Media Mogul Robert Maxwell.
Robert Maxwell, one of seven children of Jewish parents, was born Ján Ludvík Hoch in the Czechoslovakian mountain village of Slatinské Doly, now part of Ukraine and known as Solotvyno. He claimed not to have had a pair of shoes until he was seven.
He escaped Nazi occupation by fleeing to France as a teenager, but lost his parents, four siblings and most of his extended family in the Holocaust.
After joining the Czechoslovak army in exile, he was evacuated to Britain and joined the British army under the name Ivan du Maurier, apparently after a very well known cigarette brand.
Which is a brand I have never heard of but apparently Du Maurier is a Canadian brand of cigarettes, produced by Imperial Tobacco Canada, a subsidiary of conglomerate British American Tobacco. The brand is named after Sir Gerald du Maurier, the noted British actor.
The brand was launched in the United Kingdom in 1930 after the actor and producer Sir Gerald du Maurier (father of the authoress Daphne du Maurier) had made requests for "a cigarette less irritating to his throat". He lent his name to the creation of a cigarette brand, the royalties for which he used to pay down his substantial tax liabilities.
Maxwell fought in Normandy, met his wife Betty– a student at the Sorbonne – and won the Military Cross for heroism on the Dutch-German border; the decoration was pinned to his chest by Field Marshal Montgomery. Who was a rather interesting character himself.
Throughout his life, he was a good friend to Israel, investing heavily in publishing, pharmaceutical and computer firms in the country. He met accusations he was an Israeli spy with furious denials and legal threats.
Such speculation was fanned again after his death, when he was accorded almost a state funeral in Israel, attended by the prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and the president, Chaim Herzog, and buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.
Which to me gives some credence that he was in some way working for Israel among other countries because to me to be given such a prestigious honour as Maxwell was signifies that he did something in return for that privilege. Not everyone is going to have the prime minister at their funeral reading a eulogy about them which I will touch on later.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that Mossad killed him because Israel refused him a loan and he threatened to retaliate. Which there is some evidence to support and back up this as some have put it fanciful claim. I will go into these later on in this podcast.
Maxwell was an enormous figure in British national life. Apart from Mirror Group Newspapers and the New York Daily News, his many businesses included Oxford United and Derby County football clubs. He rose from impoverishment as a Czechoslovakian refugee to become a decorated war hero, a businessman, a Labour MP and then a media mogul, amassing private jets, helicopters and Rolls-Royces en route.
Maxwell was a very successful businessman at least publicly he seemed this way. However as we are about to get into looks can be very deceiving.
In July 1984, Maxwell acquired Mirror Group Newspapers, the publisher of six British newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, from Reed International plc. for £113 million. Which in todays money amounts to a staggering £448,792,446.85. almost half a billion dollars. This led to the famous media war between Maxwell and Murdoch, the proprietor of the News of the World and The Sun. how he bought the newspaper became controversial when it transpired that he was using his own company’s pension funds as collateral but again we will touch on that a little later.
Mirror Group Newspapers (formerly Trinity Mirror, now part of Reach plc), published the Daily Mirror, a pro-Labour tabloid; Sunday Mirror; Sunday People; Scottish Sunday Mail and Scottish Daily Record. At a press conference to publicise his acquisition, Maxwell said his editors would be "free to produce the news without interference".
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". However Haines quickly came under Maxwell's influence and later wrote his authorised biography.
In June 1985 Maxwell announced a takeover of Clive Sinclair's ailing home computer company, Sinclair Research, through Hollis Brothers, a Pergamon subsidiary. The deal was aborted in August 1985.
In 1987 Maxwell purchased part of IPC Media to create Fleetway Publications. The 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. 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.
By 1988 Maxwell's various companies owned, in addition to the Mirror titles and Pergamon Press, Nimbus Records, 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. Maxwell purchased Macmillan Publishers, the American firm, for $2.6 billion in 1988.
In the same year, he launched an ambitious new project, a transnational newspaper called The European. In 1991 Maxwell was forced to sell Pergamon and Maxwell Directories to Elsevier for £440 million to cover his debts; 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.
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.
A bugged version of the intelligence spy software PROMIS was sold in the mid-1980s for Soviet government use, with Robert Maxwell as a conduit. Which means that Maxwell had a hand in all sorts dodgy deals and under the counter shady shenanigans.
Reason I say that is because this same software was the same software that Danny Casalaro was investigating shortly before his death.
Maxwell also faced some harsh discrimination against him. At the beginning of 1969, it emerged that Maxwell's attempt to buy the tabloid newspaper News of the World had failed. 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. 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". The paper was later purchased by Australian tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who later that year acquired The Sun, which had also previously interested Maxwell.
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",the latter nickname having originally been devised by Prime Minister Harold Wilson[45] (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.
Robert Maxwell however great he made himself out to look in the public area gained quite a reputation as being a bombastic bully who was ruthless not only in the business world but also to his children. Ian and Kevin, like all the Maxwell children, were regularly bullied by a father who thought nothing of humiliating them in public (although Ghislaine, apparently, didn’t get it quite as bad).
