In short
The “Stuff You Should Know” episode “Who was Robert Maxwell?” profiles Robert Maxwell (born Jan Ludwig Hoke, 1923), a Jewish Czechoslovak-born tycoon who reinvented himself as a British soldier/spy, then became a scientific publishing magnate whose business practices allegedly relied on deception and pension-raiding, ending with his 1991 death by falling from his yacht.
Guest backgrounds
No guests are interviewed. Hosts are Josh, Chuck, and Jerry.
Key claims
Maxwell escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia (1939), joined resistance efforts, later served in the British Army and allegedly worked with MI6; he used charm and identity changes to gain access. In publishing, he helped finance shipping 300 tons of scientific books/journals to London and helped reshape publishing incentives. Later, he allegedly raided company assets and pension funds (up to about £500 million), used collateral, and engaged in aggressive expansion. He was rumored to be an Israeli spy; a whistleblower (Mordecai Vanunu) allegedly sold information to Maxwell, who “caught and killed” the story.
Notable examples
Simpkin Marshall collapse; Pergamon Press control loss; rivalry with Rupert Murdoch (Daily Mirror purchase); 1991 fall from yacht Lady Ghislaine; debates over suicide vs accident vs murder.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Complexity of Robert Maxwell
0:45 to 1:12
An overview of Robert Maxwell's life and contradictory nature.
“You ever show up late to the game and your friends have already saved your seat and your drink and even a plate?”
The Complexity of Robert Maxwell
2:04 to 4:02
An overview of Robert Maxwell's life and contradictory nature.
“The Great Man Version of History Edition.”
Childhood and Early Life
4:02 to 5:30
Discussion of Maxwell's impoverished upbringing and family background.
“He was born Jan Ludwig Hoke in 1923 in Solotvino, which was Czechoslovakia at the time.”
Escape from Nazi Germany
5:30 to 6:36
Maxwell's escape from Nazi occupation and his early resistance efforts.
“And for a lot of his adult life, like, I don't know if he denied it, but never came forward as being Jewish, like changing his name and everything.”
Military Service and Valor
6:36 to 9:21
Exploration of Maxwell's military career and controversial actions during WWII.
“but you still needed to keep moving and he was going to help people.”
Business Ventures After the War
9:21 to 14:01
How Maxwell leveraged his post-war experiences into a successful business career.
“You know, but again, the stuff that can be verified is kind of amazing.”
Robert Maxwell's Charm and Intelligence
14:01 to 15:25
Explore the dual nature of Robert Maxwell's personality and his influence on scientific publishing.
“And I think that's what he did with MI6 when he basically was like, hey, having all these German scientific research books is like an asset to us, an intelligence asset, maybe a propaganda tool.”
Maxwell's Business Tactics
18:23 to 25:55
Examine Robert Maxwell's aggressive expansion strategies and financial practices.
“So one of the things about Maxwell was when he got into scientific publishing, he really went like full bore into it.”
Political Maneuvering and Reputation
25:55 to 28:00
Delve into Robert Maxwell's political career and the controversies surrounding him.
“Basically, I didn't want that failing paper anyway.”
Robert Maxwell's Reputation in Parliament
28:00 to 29:08
Explore the mixed reputation of Robert Maxwell and his unusual behaviors.
“There was one rumor that he sold part of the Palace of Westminster's wine cellar to an anonymous buyer for, like, way less than what it was worth.”
Show all 22 chapters
Robert Maxwell's Reputation in Parliament
29:10 to 29:39
Explore the mixed reputation of Robert Maxwell and his unusual behaviors.
“Ever tossed something into your recycling bin and just hoped it would get recycled?”
Introduction to the Max Factor
29:39 to 31:48
Discussion on Robert Maxwell's notorious behavior and character traits.
“Or will you trust the people five miles overseas?”
Maxwell's Family Dynamics and Philosophy
31:48 to 37:55
Insight into Robert Maxwell's relationships with his family and his views on partnerships.
“All right, more promise of talking about the Max Factor, which was not a compliment for this guy.”
The Mysterious Circumstances of Maxwell's Death
37:55 to 42:00
Investigation into the suspicious conditions surrounding Robert Maxwell's death.
“But so he died under shady circumstances.”
Maxwell's Manipulation of Information
42:00 to 43:14
Learn how Robert Maxwell acquired sensitive information and manipulated media narratives.
“that was working with him at one of his papers were Israeli agents.”
The Mysterious Circumstances of Maxwell's Death
43:14 to 44:54
Explore the details and theories surrounding the death of Robert Maxwell.
“So Maxwell was like, I'm not an Israeli spy.”
Was It Suicide, Accident, or Murder?
44:54 to 46:44
Examine the possible explanations for Robert Maxwell's drowning and the evidence supporting each theory.
“which they said was like a normal thing for him to do, and then fell over a low rail.”
Theories of Assassination and Faked Death
46:44 to 48:56
Discuss theories surrounding the possibility of Maxwell being murdered or faking his death.
“But again, that torn arm muscles basically say, no, that's just not what this was.”
Impact of Maxwell's Death on His Family
48:56 to 50:48
Analyze the ramifications of Robert Maxwell's death on his family and their financial situation.
“but he was pretty recognizable, so it would have been difficult for him to start a new life somewhere without, you know, completely changing his face, at least, and his voice.”
Conclusion on Robert Maxwell's Legacy
50:48 to 51:24
Reflect on Robert Maxwell's notoriety and the lingering questions about his life and death.
“Like, her father's death was like, this is, like, his reputation just completely went downhill.”
Conclusion on Robert Maxwell's Legacy
53:37 to 54:08
Reflect on Robert Maxwell's notoriety and the lingering questions about his life and death.
