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"Robert Maxwell as Lord Copper"

42 Comments -

1 – 42 of 42
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've always liked Brian Lamb's style. None of the fawning interviewer style BS. He conducts interviews like a real man. It's almost like an interrogation. No flattery or idle chit chat and small talk. I think he would also tersely ask those man from Mars questions as a kind of test - it was almost like he was challenging his guest to prove that they actually know what they're talking about.

3/23/13, 11:35 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maxwell is about as forgotten as Armand Hammer, whose great-grandson Armie is now a movie star.

Marc Rich and Arnon Milchan, the Hollywood producer, would be additional examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnon_Milchan

3/23/13, 11:55 PM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

Wow, I'd never heard of Arnon Milchan until now.

Interesting fellow.

3/24/13, 12:10 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As I read this, I thought you would mention the infamous Armand Hammer et grand-fils Armie. You did. Al Gore and Hammer had interesting connections.

A great Brian Lamb moment was his asking during a Churchill interview with Martin Gilbert, "What is buggery?" after Gilbert had mentioned the term.

3/24/13, 12:21 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Arnon Milchan is married to Amanda Coetzer. Impressive. Israeli-South African alliance still OK!

3/24/13, 12:29 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're the best blogger on the business Steve.

3/24/13, 12:45 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The death of one of the Russian oligarchs in England reminds me of the startling life and death of a similar personality, Robert Maxwell, "

go to wikipedia
type in name
click on early life

scots-irish origins confirmed
oy vey, the unbearable accuracy of stereotypes.

3/24/13, 1:03 AM

Blogger Ross said...

Robert Maxwell was a Labour MP in the 1960s, his most noted contribution then was making a speech supporting the USSR's invasion of the country of his birth- Czechoslovakia.

He was a piece of shit.

3/24/13, 1:30 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

An odd fact about Robert Maxwell is that he produced that strange little animated cartoon 'Dodo the Kid From Outer Space' - all 1950s and 60s angular drawn weirdness that seemed dated even in 1975.
It used to pop up on ITV as filler once in a blue moon, disappear and reappear years later for some odd reason.

3/24/13, 2:08 AM

Anonymous Rasputin said...

"Robert Maxwell was a Labour MP in the 1960s, his most noted contribution then was making a speech supporting the USSR's invasion of the country of his birth- Czechoslovakia."

Considering his ethnicity I find his lack of loyalty less than shocking.

3/24/13, 2:10 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

His country of birth? He was a Jew, Israel was HIS country not Czechoslovakia, he didn't give a shit about it. I wonder how much Maxwell's success was due to his being a "genius" and how much was do his Jewish/Israeli/Communist connections.

Does England still consider him a great man? The English seem to be the most politically stupid people in the world. Even dumber than Yanks.

3/24/13, 4:25 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its amazing how stupid some Gentiles are. There are two kinds of Jews (or dual citizens for that matter):

1) Jews who consider themselves Americans who are Jewish; and

2) Jews who consider themselves Jews who just for convenience sake live in America.

3/24/13, 4:30 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maxwell is about as forgotten as Armand Hammer, whose great-grandson Armie is now a movie star.

MacHammer, together with another perennial iSteve favorite, Martin MacPeretz, was instrumental in sponsoring and molding and guiding the career of the progenitor of the Innert00bz himself.

I wonder what they thought when he sold Current TV to Al-Jazeera?

I guess you really can't trust those filthy back-stabbing blood-sucking schkotzim after all.

3/24/13, 5:52 AM

Anonymous dearieme said...

Some of Cap'n Bob's stealing from one of his company's pension funds was done in a gloriously old-fashioned way. HE OPENED A SAFE AND PURLOINED SHARE CERTIFICATES.

Anyway, after he fell into the Atlantic and drowned he was known as Cap'n Bob, bob, bob.

3/24/13, 6:10 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Author [Finally sort of catching on]: "He was the President. ... During the Civil War."

@steve

I am afraid I have not caught on. What is it that you see in asking this kind of question about Lincoln?