There were many witnesses to his treatment of his immediate family none of them had very nice things to say about him. for instance, Pandora, who reportedly refers to her former father-in-law as the “fat fraudster”, has spoken of the corporal punishment meted out to Kevin as a child.
Greenslade witnessed Maxwell’s public admonishments of Ian.
And lastly, In her autobiography, Betty, who died aged 92 in 2013, described Maxwell as bullying, unfaithful and frequently absent.
greenslade does not have fond memories of his time with Maxwell, from 1989 to early 1991. Their first meeting, before he was hired, was at a dinner at a London casino. “He behaved atrociously, sweeping all the cutlery and crockery from the table, saying it was badly laid out.”
He would sack people while Greenslade was away, play mind games, Bullied his staff. He used to urinate off the top of the Mirror building and was known to leave the door open when using his office toilet.
Staff often witnessed him trying to impress important visitors by picking up the phone and growling: “Get me the White House. Get me No 10.” The switchboard would ring back three minutes later and he would turn his back, pretending he was involved in a conversation.
Once, Greenslade recalls, at a charity performance, Maxwell went on stage to lecture a prima ballerina on how to do a movement.
Greens lade was quoted as saying “That was the nature of the beast. What you have here is a kind of sociopathic, possibly borderline psychopathic, character.” Maxwell wasn’t the nice guy that he portrayed himself to be in-front of the cameras.
Maxwell had also been involved in other close scrapes that he had managed to get himself out of.
In 1954, his publishing warehouse company Simpkin Marshall was declared insolvent.
Then,In 1969, Maxwell lost control of Pergamon and was ejected from the board and in 1971, he was humiliated by a Board of Trade inquiry investigating a takeover bid at his publishing company Pergamon Press which declared him unfit to run a public company.
Their exact quote was that Maxwell was “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's links with Eastern European totalitarian regimes resulted in several biographies of those countries' leaders, with interviews conducted by Maxwell, for which he received much derision. 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?"
Tragedy also struck his family. Of his and Betty’s nine children, their first-born, Michael, died aged 23, after several years in a coma following a car crash, and a daughter, Karine, died of leukaemia aged three. With the exception of Ghislaine, the surviving children lead lives away from the cameras.
Maxwell had a very dark side to him that started people spreading all these sinister rumours about his mysterious death. The most sinister one was that Maxwell was suspected as being the person who tipped off the Mossad about the location of Mordechai Vanunu.
The biggest proponent of this rumour and allegation was Ari Ben-Menashe who claimed that Robert Maxwell, the owner of Mirror Group newspapers in the United Kingdom, was a Mossad agent and that Maxwell had tipped off the Israeli embassy in 1986 about the Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu after Vanunu and a friend approached the Sunday Mirror and The Sunday Times in London with a story about Israel's nuclear capability. Vanunu was subsequently lured by Mossad from London to Rome, drugged with a paralysing agent, kidnapped, returned to Israel, labeled a traitor and sentenced behind closed doors to 18 years in jail. He had harsh conditions placed upon the most severe being he cannot leave Israel.
According to Ben-Menashe, the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nicholas Davies, also worked for the Mossad and was involved in the Vanunu affair. However No British newspaper would publish the Maxwell allegations because of his litigiousness reputation.
A further hint of Maxwell's service to Israel 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. According to Loftus and Aarons, 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.
The 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 Soviet KGB, and to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence services attended Maxwell's funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogised him and stated: "He has done more for Israel than can today be told.”
That statement alone to me which I find to be a bit tongue and cheek proves in my mind beyond any doubt that he had links with Israel and that he did them favours because otherwise why would a former Mossad agent and six former serving heads attend his funeral?
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's story was ignored at first, but eventually journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker 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.
My understand was the Hersh faced harsh criticisms for statements he made in his book in relation to Robert Maxwell being a Mossad agent and being involved in any shady dealings with Israel, and was ordered to prove what he was saying or shut up about it and Hersh shot back publicly that he could prove everything in his book and would gladly prove what he had stated in the book.
My understand was the Hersh faced harsh criticisms for statements he made in his book in relation to Robert Maxwell being a Mossad agent and being involved in any shady dealings with Israel, and was ordered to prove what he was saying or shut up about it and Hersh shot back publicly that he could prove everything in his book and would gladly prove what he had stated in the book.
On 21 October 1991, Labour MP George Galloway and Conservative MP Rupert Allason (also known as espionage author Nigel West) agreed to raise the issue in the House of Commons under parliamentary privilege protection, which in turn allowed British newspapers to report events without fear of libel suits. Which is how they were Able to report this story without Maxwell being Able to do anything about it legally.
I won’t quote chapter and verse as I don’t know it but my understanding of parliamentary privilege is that you can say anything about anyone even if the accusations you level at them haven’t been found to be true or there isn’t any hard facts and only rumours and hearsay and that person cannot sue you for defamation or charge that person criminally.
Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention" but these allegation did cause a problem for Maxwell as Davies was now becoming a real problem because of the spotlight that all this drama was putting on both Maxwell and Davies something they could both have done without so they had a massive falling out over this and Maxwell sacked Davies.
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”.
There is another fact that is also interesting about Robert Maxwell. Six months before he died the Metropolitan Police Force had begun an investigation into allegations that Maxwell was a war criminal.
In a note he wrote to his then wife Betty he described in detail how he had In March 1945 received the disturbing news that his mother and sister had been executed as "hostages" by the Nazis in occupied Czechoslovakia. he wrote on receiving the news: "As you can well imagine, I am not taking any prisoners, and, whatever home my men occupy, before I leave I order it to be destroyed."
A month later, his platoon was involved in mopping up resistance from the German defenders. On 2 April, Maxwell ordered his men to fire mortars at a German village. He wrote to Betty: "A few minutes later, I saw them running out of the houses and we started firing at each other. I got two of them, and I ordered the mortars to shell the village for a few minutes."
It proved to be a very effective tactic that led to the surrender of the remaining Germans and inspired Maxwell to try it once more when he moved towards a nearby town.
so I sent one of the Germans to fetch the mayor of the town," he told his wife. "In half an hour's time, he turned up and I told him that he had to go to tell the Germans to surrender and hang the white flag otherwise the town will be destroyed. One hour later, he came back saying that the soldiers will surrender and the white flag was put up so we marched off, but as soon as we marched off a German tank opened fire on us. Luckily he missed so I shot the mayor and withdrew."
Maxwell's death triggered a flood of instability for his publishing empire, with banks frantically calling in their massive loans.
Despite the efforts of his sons Kevin and Ian, the Maxwell companies soon collapsed. It emerged that, without adequate prior authorisation, 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.
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 half of their company pension entitlement.
The Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992.
I won’t quote chapter and verse as I don’t know it but my understanding of parliamentary privilege is that you can say anything about anyone even if the accusations you level at them haven’t been found to be true or there isn’t any hard facts and only rumours and hearsay and that person cannot sue you for defamation or charge that person criminally.
Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention" but these allegation did cause a problem for Maxwell as Davies was now becoming a real problem because of the spotlight that all this drama was putting on both Maxwell and Davies something they could both have done without so they had a massive falling out over this and Maxwell sacked Davies.
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”.
There is another fact that is also interesting about Robert Maxwell. Six months before he died the Metropolitan Police Force had begun an investigation into allegations that Maxwell was a war criminal.
In a note he wrote to his then wife Betty he described in detail how he had In March 1945 received the disturbing news that his mother and sister had been executed as "hostages" by the Nazis in occupied Czechoslovakia. he wrote on receiving the news: "As you can well imagine, I am not taking any prisoners, and, whatever home my men occupy, before I leave I order it to be destroyed."
A month later, his platoon was involved in mopping up resistance from the German defenders. On 2 April, Maxwell ordered his men to fire mortars at a German village. He wrote to Betty: "A few minutes later, I saw them running out of the houses and we started firing at each other. I got two of them, and I ordered the mortars to shell the village for a few minutes."
It proved to be a very effective tactic that led to the surrender of the remaining Germans and inspired Maxwell to try it once more when he moved towards a nearby town.
so I sent one of the Germans to fetch the mayor of the town," he told his wife. "In half an hour's time, he turned up and I told him that he had to go to tell the Germans to surrender and hang the white flag otherwise the town will be destroyed. One hour later, he came back saying that the soldiers will surrender and the white flag was put up so we marched off, but as soon as we marched off a German tank opened fire on us. Luckily he missed so I shot the mayor and withdrew."
Maxwell's death triggered a flood of instability for his publishing empire, with banks frantically calling in their massive loans.
Despite the efforts of his sons Kevin and Ian, the Maxwell companies soon collapsed. It emerged that, without adequate prior authorisation, 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.
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 half of their company pension entitlement.
The Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992.
his business empire was on the brink of collapse. Without authority, he used hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies' pension funds to finance his corporate debt, his frantic takeovers and his lavish lifestyle.
a £460m hole was discovered in the pension funds of his companies. A borrower of unimaginable scale, he had illegally raided the funds to prop up his empire, which was on the brink of collapse. Headlines such as The Man Who Saved the Mirror were swiftly replaced by Maxwell: The Robber. Its like stealing someones car tires and propping it up on bricks to save your own car also propped up on bricks. A rob Peter to pay Paul style scenario
Maxwell had taken two loans from the bank Goldman Sachs, one for £20m and one for £30m, and had failed to repay them, the Sunday Times reported.
George had been informed the bank was to start selling Mirror Group and MCC shares it held as collateral, and Maxwell had been summoned. The news of the shares sale broke on 5 November, just hours before Maxwell’s naked body was found.
A brief audit showed that under Maxwell’s stewardship the Daily Mirror’s circulation had fallen from 3.54 million to 2.87 million and its reputation as a trustworthy, crusading newspaper had been trashed. Overall, Mirror Group’s three main titles were down 2.4 million copies on their average monthly sales.