“When you're in do-it-yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need.”
Conclusion on Robert Maxwell's Legacy
54:12 to 55:09
Reflect on Robert Maxwell's notoriety and the lingering questions about his life and death.
“And most of the time, those items don't actually get recycled.”
Transcript
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1:46Josh Clark:Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
1:55Chuck Bryant:Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And this is Stuff You Should Know. The Great Man Version of History Edition. Yeah. Great man, except he's—this is an interesting episode
2:13Josh Clark:because Robert Maxwell was kind of a horrible person. In a lot of ways, he achieved a lot of things. He also did a lot of terrible things. So it was interesting. I didn't know much about this guy at all. And I can't remember if I heard about him because he's the father of Ghislaine Maxwell. Which makes him even worse. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah. I'm not sure where this came from, though, because this one was like a year and a half ago that we requisitioned the article and it had just been gathering dust. And so we dusted it off and now we're going to talk about this jerk. Yeah.
2:53Chuck Bryant:Great man history, by the way, is it's a it's a way of interpreting history through the leaders, political and social military leaders, like the people who make history happen rather than society or individual people. The problem is, is that those great men usually are not great people, like, personally speaking. And this is a really good example. He was revered because he was super rich. But he was also, I have to say, a very interesting person. I think he was a big liar in a lot of ways. But stuff that he claimed that could be proven was still pretty nuts.
3:33Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. I mean, he was just the broadest overview. He was a tycoon. He was a bully. He escaped Nazi Germany's wrath. He was a decorated British soldier. He was a member of parliament. He was also a crook who stole from the pensions of companies he started and a lot of like terrible business dealings. It sounds like it was a pretty awful husband and father at the same time.
4:01Chuck Bryant:Well, there's the episode.
4:04Josh Clark:Well, let's talk about him. He was born Jan Ludwig Hoke in 1923 in Solotvino, which was Czechoslovakia at the time. It's now Ukraine. But he was from a, you know, he was very poor. He was raised very poor, from a big family. His father seems like was a pretty awful guy, too. So, you know, behind every awful person is usually an awful parent or two, you know.
4:32Chuck Bryant:It's intergenerational.
4:33Josh Clark:Yeah, that's the way it generally works.
4:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And that's why I never had kids. Oh, no. So, yeah, he said at one point, I was never young. I never had that privilege. And it was basically because his family was so poverty stricken and his father was such a jerk that he didn't have much of a childhood. But he did remember that he loved his mother like his whole life from childhood on. And he would use her as an example of what his children needed to aspire to, you know, this woman who could handle raising all these kids in these terrible conditions and still, you know, be beloved.
5:13Josh Clark:Sure. I mean, suffered from hunger as a child and had some disordered eating as an adult and that sort of gorging himself on food. And his wife, his later wife, Betty, would say that, you know, she thinks that all came back from the hunger that he had as a child.
5:29Chuck Bryant:Yeah.
5:30Josh Clark:He was Jewish. He was from a Jewish family. And like I mentioned earlier, he managed to escape the, I think kind of the only member of his family to escape the Nazis in March of 1939 when they invaded Czechoslovakia by cutting off his side locks and like getting the heck out of there. And for a lot of his adult life, like, I don't know if he denied it, but never came forward as being Jewish, like changing his name and everything.
6:00Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he was low-key Jewish for a lot of his life until later on when he was talked into, I guess, coming out. I don't know what you would call it in that sense.
6:11Josh Clark:Yeah.
6:11Chuck Bryant:But you said that he escaped the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, and he definitely did, but very quickly turned right around and went back to join the Hungarian underground in Budapest. and he was essentially trying to move people escaping like him further on to safety because Hungary still wasn't, you know, safety. It was better than being in Czechoslovakia, but you still needed to keep moving and he was going to help people. And almost immediately he was captured and held and tortured as a member of the Czech resistance, which is not what you wanted the Nazis to consider you. No.
6:52Josh Clark:Apparently there was going to be no trial at all. And then the French embassy stepped in and because he had a planned execution and arranged what seems to be like a sham of a trial. Sure. And he ended up escaping escaping like on the way to prison. So, you know, again, a lot of this stuff is from his authorized biography and stories he told, some of which was no doubt like embellished, probably. So he seems like one of those guys that would like kind of pump up a story about himself. Yeah. Yeah.
7:27Chuck Bryant:No, agreed. He's definitely that type for sure. But he escaped, like you said, literally with his life. He escaped with his life because he would almost certainly have been executed. And he joined the Foreign Legion in France and they sent him to England because France was overtaken by the Nazis as well. And in England, he basically found a new home. He signed up for the British Army. He was there when Normandy was stormed. And he also displayed like real actual valor, both valor and ruthlessness. Kyle helped us with this. And Kyle really loved to focus on ruthlessness, which in these cases is a synonym for war crimes, cut and dried war crimes.
8:17Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. He really tried to remake himself as a British guy, like pretty successfully. Like I said, he changed his name a couple of times, eventually landing on Ian Robert Maxwell and like taught himself English, apparently would listen to Churchill speeches. So he would get that sort of that grand English accent that Churchill had. Sure. But yeah, he, you know, flat out admitted to he had a real knack for like going undercover and doing like special ops and stuff. but also, like you said, disobeying orders and being pretty ruthless. Like he admitted to his wife in a letter that he executed more than one unarmed German person, including a mayor in Germany.
