ROBERT MAXWELL
Name: Robert Maxwell
Born: 10 June 1923 Czech Republic
Died: 5 November 1991 Sea around Canary Islands
Ian Robert Maxwell (June 10, 1923 - November 5, 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born
British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament, who rose from
poverty to build an extensive publishing empire, which collapsed after his death
due to the fraudulent transactions Maxwell had committed to support his business
empire, including illegal use of pension funds.
Robert Maxwell was born Jin Ludvak Hoch in the small town of Slatinske Doly,
Carpathian Ruthenia, the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia into a
poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary
to which it had belonged for a thousand years. Most of his family was killed
after Hungary was occupied in 1944 by its former ally, Nazi Germany but he had
already escaped, arriving in Britain in 1940 as a 17-year-old refugee. He joined
the British Army Pioneer Corps in 1941 and transferred to the North
Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He fought his way across Europe from the
Normandy beaches, at which time he was still a sergeant, to Berlin. His
intelligence and gift for languages gained him a commission in the final year of
the war, and eventual promotion to captain, and in January 1945 he received the
Military Cross. In the same year he shot and killed the mayor of a German town
his unit was attempting to capture. It was during this time that he changed
his name several times, finally settling on Ian Robert Maxwell. He almost never
used the "Ian," however; he only retained it as a vestige of his original name.
After the war, Maxwell first worked as a newspaper censor for the British
military command in Berlin in Allied-occupied Germany. Later, he used various
contacts in the Allied occupation authorities to go into business, becoming the
British and United States distributor for Springer Verlag, a publisher of
scientific books. In 1951 he bought Pergamon Press Limited (PPL), a minor
textbook publisher, from Springer Verlag, and went into publishing on his own.
He rapidly built Pergamon into a major publishing house. By the 1960s, Maxwell
was a wealthy man, while still espousing in public the socialism of his youth.
In 1964 he was elected to the House of Commons for the Labour Party, and was MP
for Buckingham until he lost his seat in 1970 to the Conservative William Benyon.
Maxwell was a prosecution witness in the obscenity case concerning the American
novel Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1966. He enjoyed mixed popularity in the Labour
Party, having what was perceived by some to be an arrogant and domineering
manner.
Maxwell had also acquired a reputation for questionable business practices. In
1969 Saul Steinberg, who headed a company then known as Leasco Data Processing
Corporation, was interested in a takeover bid for Pergamon. In negotiations,
Maxwell falsely claimed that a subsidiary responsible for publishing
encyclopedias was extremely profitable. Following Steinberg's withdrawal on
the discovery of the dishonesty, Maxwell was the subject of an inquiry by the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) under the Takeover Code, then in force,
and at the same time the U.S. Congress was investigating Leasco's takeover
practices. The DTI report concluded: "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.
Maxwell lost control of Pergamon in England but not in the United States for a
time. Backed by his editors, he resumed control and eventually sold the company.
Name: Robert Maxwell
Born: 10 June 1923 Czech Republic
Died: 5 November 1991 Sea around Canary Islands
Ian Robert Maxwell (June 10, 1923 - November 5, 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born
British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament, who rose from
poverty to build an extensive publishing empire, which collapsed after his death
due to the fraudulent transactions Maxwell had committed to support his business
empire, including illegal use of pension funds.
Robert Maxwell was born Jin Ludvak Hoch in the small town of Slatinske Doly,
Carpathian Ruthenia, the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia into a
poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary
to which it had belonged for a thousand years. Most of his family was killed
after Hungary was occupied in 1944 by its former ally, Nazi Germany but he had
already escaped, arriving in Britain in 1940 as a 17-year-old refugee. He joined
the British Army Pioneer Corps in 1941 and transferred to the North
Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He fought his way across Europe from the
Normandy beaches, at which time he was still a sergeant, to Berlin. His
intelligence and gift for languages gained him a commission in the final year of
the war, and eventual promotion to captain, and in January 1945 he received the
Military Cross. In the same year he shot and killed the mayor of a German town
his unit was attempting to capture. It was during this time that he changed
his name several times, finally settling on Ian Robert Maxwell. He almost never
used the "Ian," however; he only retained it as a vestige of his original name.
After the war, Maxwell first worked as a newspaper censor for the British
military command in Berlin in Allied-occupied Germany. Later, he used various
contacts in the Allied occupation authorities to go into business, becoming the
British and United States distributor for Springer Verlag, a publisher of
scientific books. In 1951 he bought Pergamon Press Limited (PPL), a minor
textbook publisher, from Springer Verlag, and went into publishing on his own.
He rapidly built Pergamon into a major publishing house. By the 1960s, Maxwell
was a wealthy man, while still espousing in public the socialism of his youth.
In 1964 he was elected to the House of Commons for the Labour Party, and was MP
for Buckingham until he lost his seat in 1970 to the Conservative William Benyon.
Maxwell was a prosecution witness in the obscenity case concerning the American
novel Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1966. He enjoyed mixed popularity in the Labour
Party, having what was perceived by some to be an arrogant and domineering
manner.
Maxwell had also acquired a reputation for questionable business practices. In
1969 Saul Steinberg, who headed a company then known as Leasco Data Processing
Corporation, was interested in a takeover bid for Pergamon. In negotiations,
Maxwell falsely claimed that a subsidiary responsible for publishing
encyclopedias was extremely profitable. Following Steinberg's withdrawal on
the discovery of the dishonesty, Maxwell was the subject of an inquiry by the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) under the Takeover Code, then in force,
and at the same time the U.S. Congress was investigating Leasco's takeover
practices. The DTI report concluded: "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.
Maxwell lost control of Pergamon in England but not in the United States for a
time. Backed by his editors, he resumed control and eventually sold the company.