Maxwell had changed the editors of his three main titles no fewer than 16 times in seven years, thrashing around for some non-existent circulation-boosting formula and, with one exception, allowing no one time to settle into the job before replacing them. But this was no time for inconvenient truths. Richard Stott, the one exception
The investigation really picked up speed after Maxwell had died and his pension fund scheme had been uncovered.
a £460m hole was discovered in the pension funds of his companies. A borrower of unimaginable scale, he had illegally raided the funds to prop up his empire, which was on the brink of collapse. Headlines such as The Man Who Saved the Mirror were swiftly replaced by Maxwell: The Robber. Its like stealing someones car tires and propping it up on bricks to save your own car also propped up on bricks. A rob Peter to pay Paul style scenario
Maxwell had taken two loans from the bank Goldman Sachs, one for £20m and one for £30m, and had failed to repay them, the Sunday Times reported.
George had been informed the bank was to start selling Mirror Group and MCC shares it held as collateral, and Maxwell had been summoned. The news of the shares sale broke on 5 November, just hours before Maxwell’s naked body was found.
A brief audit showed that under Maxwell’s stewardship the Daily Mirror’s circulation had fallen from 3.54 million to 2.87 million and its reputation as a trustworthy, crusading newspaper had been trashed. Overall, Mirror Group’s three main titles were down 2.4 million copies on their average monthly sales.
Maxwell had changed the editors of his three main titles no fewer than 16 times in seven years, thrashing around for some non-existent circulation-boosting formula and, with one exception, allowing no one time to settle into the job before replacing them. But this was no time for inconvenient truths. Richard Stott, the one exception
The investigation really picked up speed after Maxwell had died and his pension fund scheme had been uncovered.
The investigation into Robert Maxwell’s misdeeds became a mini-industry. By September, 1992 nine major firms of accountants, 22 law firms, five investment bankers and a firm of brokers were involved. The Serious Fraud Office had more than 40 people working on the case. Up to £60 million was paid in fees to lawyers and accountants. “This is the biggest thing since Lloyd’s,” one of the solicitors involved in the case was quoted as saying. “We’ve made so much money that we’ve voted Robert Maxwell ‘Businessman of the Year’.”
The Government set up the Maxwell Pensioners Trust Fund to retrieve money from financial institutions who had taken pension fund assets as collateral and wished to avoid court action. Sir John Cuckney, the government-appointed arbiter, recovered most of the missing £440 million – £276 million in out-of-court settlements and the government finally agreed a payout of £100 million – but the negotiations took three years and some of Maxwell’s non-MGN employees died without receiving a penny of their pensions. The ultimate insult to the pensioners was the appointment of two of Maxwell’s non-executive directors, Clark and Clements, as chairman and deputy chairman of MGN. Clark was 73 before he finally departed; Clements a little younger.
5 November 1991
The beginning of the end for Robert Maxwell began with another little wrinkle that has been looked into by many people.
The Government set up the Maxwell Pensioners Trust Fund to retrieve money from financial institutions who had taken pension fund assets as collateral and wished to avoid court action. Sir John Cuckney, the government-appointed arbiter, recovered most of the missing £440 million – £276 million in out-of-court settlements and the government finally agreed a payout of £100 million – but the negotiations took three years and some of Maxwell’s non-MGN employees died without receiving a penny of their pensions. The ultimate insult to the pensioners was the appointment of two of Maxwell’s non-executive directors, Clark and Clements, as chairman and deputy chairman of MGN. Clark was 73 before he finally departed; Clements a little younger.
5 November 1991
The beginning of the end for Robert Maxwell began with another little wrinkle that has been looked into by many people.
Nigal West then a sitting MP Member for parliament claimed that he had received from as he quoted it “the best possible source” a series of documents that indicated that Davis was selling arms to the shrilakin government with the full knowledge and approval of Robert Maxwell and that this was purely a money making exercise.
What makes this even more damning was that at the time there was an arm embargo which meant that no weapons could legally be sold to shirlanka. Which meant that by selling weapons to shirlanka Robert Maxwell was illegally selling weapons to a foreign country. With the kind of pull and power he had at that time as some have put it. It would have been easy for him to open doors to all sorts of places and get his hands on anything he wanted.
What makes this even more damning was that at the time there was an arm embargo which meant that no weapons could legally be sold to shirlanka. Which meant that by selling weapons to shirlanka Robert Maxwell was illegally selling weapons to a foreign country. With the kind of pull and power he had at that time as some have put it. It would have been easy for him to open doors to all sorts of places and get his hands on anything he wanted.
Nigal west was even again quoted as saying at the height of his power Robert Maxwell appeared to be the type of guy who could do absolutely anything he wanted. Or at least he was perceived to be all to do anything he wanted.
What makes his claims intriguing is the fact that British reporters have found witnesses linking Ben Menashe and Nicholas Davies to, at the very least, deals.