8:59Chuck Bryant:Yeah, a civilian even. Yeah. Yeah, and again, that's a war crime, and he would later be investigated for it. But they were not able to find anyone who could corroborate that. Any witness said, yes, I saw him shoot that mayor or yes, I saw him shoot those unarmed troops who surrendered. So they had to close the case. So is that a case of him just pumping up his own legend again? Yeah. You know, but again, the stuff that can be verified is kind of amazing. Like he did work for the British intelligence after the war. He ended up being recruited by MI6. It's six, right? Yeah. MI6. he could speak English, German, French, Yiddish, Hungarian, Czech, and Romanian by the end of the war.
9:50Chuck Bryant:So he was extremely valuable post-war while Europe was being divvied up and being rebuilt and people were having to interact with all these other countries. And he'd also changed his identity four times before then, too.
10:05Josh Clark:Yeah, but like you said, he legit achieved in the armed forces. He worked his way up eventually to become a second lieutenant in the Queen's Royal Regiment and had a very apparently daring rescue for a trapped allied platoon in the Netherlands and received a military cross, like a distinguished service military cross. So, again, it's sort of a conundrum with this guy because he did learn all those languages and he was a very valuable person for MI6 and did some like spy work. But there was also rumors over the years that he was, and we'll get into this a little bit more, but like he spied for the Soviet Union or that he spied for Israel.
10:44Josh Clark:And I don't think that anyone knows the real truth behind that stuff.
10:48Chuck Bryant:No, but it is the more you know about him, the easier it is to believe that that's quite possible, you know.
10:55Josh Clark:For sure.
10:56Chuck Bryant:So he made it through the war quite successfully. He was stationed in Berlin, I think, at the end of it. He was interviewing German prisoners of war to get as much intelligence out of them as possible. And so while there, he was also in the chaos of all of this, of Europe being devastated and just beginning to rebuild. There was a lot of money to be made. It's like in that Spike Lee movie, The Inside Man.
11:25Josh Clark:Yeah, I haven't seen that. Oh, my goodness. And that's like one of the better later Spike Lees, I know.
11:30Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it's one of the better, like, just suspense movies, too. It's really well done. Great movie. Please see it. But anyway, in one part, Christopher Plummer says, when there's blood on the street, buy real estate. And that was essentially what Europe was like at this time. And Robert Maxwell was exactly the kind of person to buy real estate when there was blood on the street. So he was making all sorts of money on the side, just taking advantage of the desperation of the people who he was interacting with. And in addition, like other business opportunities came up and improbably, if you ask me, he ended up in the scientific publishing world.
12:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah. And became essentially like a scientific publishing magnate in the coming decades.
12:13Josh Clark:Yeah. So while he was in Berlin, he was working with Der Telegraf. And that paper was owned by Springer Verlag. Two words with a dash in the middle. I think Verlag was a big academic publisher, which is kind of like you mentioned where we were headed with this. He met the publisher, Ferdinand Springer, and he learned that there were like, you know, more than 60 ,000 books and journals like stockpiled in a warehouse. And they had been, you know, like away from public view since 1939, like pre-war. And so his wheels started turning on how he could make some money. And then along with his eventual business partner, this guy named Paul Rosebaud, started a company, I guess bought his way into a company called Butterworth Springer, which was rebranded Pergamon Press.
13:06Josh Clark:And they got a deal with Springer Verlag to get these books, like these scientific textbooks, out into the world. And he got MI6 to finance this deal. Yeah.
13:17Chuck Bryant:Yeah. They basically paid for 300 tons. Yeah, 300 tons of books and journals to be shipped to London so that they could be translated and then published for money, like you said. And they also, he said, I want to buy some shares in the company too. So they gave him 25 ,000 pounds. And I did some back-of-the-envelope work. Oh, boy. You're not going to call it maths, are you? No, I wouldn't even dare. but um that is about 885 000 us dollars today yeah and if you're wondering like well how did
13:55Josh Clark:he get mi6 like why would they invest secretly invest in something like this i think he well you know everything we're about to say the guy take it face value but one thing he was really good at was like he could be very charming he was kind of a jekyll and hyde from what i saw So as awful as he could be, he could also be super charming and like work his way into a room or work his way into a deal. And I think that's what he did with MI6 when he basically was like, hey, having all these German scientific research books is like an asset to us, an intelligence asset, maybe a propaganda tool. And MI6 bought it.
14:31Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Yeah. So we'll put his role in academic publishing to the side, but just suffice to say that the current state of affairs where journals determine what science is conducted and the scientific community as a whole has kind of shied away or moved away from doing its job the way it should be and instead conducting experiments and studies that will get published that are eye-popping. That actually came from Robert Maxwell and the way that he changed the industry.
15:03Josh Clark:Oh, interesting.
15:03Chuck Bryant:There's a really good long-form Guardian article from 2017 called, Is the Staggeringly Profitable Business of Scientific Publishing Bad for Science? And you can guess that the answer is yes. It talks a lot about this and other stuff too, but it's a good article. I'd say go read that if you're interested.
Read the full transcript
15:22Josh Clark:All right. I'll check it out. Should we take a break? Yeah. All right. I'll go read the article right now. We'll be back in, what, 20 minutes or so? Sure. All right. Be right back.
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16:13Chuck Bryant:30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.
16:18Josh Clark:Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas?
16:24Chuck Bryant:This is a story about neighbors turning on each other. And what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.
16:33Josh Clark:We reached for a feeling that exists in this city. But we're not stopping, are we?
16:42Chuck Bryant:I'm Ben Nadeff-Hafri. And for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York City in the 1990s. and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
17:12Chuck Bryant:I'm Munga Shatikula, and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.
17:34Josh Clark:I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration.
