, moored off the Canary Islands.

Shortly before he died, a self-proclaimed former Mossad officer called Ari ben-Menashe approached a number of news organizations in Britain and America with the allegation that Maxwell, who was Jewish, was a long-time Mossad spy and that, among other things, he had told the Mossad that Mordechai Vanunu had passed to Britain's Sunday Times a story about Israel's nuclear arsenal. No evidence was offered in support of this claim.

Maxwell's death served to heighten interest in the Mossad allegations, and stories now abound about how he allegedly helped the Mossad for years, and how they supposedly killed him because he threatened to reveal information about them unless they gave him millions of dollars to prop up his empire. Again, no evidence for these claims has ever emerged.

At the time of his death, he was under immense financial pressure from Goldman Sachs, who were selling shares of his company pledged by a loan they had given to him, which would have triggered a bear raid and possibly bankrupt Maxwell.

Only after his death did it become clear that Maxwell had embezzled millions of dollars from the pension fund of Mirror Group Newspapers to support his lifestyle and ailing companies. His sons, Kevin Maxwell and Ian Maxwell, were acquitted of any involvement in the fraud.

He was buried on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.

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