Ben-Menashe’s story is that he and Davies teamed up in 1983 to form a company called Ora Ltd, operating from the south London homes of Davies, first in Streatham and later in the Old Kent Road, which began to promote arms shipments to Iran on behalf of the Israeli ministry of defence.
This has been denied by all Ben-Menashe’s alleged contacts in Israel and by Davies — who insists that Ben-Menashe was only a friend who used his address for business correspondence.
Nor can it be properly verified from documents supplied by Ben-Menashe and there is no trace of a company called Ora either in the British Isles or in Telaviv where it operated from.
However one of Britain’s biggest arms brokers revealed last week that he discussed the purchase of Kalashnikov rifles with Davies six years ago.
John Knight, an international businessman and arms supplier, who has traded legally in arms for more than 10 years, said Davies told him he was acting with Ben-Menashe.
What makes his claims intriguing is the fact that British reporters have found witnesses linking Ben Menashe and Nicholas Davies to, at the very least, deals.
Ben-Menashe’s story is that he and Davies teamed up in 1983 to form a company called Ora Ltd, operating from the south London homes of Davies, first in Streatham and later in the Old Kent Road, which began to promote arms shipments to Iran on behalf of the Israeli ministry of defence.
This has been denied by all Ben-Menashe’s alleged contacts in Israel and by Davies — who insists that Ben-Menashe was only a friend who used his address for business correspondence.
Nor can it be properly verified from documents supplied by Ben-Menashe and there is no trace of a company called Ora either in the British Isles or in Telaviv where it operated from.
However one of Britain’s biggest arms brokers revealed last week that he discussed the purchase of Kalashnikov rifles with Davies six years ago.
John Knight, an international businessman and arms supplier, who has traded legally in arms for more than 10 years, said Davies told him he was acting with Ben-Menashe.
Knight said he had shown Davies spare parts for Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles which Davies said were for an American buyer.
Davies also put Knight in touch with Ben Menashe with whom Knight discussed the sale of mortars and shells, anti-personnel mines and ammunition. Knight said he believed the final customer for the 200 ton consignment was the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army.
He told Davies and Ben-Menashe that he would deal with them if he had the necessary legal papers, and none of the deals went ahead.
These discussions took place in early 1985, shortly before Davies went to Ohio in the United States to visit a would be arms deal go between, who says they were introduced by Ben-Menashe.
Another would be arms dealer by the name of Kaufman stated that in 1984 he met Ben-Menashe while visiting Israel. Back home again, Kaufman says, he got into conversation with two local business men – the Johnson brothers – about the chances of getting hold of military items that they wanted to supply to the Nigerian army.
Kaufman contacted Ben Menashe, who came almost immediately to visit him in Ohio and to discuss the deal with the Johnson brothers. Ben- Menashe said he would send his partner, Nick Davies, from London to conclude the deal and asked Kaufman to meet Davies and try to clinch the deal But it never went through.
“There was nothing under the table about this. It was all very legal,” he said, adding that Davies never mentioned he was a journalist.
Personally I find it hard to believe that no documents existed or that ben-Meneshe made this whole thing up for a coupe of reasons. first, Ben-Menashe later posted seven documents relating to sales of arms by Davies, sometimes signing himself as Davis. Ben-Menashe also stated Davies was a "major player" in the arms sales to Iran and made more than $1.5 million on one deal.
So if Davies wasn’t involved then there should't be any paperwork with his name on it linked with the sales of arms, and there is, seven of them to be exact. Now I know that people will say well anyone can forge and fake documents it has been done before and I agree but I don’t see that in this case. Although I am open to the idea.
The second is that Davies' former wife, Janet Fielding, confirmed that Davies was selling arms in partnership with Ben-Menashe. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, she stated "Nick would try to tell me stuff [about the arms sales] and I said I didn't want to know. I left him because of it." She also stated that she was aware that his arms sales partner Ben-Menashe was an Israeli intelligence operative. This puts a real dent in Davies and others who says that he was never in the arms trade.
Davies also put Knight in touch with Ben Menashe with whom Knight discussed the sale of mortars and shells, anti-personnel mines and ammunition. Knight said he believed the final customer for the 200 ton consignment was the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army.
He told Davies and Ben-Menashe that he would deal with them if he had the necessary legal papers, and none of the deals went ahead.
These discussions took place in early 1985, shortly before Davies went to Ohio in the United States to visit a would be arms deal go between, who says they were introduced by Ben-Menashe.
Another would be arms dealer by the name of Kaufman stated that in 1984 he met Ben-Menashe while visiting Israel. Back home again, Kaufman says, he got into conversation with two local business men – the Johnson brothers – about the chances of getting hold of military items that they wanted to supply to the Nigerian army.
Kaufman contacted Ben Menashe, who came almost immediately to visit him in Ohio and to discuss the deal with the Johnson brothers. Ben- Menashe said he would send his partner, Nick Davies, from London to conclude the deal and asked Kaufman to meet Davies and try to clinch the deal But it never went through.
“There was nothing under the table about this. It was all very legal,” he said, adding that Davies never mentioned he was a journalist.