17:54Chuck Bryant:And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
18:23Chuck Bryant:So one of the things about Maxwell was when he got into scientific publishing, he really went like full bore into it. And his whole jam with business was like buy one thing and then use it to buy, buy, buy another thing, start another thing. Like basically get into one industry and just mushroom everywhere you can Because the more stuff you have, the more money you can soak up in that industry or that sector, right? So he bought another publisher, Simpkin Marshall. And this is a really good demonstration of his business techniques. He bought it with a loan from a business partner. The business partner came back and was like, hey, how's Simpkin Marshall doing?
19:04Chuck Bryant:And Maxwell was like, I'm not at liberty to say. And the guy found out that the company was severely in debt. And he had borrowed, Maxwell had borrowed a ton of money against the company's credit. And then sold off all the assets and kept the money for himself. And this publishing house, which had been around for more than a century, went under, thanks to Robert Maxwell, raiding it. And it was essentially proto-private equity, like, move that he did. That's what private equity does. Chuck, have you been to Dunkin' Donuts lately?
19:43Josh Clark:No, I don't go there.
19:44Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I don't normally either, but I went and got a coffee, and I walked in, and I was like, God, this place is just, it's like a death march in here. This is awful. Like the employees hated their life. Like stuff was broken. Like a serve yourself machine was there next to the cash register. It was just terrible. And I was like, I'll bet private equity owns this now.
20:06Josh Clark:And sure enough, two years ago, private equity bought.
20:10Chuck Bryant:Yep. They do it. Like anytime you are in, like you work with a business or you like a store or something like that, and it suddenly goes downhill, go online and search that business in private equity. And I guarantee you private equity got involved and it's just running it into the ground because they don't care.
20:26Josh Clark:So he was doing something like this in the 1950s.
20:29Chuck Bryant:Yep.
20:30Josh Clark:Which is crazy. and it seemed like, you know, a lot of times, he was definitely not afraid to burn bridges because apparently he didn't even repay that loan to the guy who loaned him the money for Simpkin Marshall. Right. There was a rag called the Private Eye, or called Private Eye, that called him the Bouncing Czech, as in Czechoslovakian. So he definitely had a reputation of, you know, just doing what he could by hook or crook to get something done and then like walking away and leaving people penniless behind him. That Springer Verlag who got him that first deal, they ended up severing contact with him in 1958.
21:08Josh Clark:Pergamon Press, he lost control of, would eventually take it back. But during a 71 Board of Trade inquiry, they declared he was unfit to run a public company. So his reputation was well known even back then.
21:22Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I mean, that's a big deal when the government says you can't be a CEO. Sorry. Like, the board says you can. We're saying you cannot because you are that untrustworthy.
21:34Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. And later in life, well, not that much later, he would find an enemy, a grave enemy in the 1960s with a guy, an Australian named Rupert Murdoch. So we talked about Murdoch in our episode on the news, on the news cycle. 24-hour cable news. Yeah, 24-hour cable news. So everyone knows who Rupert Murdoch is at Fox News. He and Maxwell were grave enemies. And it seems like Maxwell was pretty much obsessed with trying to outdo him. Like anytime he would go to buy a newspaper, Murdoch seemed to be right there in front of him buying it. And he ended up buying the left wing, Maxwell did, the left wing Daily Mirror just to counter Murdoch's right wing buys.
22:22Josh Clark:Like, by all accounts, Maxwell was never, even though he would eventually be in Parliament as the Labor Party, like, he said that he was conservative, but he wasn't part of the conservative establishment. So he would just be like, all right, I'm part of the Labor Party or I'll buy this left wing newspaper. Yeah.
22:39Chuck Bryant:I mean, it just made sense financially. So, you know, he could be whatever whatever he needed to be, I guess, in that sense. It kind of demonstrates that to me. I was reading about Rupert Murdoch and him, their rivalry, and apparently it was one of those rivalries like where it meant everything to Robert Maxwell. Yeah. And Rupert Murdoch was like, who? Oh, yeah, I remember him, whatever. Yeah. And that just drove Robert Maxwell crazier and crazier and just made him want to, you know, compete with Rupert Murdoch. Like Rupert Murdoch wasn't really competing. and he would just buy paper after paper.
23:19Chuck Bryant:Like, they would be directly competing trying to buy a newspaper, but Murdoch most of the time won. And he said later on that his impression of Robert Maxwell is that he was a total buffoon, really. Like, he was just this boastful guy who wanted to win but would get in his own way in the process of winning. That was kind of what his personality was like. And by kind of, I mean 100%.
23:47Josh Clark:Yeah. Murdoch, they talked about the max factor play on the, what was that, like a makeup or something?
23:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I think there's like a makeup line. Yeah. Max factor.
23:59Josh Clark:But they would use that as not a compliment. Like the max factor wasn't like, hey, this guy's great. He can go in and close deals. It was more like he loses out on deals because of the max factor because no one wants to deal with this guy.
24:11Chuck Bryant:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like people got in bed with him because they had no choice. He had just bought their company. He was now their boss. People didn't get in bed or business, I guess I should probably say, with him because they liked him or they wanted to. They were usually they just found themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to work closely with him.
24:33Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. But he bought the Daily Mirror in 84. He started the London Daily News in 87. he started another paper that was sort of what I understand is like a European USA Today called European in 1990. So he's, you know, he's launching all these newspapers. And then eventually he says, all right, I need to look toward the States and ends up buying Macmillan U.S. in 1988 for$2.6 billion. So much money in 1988. Oh, totally. And something called the Official Aviation Guidance for$750 million.
25:10Chuck Bryant:Which, again, that's a crazy amount of money in 1988. So he was this spending spree, especially in the U.S., where he's trying to take on Murdoch again. I think Murdoch had already bought the New York Post by this time. It was a lot like the USSR being driven to extinction by spending, the U.S. spending, having to keep up with spending. Rupert Murdoch would go do something, and now he was in the United States. So now Robert Maxwell had to do it, and Robert Maxwell had to outdo him, so he started spending money he didn't have and was expanding his empire, and his empire started to lose its foundation.