3/24/13, 7:12 AM

Anonymous 2Degrees said...

I grew up in Oxford. His mansion now belongs to Brooke's University and I frequently met peole who either worked there or for his publishing company. He was notorious from day one as a violent thug with no regard for the law and was hated by those who dealt with him personally.

Someone in high places was protecting hom.

3/24/13, 7:30 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i used to pass by the armand hammer museum all the time on my way to in-n-out.


so i didnt forget!

3/24/13, 8:00 AM

Anonymous SCW said...

It has always fascinated me how rich left-wingers so often turn out to be "bosses from Hell." Maxwell, with his embezzlement from his employees' pension funds, and his generally crass and capricious treatment of the people who worked for him, was a prime example. Perhaps leftists take the Marxist caricature of the capitalist exploiter as a model for their own behavior as employers.

Back in the 1980s, Maxwell bought a large printing/contract publishing firm in my state, Minnesota. He wowed our liberal DFL governor, Rudy Perpich ("Governor Goofy") by arranging for Mikhail Gorbachev to visit the state, and proposed to set up an international think tank, the "Maxwell-Gorbachev Institute" or some such thing, to be headquartered here. Of course it all came to naught.

Even as this was going on, his relations with his new employees in the state were turning rather sour. At the time, I ran a small printing business (in no way a competitor of his), and saw a couple of job applicants who were seeking jobs elsewhere, anywhere, in the industry, other than his company. I was surprised by their accounts of working conditions there. I also knew another Maxwell employee in a purely social context, and whenever the subject of his employer was brought up, he would just silently shake his head.

Most business owners with whom I am acquainted are both much farther to the right, and much more decent to their staffs, than Maxwell was. I am not sure whether enough correlation exists to frame a "law," but it seems quite often that just as strident feminists tend to be uglier than prettier women, so left-wingers tend to treat their employees worse than do right-wingers.

3/24/13, 8:24 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.vdare.com/articles/trolling-or-transformation-cpac-matt-heimbach-scott-terry-and-the-end-of-conservatism-inc

Why the GOP is dead. It insults its core white base as 'trolls' and perpetuates this fantasy that 'Frederick Douglas Republicans' and hip hop Republicans' will come over to the GOP out of libertarian principles.

GOP's dreams are the 'hopeless dreams' of the killer's father in IN COLD BLOOD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVDxfDNq2VU

So deluded, so phony, so sad, so pathetic.

3/24/13, 9:42 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIegoQAayFs

The stupid GOP/American conservatism gave its home away to the hostile elite, gays, and 'minorities' but still thinks there's a home to go back to.

Whatever route the GOP takes, it doesn't matter because the home isn't there anymore. The issue is not the road to take since the home is already occupied by new owners and there's a sign outside saying 'trespassing honkeys will be shot as KKK'.

3/24/13, 9:52 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

OT - Steve, check out the mugshot of Evan Spencer Ebel, the guy suspected of killing the Colorado prison chief. Despite apparently having a high profile lawyer as a father, you can't help but think this guy was born a criminal just by looking at his face. Sloping forehead, protruding ears, pronounced jaw, he has it all:

http://news.yahoo.com/man-killed-texas-called-suspect-colo-slaying-175729821.html

Maybe there really is a fine line, genetically, between being a lawyer and a career criminal. I say that only half-facetiously.

3/24/13, 10:51 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's so much talk of the elite trying to elect a new people...

... but it wouldn't be happening if Americans hadn't already elected a new elite.

The new elite is merely trying to guard its own supremacist power by increasing diversity in order to play divide-and-rule among the masses of people who are not part of its tribe.

3/24/13, 11:00 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eeeeeyuck.

http://www.wimp.com/bestcoin/

Is there a word to describe something like this? A genteel conceited kind of populist feel-good collective narcissism of kind-heartedness and smiley faces..

it's like looking at Ken Burns or watching forrest gump or getting reading advice from Oprah.

Ewwww.