Personally I find it hard to believe that no documents existed or that ben-Meneshe made this whole thing up for a coupe of reasons. first, Ben-Menashe later posted seven documents relating to sales of arms by Davies, sometimes signing himself as Davis. Ben-Menashe also stated Davies was a "major player" in the arms sales to Iran and made more than $1.5 million on one deal.
So if Davies wasn’t involved then there should't be any paperwork with his name on it linked with the sales of arms, and there is, seven of them to be exact. Now I know that people will say well anyone can forge and fake documents it has been done before and I agree but I don’t see that in this case. Although I am open to the idea.
The second is that Davies' former wife, Janet Fielding, confirmed that Davies was selling arms in partnership with Ben-Menashe. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, she stated "Nick would try to tell me stuff [about the arms sales] and I said I didn't want to know. I left him because of it." She also stated that she was aware that his arms sales partner Ben-Menashe was an Israeli intelligence operative. This puts a real dent in Davies and others who says that he was never in the arms trade.
Robert Maxwell who was known for going after anyone who printed anything negative about him plastered Nigel west’s face on the front page of his newspaper denouncing him as being part of a dirty tricks campaign against him when that wasn’t what Nigel was doing.
Davies was named by Ari Ben-Menashe as his business partner in Profits of War, in relation to Iran–Contra and the sale of PROMIS, the first computer spyware. The arrangement was also noted in the book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul by Gordon Thomas.
Maxwell had up until this point dodged a lot of bullets but unlike before these allegations stuck and as always people don’t like being caught up in controversy. The shares for his newspaper collapsed and as he had used his pension fund as collegial he didn’t have enough money to pay back the loans he was short about $200 million. It has been alleged that this is when his Israeli ties came into play.
The prime minister at the time was a guy by the name of Yitzhak Shamir who had been a high ranking member of Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Zionist paramilitary group that opposed British control of Palestine this group was also listed as a terrorist organisation because of their bombing campaign most notably the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. After being with this group and moving on In the first years of Israel's independence, Shamir managed several commercial enterprises.
In 1955, he joined the Mossad, serving until 1965. During his Mossad career, he directed Operation Damocles, the assassinations of German rocket scientists working on the Egyptian missile programme.
He ran a unit that placed agents in hostile countries, created the Mossad's division for planning and served on its General Staff.
Shamir resigned from the Mossad in protest over the treatment of Mossad Director-General Isser Harel, who had been compelled to resign after Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered an end to Operation Damocles.
This wasn’t the type of guy you either wanted to piss of try and blackmail or get on the bad side of. Sadly Robert Maxwell it is rumoured to have tried to use his connections with isreal to get the money he need to save his company and pay back those he had borrowed money from.
Given his propensity for treating people and how he throws tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. When they refused him the money Robert Maxwell is said to have threatened the prime minister by saying he would release secrets about Israel if he didn’t get the money.
This rumour then fuelled speculation that the Israeli Mossad put together a hit team to take out the loud mouthed Robert Maxwell. And there is some evidence to back up this claim.
No one actually saw what happened to Robert Maxwell on the boat although there are those out there who claim they spoke to those on board including the captain who claim no foul play happened. The thing is no one even knew he was missing until the next morning when it was found that he had disappeared from the boat.
Davies was named by Ari Ben-Menashe as his business partner in Profits of War, in relation to Iran–Contra and the sale of PROMIS, the first computer spyware. The arrangement was also noted in the book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul by Gordon Thomas.
Maxwell had up until this point dodged a lot of bullets but unlike before these allegations stuck and as always people don’t like being caught up in controversy. The shares for his newspaper collapsed and as he had used his pension fund as collegial he didn’t have enough money to pay back the loans he was short about $200 million. It has been alleged that this is when his Israeli ties came into play.
The prime minister at the time was a guy by the name of Yitzhak Shamir who had been a high ranking member of Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Zionist paramilitary group that opposed British control of Palestine this group was also listed as a terrorist organisation because of their bombing campaign most notably the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. After being with this group and moving on In the first years of Israel's independence, Shamir managed several commercial enterprises.
In 1955, he joined the Mossad, serving until 1965. During his Mossad career, he directed Operation Damocles, the assassinations of German rocket scientists working on the Egyptian missile programme.
He ran a unit that placed agents in hostile countries, created the Mossad's division for planning and served on its General Staff.
Shamir resigned from the Mossad in protest over the treatment of Mossad Director-General Isser Harel, who had been compelled to resign after Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered an end to Operation Damocles.
This wasn’t the type of guy you either wanted to piss of try and blackmail or get on the bad side of. Sadly Robert Maxwell it is rumoured to have tried to use his connections with isreal to get the money he need to save his company and pay back those he had borrowed money from.
Given his propensity for treating people and how he throws tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. When they refused him the money Robert Maxwell is said to have threatened the prime minister by saying he would release secrets about Israel if he didn’t get the money.
This rumour then fuelled speculation that the Israeli Mossad put together a hit team to take out the loud mouthed Robert Maxwell. And there is some evidence to back up this claim.