25:49Chuck Bryant:It started to crumble financially because of him trying to keep up, essentially.
25:55Josh Clark:Yeah, that's a great analogy, actually. In February 91, he bought the New York Daily News, and that's one where Murdoch kind of rubbed it in his face because as soon as Maxwell bought it, he was like, all right, the publisher needs to call Rupert Murdoch and tell him that Robert Maxwell just bought the New York Daily News, and apparently Murdoch laughed at this and said, yeah, thank Bob for the courtesy of that. Basically, I didn't want that failing paper anyway.
26:22Chuck Bryant:Sure. There's one other thing that he very famously lost out on, And we must have talked about him in our episode on Tetris, the wild history of Tetris. Oh, yeah. 2024, I think is how weird people put it. He owned Mirrorsoft at the time. And Mirrorsoft had Tetris in their hands and just through a series of miscommunications and bad deals lost it. And had they had Tetris, who knows what that would be? because they were already a powerhouse in video games, especially in the UK. And if they continued owning Tetris, they might still be around. But because they lost it under Maxwell, it's just another huge black eye on his reputation as a businessman.
27:08Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. So I mentioned politics early on in Parliament and that he was a conservative human in his heart. But because he wasn't part of that establishment, he was like, all right, I'll go to the labor parties. And that's what he did. He became a Labor Party member of parliament from 64 to 70. And he was like, you know, he's one of these politicians kind of say whatever just to just to get in there. And he was like, you know what? I came from a farm laborers background and I was I had no money. So like I'm basically a socialist, even though he was the farthest thing from that in reality.
27:46Chuck Bryant:Yeah.
27:47Josh Clark:And was just they called him the biggest gas bag in the commons. Like, he was not well-liked within the House, the walls of Parliament. Apparently, no one liked working with him. There were a lot of rumors floating around about various improprieties. There was one rumor that he sold part of the Palace of Westminster's wine cellar to an anonymous buyer for, like, way less than what it was worth. I didn't see if that was really true. But the point is, no one liked him in Parliament, apparently.
28:15Chuck Bryant:No, and it's believable. Like, you wouldn't put it past him. That's just his reputation, right?
28:22Josh Clark:Yeah, but, I mean, he won election and re-election.
28:25Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Apparently, right before his election, he was arrested shaving the day before while he was driving 90 miles an hour.
28:33Josh Clark:Shaving while driving? Yeah. An SUI? Yep. Or, no, I guess it would be a DUS?
28:43Chuck Bryant:I guess.
28:44Josh Clark:No, DWS, driving while shaving. Yeah, there you go. God, it took me a while.
28:49Chuck Bryant:Uh, should we take a break and then come back and talk about that max factor? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, we're going to do that, guys.
29:08Josh Clark:This episode's sponsored by Ridwell. Ever tossed something into your recycling bin and just hoped it would get recycled? That's wish cycling. And most of the time, those items don't actually get recycled. Ridwell makes it simple to get it right. Ridwell helps you recycle the things your curbside bin doesn't take, like plastic bags, snack wrappers, pill bottles, and bottle caps. Getting started is easy. Just order a starter kit, fill the bags, send them back for free, and Ridwell takes care of the rest. Start today at ridwell.com.
29:38Chuck Bryant:30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.
29:44Josh Clark:Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas?
29:49Chuck Bryant:This is a story about neighbors turning on each other. And what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.
29:59Josh Clark:We reached for a feeling that exists in this city. But we're not stopping, are we?
30:08Chuck Bryant:I'm Ben Nadeff-Haffrey. And for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York City in the 1990s. and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
30:37Chuck Bryant:I'm Mungish Hatikula, and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.
30:59Josh Clark:I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration.
31:19Chuck Bryant:And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
31:48Josh Clark:All right, more promise of talking about the Max Factor, which was not a compliment for this guy. I mentioned early on that he was a bit of a bully. Apparently, he was well-known for just sort of his atrocious behavior. There was a Daily Mirror editor named Roy Greensdale who said when they were first met at this restaurant, He walked in, Maxwell, and, like, just, like, swept everything off the table, all the cutlery, saying, like, it wasn't laid out correctly. And apparently he had done that more than once. He would bring his kids into work and, like, belittle and lecture the staff, like, to impress his kids.
32:24Josh Clark:He would fire people while they were on vacation. He would leave the door to this bathroom open. Apparently, he would urinate off the top of the building. Just real boorish behavior.
32:40Chuck Bryant:Yeah, at the same time, though, he's like cultivating this English gentleman persona. Shtick, yeah. Which was very much encapsulated by his accent. He didn't sound anything like someone who was born and raised in Czechoslovakia.
32:56Josh Clark:Not at all.
32:57Chuck Bryant:No, he was like, I mean, being elected as a member of parliament, it's pretty good for your reputation. Um, so, like, we know so much about him now and, like, what he did throughout his life. His image now is not what his image was when he was, you know, alive and working and working in parliament and doing all that stuff. I think people who worked closely with him knew what he was like. But I think in general, he was just kind of this, viewed as this larger-than-life personality by the public who knew about him.
33:33Josh Clark:Yeah, I think so. But yeah, he was a blowhard. He would do things like if someone walked into his office, he would say, like, give me the White House on the phone. And then apparently just have like a fake conversation on the telephone to the White House. That's like, that's what insane people do. Yeah. I mean, I only do that if I'm trying to avoid somebody in public. Sure. You even make the dialing sound like beep, boop, boop, boop, beep. I do. I got a call. Sorry. He was not a good father and husband, like I mentioned earlier. He lived in this huge mansion called Headington Hill Hall, which was leased from the Oxford City Council.