3/24/13, 11:14 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The best Brian Lamb definitional query came when he was interviewing Martin Gilbert, author of a new Churchill biography:
Gilbert: … When Churchill was 20 and a young soldier, he was accused of buggery, and you know that's a terrible accusation. Well, he ended up prime minister for quite a long time.
Lamb: Why was he accused of buggery, and what it is?
Gilbert: You don't know what buggery is?
Lamb: Define it, please.
Gilbert [clearly flustered]: Oh, dear. Sorry, I thought the word would … buggery is what used to be called "an unnatural act of the Oscar Wilde type," … is how it was actually phrased in the euphemism of the British papers. You don't know what buggery is? It's a very nasty thing which men can do to each other.

3/24/13, 11:46 AM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

"Eeeeeyuck."

Don't be an idiocrat. It's a bunch of Europeans playing the high point of European music.

3/24/13, 1:10 PM

Anonymous eh said...

I can't find an SNL skit on Brian Lamb - did they ever do one?

3/24/13, 1:26 PM

Anonymous Mr. Anon said...

""The Bouncing Czech" had, apparently, been some kind of Soviet agent off and on, and the basis of his fortune was the Soviets giving him the copyright of all their scientific journals for publication in English."

Presumably there was some quid for that quo. It amazes me how many rich men's fortunes are made by setting themselves up in a position to intercept streams of payment for a service, product, or commodity that they had nothing to do with producing. There is a word for such men. Parasites.

3/24/13, 1:47 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Eeeeeyuck."

Don't be an idiocrat. It's a bunch of Europeans playing the high point of European music.


Agree with Steve. You have to have a black hole where your heart should be to not appreciate Ode to Joy. Maybe you'd like it better if they did Gangnam Style?

3/24/13, 2:56 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Does England still consider him a great man?"

I think no to that.

"Someone in high places was protecting him."

Well, he was a Labour MP for six years. But the thing is, he's fallen off the media memory as if he never existed.

"And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been"

3/24/13, 3:28 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does anyone have a source for the allegation that Maxwell supported the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia? I cannot find it anywhere. Maxwell was a British combat war hero by the way. Montgomery himself decorated him for bravery - he won the military cross, his citation stating:

"The attack was in danger of losing momentum but this officer, showing powers of leadership of the highest order ... kept up the advance. This officer then led two of his sections across bullet-swept ground with great dash and determination.

" Showing no regard for his own safety, he led his section in the difficult job of clearing the enemy out of the buildings, inflicting many casualties and causing the remainder to withdraw."

Somehow I doubt all the various posters here could do so well as Maxwell - although they are brave criticizing a dead man. And all of these allegations seem to originate with Seymour Hersh, a scum bag if there ever was one. Maybe it takes one to know one, but I would like to know more - very interesting character.

3/24/13, 3:33 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does England still consider him a great man? The English seem to be the most politically stupid people in the world. Even dumber than Yanks.

I'm old enough to remember that no, he was never regarded as a great man by the English. He was regarded more as somewhere between a crook and a buffoon. Once he was dead we all knew he was a crook.

I also recall a story about him touring the shop floor randomly firing print workers at the Daily Mirror (tabloid). A lackey would then go around quietly unfiring them again. Maxwell of course not having any idea who they were in the first place.

3/24/13, 5:03 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

@anonymous 3:33PM

"Does anyone have a source for the allegation that Maxwell supported the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia? "

I looked at Hansard (UK parliament record). It seems wrong to say Maxwell supported the invasion, but he does seem pretty weaselly on the subject:

"what can we do to help the Czech people? In my opinion, it must be as little as possible in the form of Government action....If people can think of nothing better to do, they should send a postcard to Mr. Brezhnev telling him how they abhor this ghastly act of oppression against this friendly country." etc.

-http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1968/aug/26/czechoslovakia

3/24/13, 5:16 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Somehow I doubt all the various posters here could do so well as Maxwell ..."

And why is that? Since you don't seem to be an expert on the man, can you kindly inform of us as to the basis of your ability to provide such pre-judgements on people you know even less about?