No one actually saw what happened to Robert Maxwell on the boat although there are those out there who claim they spoke to those on board including the captain who claim no foul play happened. The thing is no one even knew he was missing until the next morning when it was found that he had disappeared from the boat.
It has been said that around 4am Maxwell called asking for some coffee but this was never confirmed he was found missing in the early hours of the morning on the 5 of November 1991.
The theory that sits most with me is that the Mossad dressed up some agents as boat crew who were already on the boat when Maxwell arrived then when he was alone they injected him with a strong sedative and threw his body overboard.
This would have been the easier way to get rid of him because he had bad health problems around this times including heart and lung problems mix that with a strong sedative and not being able to move and the panic that must have gone through Maxwell when he realised what was happening to him and not being able to swim or breath left him to drown.
It was also well known that he liked to piss naked off the side of the boat into the sea.this way him being found in sea with his conditions and people knowing how he likes to piss over the sides of the boat makes it look like either a suicide attempt because of what is happening to his company or it was an accident.
He also had an abrasion on his arm which could have been from someone throwing him over and his arm brushing up against the wire railing as he was being pushed over it.
the crew on the boat that night were never questioned and they subsequently disappeared. the Spanish police also showed no interest in detaining and questioning them or finding out where they went. Which to me raises some interesting questions by itself and leads me more to the hit squad rumour than any other theory.
The other point is I’m not aware if they did any kind of toxicology examination on his body to test for any kind of drugs or other liquids in his body. To my knowledge they didn’t as they assumed it was an accidental drowning. So we may never really know how exactly he died whether it was as they say really an accident or something far more sinister.
Margaret thatcher ex British prime minister also known as “the iron lady” was quoted by Nigel west saying saying that she thought Robert Maxwell had been bumped off by the Mossad but she didn’t say why she thought this or how it may have been carried out only that she thought this was what happened.
I just don’t see Robert Maxwell killing himself. Maxwell strikes me as the kind of guy who thumbed his nose at society in general and had such a narcissistic view of himself and that he was untouchable. Killing himself would have amounted to him admitting defeat and I don’t see him as someone who would surrender without a fight much less kill himself because of losing.
Maxwell’s body was found in the Atlantic, floating face up, eyes wide open, 28 miles off Gran Canaria and 100 miles east of Tenerife.
There are however those who believe that there was no foul play involved and that nobody murdered him. But the evidence doesn’t support theirs claims entirely.
This would have been the easier way to get rid of him because he had bad health problems around this times including heart and lung problems mix that with a strong sedative and not being able to move and the panic that must have gone through Maxwell when he realised what was happening to him and not being able to swim or breath left him to drown.
It was also well known that he liked to piss naked off the side of the boat into the sea.this way him being found in sea with his conditions and people knowing how he likes to piss over the sides of the boat makes it look like either a suicide attempt because of what is happening to his company or it was an accident.
He also had an abrasion on his arm which could have been from someone throwing him over and his arm brushing up against the wire railing as he was being pushed over it.
the crew on the boat that night were never questioned and they subsequently disappeared. the Spanish police also showed no interest in detaining and questioning them or finding out where they went. Which to me raises some interesting questions by itself and leads me more to the hit squad rumour than any other theory.
The other point is I’m not aware if they did any kind of toxicology examination on his body to test for any kind of drugs or other liquids in his body. To my knowledge they didn’t as they assumed it was an accidental drowning. So we may never really know how exactly he died whether it was as they say really an accident or something far more sinister.
Margaret thatcher ex British prime minister also known as “the iron lady” was quoted by Nigel west saying saying that she thought Robert Maxwell had been bumped off by the Mossad but she didn’t say why she thought this or how it may have been carried out only that she thought this was what happened.
I just don’t see Robert Maxwell killing himself. Maxwell strikes me as the kind of guy who thumbed his nose at society in general and had such a narcissistic view of himself and that he was untouchable. Killing himself would have amounted to him admitting defeat and I don’t see him as someone who would surrender without a fight much less kill himself because of losing.
Maxwell’s body was found in the Atlantic, floating face up, eyes wide open, 28 miles off Gran Canaria and 100 miles east of Tenerife.
There are however those who believe that there was no foul play involved and that nobody murdered him. But the evidence doesn’t support theirs claims entirely.
An inquest into his death failed to answer any of the key questions. The medical evidence was equivocal. Three pathologists who performed post-mortem examinations failed to agree about the circumstances of his death. One concluded he died of a heart attack, another said he suffered a heart attack and drowned while a third dismissed the heart condition as a cause of death saying Maxwell had fallen into the sea and drowned.
Other interesting piece of information about this process that comes from the late conspiracy theorist Jim keiths book the octopus which tells the story about the death of Danny casaloro who investigated the whole PROMIS affair, stated that one of the forensic specialists who worked on maxwells body later noted that there was a small perforation under maxwells left ear which could have been the result of him having bee injected with something. The odd part about this is I have only ever seen this mentioned in that book and not anywhere else. One would think this would have been looked into.