34:12Josh Clark:And apparently it was like he would at dinnertime, he would assign his children topics that they had to like impress him with and he would judge them. Apparently there was physical abuse. He cheated on his wife like time and time again. His wife described him as bullying but would also take up for him at times, you know?
34:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah. She set the bar pretty low. She said he was no degenerate monster. Right. He was also famous for he gave her six rules for basically getting along in a lasting partnership. And it depends on how you look at it. You could look at it like he's a domineering bully who was, you know, making his wife adhere to these rules that he was laying down. But if you read all the rules, it's actually, these are actually pretty good sensible rules for maintaining a partnership that if both people honor it, then you've got something good. If it's just one person, then you've got a problem.
35:19Josh Clark:Yeah, I got the impression it was here are your six rules that you need to do to stay married to me.
35:26Chuck Bryant:I wouldn't put it past them.
35:28Josh Clark:Yeah, I mean, we'll go over them real quick. But in the context of this is what you need to do and not this is what I pledge to do for you. Right. Number one, don't nag. I love that's his number one. Number two, don't criticize unduly. Number three, give honest appreciation. Number four, pay little attentions. That's sweet. To me is what he was saying. Number five, be courteous to me. And then number six, have the utmost confidence in yourself and me. Yeah.
36:02Chuck Bryant:I mean, really, if two people come at a relationship like that, observing those six, I guess, rules or guidelines or whatever, I think that's kind of good. But yes, I'm quite sure you're right that he was like, here's what you need to do for me. Yeah, for sure. And he used it against her, too. He said, like, don't nag me about me doing these rules. That's rule number one. That's right. That's right. You don't talk about bike club. He got her with the legal mumbo jumbo.
36:30Josh Clark:He had, you know, quite a few kids. He lost, very sadly, a couple of them. He lost a daughter, Kareem, of leukemia at age three. and they had a son named Michael that died at age 21 after being in a coma after a car crash. It seemed like the little apple of his eye was young Ghislaine. He named his yacht after her, Lady Ghislaine. And even though she had a hard time impressing him at times, it seems like.
36:58Chuck Bryant:Yeah, supposedly she put herself on his radar at age three when she went and presented herself in front of her mom and said, Mommy, I exist as a three-year-old. And I guess that really captured Robert Maxwell's attention. And from that point on, she was very clearly his favorite. But yeah, even still, I don't think like, it seems like he would still berate her at the drop of a hat or something like that. He just maybe did it slightly less than he did to others, or maybe he didn't beat her. I'm not sure, but everyone knew that she was the favorite. Although, when it came to business, it was his two sons that he brought into business with him, not his daughter, not his wife.
37:40Chuck Bryant:And when he died, his philosophy was that you didn't leave your estate to a woman. So he didn't leave anything to Galene. He didn't leave anything to his wife. He left it all to his sons. In this case, that turned out to be quite a bit of baggage, not anything good.
38:01Josh Clark:Yeah, we'll get to that. But so he died under shady circumstances. So we're going to talk a little bit about his death and then sort of everything that was happening to him at that time, which leads people to speculate. Like, was it suicide? Was it murder or was it an accident? But on November. Well, he did have the max factor on November 5th, 1991, when he was 68, he fell to his death from his yacht, his 15 million pound Lady Ghislaine. And he had earlier that year, he had sailed into Manhattan to buy the New York Daily News. That's what I mentioned was 1991. And then in the fall, he sort of splur the moment trip to the Canary Islands where looking back, crew members were like, it was weird.
38:49Josh Clark:in that he showed up by himself, which was unusual, didn't have, like, his butler or his, like, people, like, his caretakers. And they said he also seemed like in really good spirits, which was sort of unusual, and he didn't work while he was on board, which was super unusual.
39:05Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and so he was essentially getting away from his world collapsing in on him. Yeah. Like, he said that he needed to go do something, I think, but there was no one who was fooled. Like, he was just trying to get away from things. And that's especially kind of signaled by the fact that he didn't work. Apparently, there was no line between his private life and his business life. So he was always working, right?
39:29Josh Clark:Yeah. And, you know, when you were talking about business collapsing, like, you know, financial failures, but also sort of his schemes, like, you know, the walls closing in on his schemes. Like you mentioned, he was basically raiding his companies for profit. But a lot of the times from the pension funds, I think it ended up being close to 500 million pounds from pension funds. You do not do that, man. No. And he was at the same time he was he was selling Pergamon. He was secretly buying shares in his companies to prop up stock prices like while he was trying to rid himself of these things.
40:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he was in a really bad spot because a bunch of factors basically came together to have all of his creditors basically call in all his debts at once, right? Yeah. And he had used those pension funds as collateral, which is, that's on Lehman Brothers, that's on Goldman Sachs. Like, you should not take pension funds as collateral. Even if, and he was fully legally in charge of those pension funds, so he legally could do that. But just being a banker like that and knowing the look, the optics of being like, yep, give us those pension funds because we're calling in a debt you can't repay. Of course, that's just a terrible collateral to take.
40:50Chuck Bryant:That's neither here nor there as far as Robert Maxwell is concerned. The other bankers, though, that held shares in his companies, they were threatening to basically say, we're going to sell these shares that you gave us as collateral. We're going to dump them on the market all at once, and that's going to drive your stock prices down even further, which is going to mean you have even less money to repay us. So he's getting it from every which way. And then not to mention, they didn't know about the pension rating until after he was dead. So it was not like people were beating the drum. That anticipation was hanging over him as well.
41:26Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. He, you know, seemed to be in a pretty paranoid state. He had his offices and businesses bugged. Apparently, he had his own house bugged so he could hear what his family was saying about him.
41:39Chuck Bryant:That's nuts.
41:41Josh Clark:And then there was this other sort of wall closing in on him, and there were allegations that he was a spy for Israel. He had invested at one point, I think, about 250 million pounds in just various Israeli companies. And in 1991, there was a guy claiming to be a former intelligence officer for Israel named Ari Ben Menashe, who told the news that Maxwell and one of his editors that was working with him at one of his papers were Israeli agents. And apparently in 1986, there was a nuclear scientist named Mordecai Benunu who went to London as I guess is like a whistleblower. Yeah. Saying that like there's a dangerous nuclear arms program happening in Israel and he was going to blow the lid off of it and sell it to the Sunday Times.
42:34Josh Clark:And Maxwell convinced him to sell it to him instead, to the mirror. He ends up sending that information to Israel as supposedly like to fact check it and confirm it. But he ended up stiffing Venunu for the money and never ran the story.
42:50Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's a technique that billionaire tyrants who own news organs do. It's like catch and kill. Catch and kill. Yeah, or you buy the story, you buy the exclusive rights to the story, and then you don't publish it. You just sit on it to keep the public from knowing about it.
43:07Josh Clark:Yeah, I mean, that's what happened in this country. Remember? Happens a lot. It's really messed up. And as far as Vanunu, he was later drugged and kidnapped and jailed for 18 years in Israel.
43:20Chuck Bryant:Right. So Maxwell was like, I'm not an Israeli spy. This is all just BS. And then Seymour Hersh flew in with a book. And in the book, it wasn't just about Maxwell, but he's tangentially in the book. And Seymour Hersh was like, yeah, that's all true. Seymour Hersh is one of the most indisputable journalists of all time. If he says something is true, he has done so much research on it that he'll stand behind it every time. And most of the time, it is, if not every time, it's quite true. So he said that, yes, this guy was an Israeli spy all this time that he was a businessman too. And it got brought up in Parliament.
44:02Chuck Bryant:in Great Britain, their libel laws are very heavy against the papers, and for good reason. So the papers tend to kind of stay in line about even talking about rumors like that. But once it was brought up in Parliament, now the papers could report on Parliament mentioning it and dig into it, and they could report on it without any fear of libel. So this is going on at the same time, too. All right.
44:26Josh Clark:So, yeah, walls are closing in, you know, financially, professionally. politically, I guess, and this whole spy allegation business. So he falls off this yacht, supposedly. His last words at 4.45 a.m. were complaining to the bridge crew about how the temperature in his cabin, and apparently this guy liked peeing off of things because apparently he went to pee off the back of the boat, which they said was like a normal thing for him to do, and then fell over a low rail. And this, you know, this was a not the yacht where you're falling from like six stories up. It's like a, you know, it was a yacht, but it wasn't like he was falling from 100 feet or something like that.
45:10Josh Clark:Right. So it was like a low fall. And pathologists like no one's ever agreed on what happened to him. Pathologists failed to agree on anything besides he drowned. Some people said he had a heart attack first. Some said that, no, he actually tore his arm muscles.
45:26Chuck Bryant:Oh, man.
45:27Josh Clark:So he was clearly trying to hold on, so it wasn't suicide. They ended up finding his naked body floating about 15 miles away, I think maybe in the next day or two. And the whole thing was like, did he fall, did he jump, or is it possible he was murdered? Has been sort of the question since then.
45:46Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and I think the reason why he drowned was because the ship was cruising at the time. So without anyone knowing that he'd fallen over, he was in the middle of nowhere by the time that ship realized that he was gone hours later, right? So let's start with these, Chuck. Let's start with suicide. You said, I think, what kind of convinces most people is he clearly, on his way down, tried to grab onto the rail and pulled his—tore the muscles on his side. I can barely say it. It just sounds so painful. So he wanted to live, right? And also it wasn't a high jump in the first place. So suicide probably wasn't it.
46:29Chuck Bryant:Some people who, some of his biographies even were like, he would not have done well with all the public attention that was about to be unleashed on him. His reputation was about to be completely ruined. Financially, he was about to be completely ruined. So yeah, suicide makes sense. But again, that torn arm muscles basically say, no, that's just not what this was.
46:51Josh Clark:Yeah, I mean, you know, his family has always said it was an accident. Just, I think beyond the arm muscles, just I think they're knowing him. I think his wife said it just wasn't in his character. They thought he was just the kind of guy that would never give up even facing all of this stuff. He would still like try and fight his way or buy his way or get loans to get out of this stuff. most of his family I think and closest people were convinced it was just an accident there was one pathologist who argued against suicide because of the arm thing for sure or the fact that he was naked that seemed a little strange I think to them as well
47:35Chuck Bryant:so accident seems pretty prominent right there's also assassination remember Israel was supposedly being outed as having used him as a spy for years and years and years, that wasn't enough to fuel that rumor of Israel killing him. What the rumor was is that he had asked Israel for a loan and Israel said no. And he said, well, you know what? I'm going to go tell everybody about me being a spy for you. And they were like, no, you're not. We're going to rub you out. That's basically what when people say he was murdered, that's usually what they point to.
48:16Josh Clark:Yeah. And there was some, the initial pathologist, I think, had speculated that his body was dead longer than it was in the water. So that kind of spurred a little bit of speculation about murder. But apparently the crew of the Lady Galane was like, no one was on board that wasn't authorized. No one could have climbed a board that we wouldn't have known about. Ken Lennox was a guy who knew him, said he, like, saw the corpse, and it wasn't, you know, it didn't have, like, any markings of struggle or gunshot or throat cut or anything like that.