Ken Lennox, then the Mirror’s senior photographer, who saw the publisher’s naked corpse shortly after it was pulled from the sea, is convinced: it was an accident.
“He used to get up at night and pee over the stern of the ship. Everybody knew this. And he weighed about 22 stone [140kg] at this time. The railings were wire. So I think he lost his balance, because he was very top-heavy,” Lennox says. “He was Teflon man. I don’t think he committed suicide.”
another version of what happened was that Robert Maxwell who was 68 at the time of his death, in poor health, weighing 22 stone (140kg) and with a weak heart and lungs. Shortly before dawn, he left his cabin and went to the rear of the boat. His door was bolted from the outside. He fell forward over a low rail and dangled over the water 10ft below. He clung on with his weaker left arm, tearing the muscles on that side of his body.
Greenslade also dismisses the murder theory. Having interviewed the captain and crew of the Lady Ghislaine in depth, he has concluded that no one could have got aboard on that fateful night. Which I don’t agree with as no one saw him during the hours he is meant to have toppled over the side of the boat so no-one can say for sure that someone didn’t give him a helping hand over the side of the boat.
So what happened to the major players in this case?
Mordechai Vanunu was labeled a traitor and jailed for 18 years. He was subsequently released with extremely strict conditions most notably of which is that he cannot talk to the media and cannot leave Israel.
Robert maxwells sons were left to pick up the pieces of their fathers deceit and lies and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992 Kevin became the biggest bankruptcy case in Britain at the time to the tune of $400m pounds. It also came out that the serious fraud office had spent money to the tune of $13.6 million pounds tracing money through maxwells web of over 400 companies the result of which led to Kevin being charged with fraud against the pensioners. Kevin was also charged with conspiring with his father to use other assets and shares in an insreali company scitex corporation to illegally raise money for other Maxwell companies. They were however successful in defending themselves against the charges and were acquitted of the charge.
Ghislaine maxwell followed in her fathers footsteps and got mixed up with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein whose death in 2016 right as he was on the verge of exposing everyone he knew to be involved in his pedophile ring and was murdered in his jail cell under what can only be described as extremely suspicious circumstances which was ruled as a “suicide”. She was charged with being involved in his network but has subsequently walked away from the public eye.
Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/09/robert-maxwells-sons-say-tycoon-was-to-meet-boe-the-day-he-died
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/22/the-murky-life-and-death-of-robert-maxwell-and-how-it-shaped-his-daughter-ghislaine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Davies_(journalist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Ben-Menashe
Ken Lennox, then the Mirror’s senior photographer, who saw the publisher’s naked corpse shortly after it was pulled from the sea, is convinced: it was an accident.
“He used to get up at night and pee over the stern of the ship. Everybody knew this. And he weighed about 22 stone [140kg] at this time. The railings were wire. So I think he lost his balance, because he was very top-heavy,” Lennox says. “He was Teflon man. I don’t think he committed suicide.”
another version of what happened was that Robert Maxwell who was 68 at the time of his death, in poor health, weighing 22 stone (140kg) and with a weak heart and lungs. Shortly before dawn, he left his cabin and went to the rear of the boat. His door was bolted from the outside. He fell forward over a low rail and dangled over the water 10ft below. He clung on with his weaker left arm, tearing the muscles on that side of his body.
Greenslade also dismisses the murder theory. Having interviewed the captain and crew of the Lady Ghislaine in depth, he has concluded that no one could have got aboard on that fateful night. Which I don’t agree with as no one saw him during the hours he is meant to have toppled over the side of the boat so no-one can say for sure that someone didn’t give him a helping hand over the side of the boat.
So what happened to the major players in this case?
Mordechai Vanunu was labeled a traitor and jailed for 18 years. He was subsequently released with extremely strict conditions most notably of which is that he cannot talk to the media and cannot leave Israel.
Robert maxwells sons were left to pick up the pieces of their fathers deceit and lies and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992 Kevin became the biggest bankruptcy case in Britain at the time to the tune of $400m pounds. It also came out that the serious fraud office had spent money to the tune of $13.6 million pounds tracing money through maxwells web of over 400 companies the result of which led to Kevin being charged with fraud against the pensioners. Kevin was also charged with conspiring with his father to use other assets and shares in an insreali company scitex corporation to illegally raise money for other Maxwell companies. They were however successful in defending themselves against the charges and were acquitted of the charge.
Ghislaine maxwell followed in her fathers footsteps and got mixed up with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein whose death in 2016 right as he was on the verge of exposing everyone he knew to be involved in his pedophile ring and was murdered in his jail cell under what can only be described as extremely suspicious circumstances which was ruled as a “suicide”. She was charged with being involved in his network but has subsequently walked away from the public eye.
Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/09/robert-maxwells-sons-say-tycoon-was-to-meet-boe-the-day-he-died
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/22/the-murky-life-and-death-of-robert-maxwell-and-how-it-shaped-his-daughter-ghislaine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Davies_(journalist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Ben-Menashe
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