48:51Chuck Bryant:Right. There's also a theory that he faked his death, which is quite possible, but he was pretty recognizable, so it would have been difficult for him to start a new life somewhere without, you know, completely changing his face, at least, and his voice.
49:08Josh Clark:Yeah, and I think that's one of those things where, like, they said, well, he had mentioned it before. Right. I think he was one of those guys that would just, like, muse about something like that.
49:17Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and if you, listener, were just like, fake your death, I'd love to hear more about that. Well, we did an episode on faking your death you can go look up, too.
49:25Josh Clark:Oh, God, that was early on, wasn't it?
49:26Chuck Bryant:No, that was like a year or two ago.
49:28Josh Clark:Oh, was it? Yeah. What am I thinking of, then?
49:30Chuck Bryant:Going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
49:34Josh Clark:Oh, man, that was a long time ago.
49:35Chuck Bryant:There was a worst way to die. That's probably what you're thinking of.
49:39Josh Clark:Well, maybe so. Either way, you mentioned earlier that he sort of did his wife and daughter a favor by not leaving them the business because the business was, I think it was the largest, may still be the largest bankruptcy in Britain's history. Yeah. debts of like well over 400 million pounds that they were initially on the hook for. They were, I think, prosecuted for fraud as well in 1996, but they both successfully defended themselves and the pensioneers were eventually bailed out by public funds, apparently. Yeah. Like they got their money back.
50:17Chuck Bryant:They got like half, like basically 50 cents on the dollar. So they still lost out, but at least they weren't just completely screwed, which is cool of the UK to swoop in and do that, you know? That means everybody in Great Britain chipped in so those people wouldn't just completely lose their pension. That's pretty neat. So, yeah, before Ghislaine Maxwell came along and tarnished her family's reputation, it had already been well tarnished by the time that rolled around. Like, her father's death was like, this is, like, his reputation just completely went downhill. How about that?
50:55Josh Clark:Yeah, totally.
50:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah, Ghislaine Maxwell, that's a whole other episode, if you ask me. Ooh, man. Are we going to do that one day? Someday. Okay. Okay. If you want to know more about Robert Maxwell in the meantime, there's all sorts of interesting articles about him, too. There's documentaries. The House of Maxwell, I think, was a good BBC one from a few years ago. Yeah. And since I ended this, like, old-school How Stuff Works episode, It's time for Listener Mail.
51:28Josh Clark:This is about the tobacco settlements episode. Hey, guys, I want to provide some more info about one of the points of confusion you had. I worked for years doing health policy work for the Minnesota House, and this source of funds was a hot topic as we were discussing other policies to target the rise in youth tobacco use. Josh, you were asking about how the settlements worked with regard to tobacco companies paying in perpetuity while also having a specific settlement amount. For background, Minnesota agreed to about$6.5 billion in settlement funds. We were not part of the master settlement. It's actually pretty simple.
51:59Josh Clark:That$6.5 billion number was an estimate of the settlement's value at the time of the settlement, not a cap on how much companies would pay. Oh, cool. So Minnesota received a series of one-time payments targeted at specific tobacco cessation and public health uses, but we also receive an annual payment each year that can be used for basically whatever the state wants. These annual payments are the ongoing payments that are based on a formula around tobacco sales and profitability that you touched on in the episode. In Minnesota, these annual payments are about$150 million each year. And when counting everything the state has gotten from the tobacco company so far, we've received something like$5.7 billion so far.
52:39Josh Clark:Hope it provides some clarity. And that is from Jeremiah Wingstead.
52:42Chuck Bryant:Man, that's so awesome. I love hearing from people who are there. Yeah. You know?
52:47Josh Clark:And who actually know the stuff. Yeah. And we can always count on that almost.
52:50Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's so cool. And also big ups to Minnesota because they were the ones who, as part of the settlement, required the tobacco companies to make their documents public. That's right. Thanks a lot, Jeremiah. If you were there, no matter what we were talking about, we want to hear from you. And even if you weren't, that's fine, too. We always like to hear a hello from our listeners. You can send us an email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.
53:21Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
53:37Chuck Bryant:When you're in do-it-yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need. That's where MyLow's Rewards and MyLow's Pro Rewards come in. Place your order and Lowe's handles the rest. Lowe's will make the run for you with free same-day delivery. Members get more at Lowe's. $25 minimum and loyalty membership required. Order eligible items by 2 p.m. Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at lowes.com slash shipping terms.
54:08Josh Clark:This episode sponsored by Ridwell. Ever toss something into your recycling bin and just hoped it would get recycled? That's wish cycling. And most of the time, those items don't actually get recycled. Ridwell makes it simple to get it right. Ridwell helps you recycle the things your curbside bin doesn't take, like plastic bags, snack wrappers, pill bottles, and bottle caps. Getting started is easy. Just order a starter kit, fill the bags, send them back for free, and Ridwell takes care of the rest. Start today at ridwell.com. Summer blockbusters are back. The Odyssey and Spider-Man Brand New Day have taken over cinemas and Raiders of the Lost podcast has all the coverage you need, including our interview with director Destin Daniel Cretton.
54:52Josh Clark:What surprised you about Tom Holland? He shows up to every meeting early. He's the first one on set. Aside from learning all of his lines, he's also able to memorize everybody's name on set. Download the free iHeartRadio app, search Raiders of the Lost podcast, and listen now. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
From the publisher
Robert Maxwell was a lot of things, publisher, mogul, spy, politician, crook. But was he murdered when he fell from his yacht?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