And if Maxwell was a far better man than all of us, that makes him more dangerous and more worthy of careful examination. A lot of spy smoke around this guy. Betrayal by those who claim to be of us, be for us, and be the best of us is a greater betrayal than sell-out by a common drunk.

I don't know anything about this guy, but it seems there was more to the man than just a medal from Monty:

"Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul", Gordon Thomas, Martin Dillon, 2002

"The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy", Gordon Thomas, Martin Dillon, 2002.

The story of Jan Ludvik Hoch, aka Robert Maxwell, is interesting:


"As one of the few business men who liked to proclaim his socialism, Maxwell stood for the Labour Party in Buckinghamshire in 1964."

"The DTI report said: "We regret having to conclude that, notwithstanding Mr Maxwell's acknowledged abilities and energy, he is not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company.""

3/24/13, 7:04 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know anything about this guy, but it seems there was more to the man than just a medal from Monty:

"Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul", Gordon Thomas, Martin Dillon, 2002

"The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy", Gordon Thomas, Martin Dillon, 2002.


Gordon Thomas is not a particularly credible source.

3/24/13, 7:18 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Gordon Thomas is not a particularly credible source."

Okay, I know nothing of him either. Is the wikipedia's section on Maxwell's Israeli connections valid as far as it goes?

There is a statement of fact attributed to Gordon Thomas, is it true?

"No fewer than six serving and former heads of the Israeli intelligence community listened as Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: "He has done more for Israel than can today be said".

The article insinuates (probably based on a reference to another book that may or may not be credible) that he was a hero in Israel because:

"... Maxwell's contacts with Czech anti-Stalinist Communist leaders in 1948 as crucial to the Czech decision to arm Israel in their War of Independence that year. Czech military assistance was both unique and crucial for the fledgling state as it battled for its existence. It was Maxwell's covert help in smuggling aircraft parts into Israel that led to the Jewish state having air supremacy during their 1948 War of Independence. Jewish leaders were also grateful for Maxwell's intervention and material help in securing the freedom and immigration between 1988–1991 of over one million Russian Jews through his friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev."

There seems little doubt about the importance of the
Czech arms connection to the foundation of the state of Israel, it sounds like without it the war in 48 might have been lost:

"The deliveries from Czechoslovakia proved important for the establishment of Israel."

Israel's first fighter squadrons were equipped with what seems to have been a Czech franken-Me-109, the Avia S-199. Apparently not the best fighter in the world, but it was there when needed.

3/24/13, 8:25 PM

Anonymous dearieme said...

"I grew up in Oxford. His mansion now belongs to Brooke's University" - ah, it was the mansion he lived in but it actually belonged to the City Council - hence his boast that he lived in a council house. I suppose that Oxford City Council must have been Labour-controlled: how many of the councillors were KGB men I have no idea.

I once served on a committee in a university where it turned out that I was the only member who wanted us to reject his offer to fund a prize. I was appalled but not astonished.

3/25/13, 7:59 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but does anyone know if Christopher Walken was on Maxwell's yacht...?

3/25/13, 11:03 AM

Blogger Whiskey said...

Murdoch and Maxwell are more alike than they seem. Both practiced crony capitalism, that is getting into bed, flattering, providing favorable portraits of powerful government officials who then showered them with regulatory goodies; particularly keeping competitors out; and in turn kept nasty secrets embarrassing to the power elite from coming to light.

To use just one example, News Corp is heavily leveraged. As was Maxwell. Murdoch was just better at keeping an eye on the balance sheet and cash flow to service his debt. Murdoch's kids on the other are guaranteed to bring the whole thing crashing down.

It is a bad idea to have ANY Maxwells or Murdochs around, you end up depending as a society on people being angels instead of corruptible men. Big companies are by threat of their bigness, a threat to liberty of all free men, and should be treated as such.

3/25/13, 11:15 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember reading an anecdote about Robert Maxwell printed in one of the British broadsheets after he died. For some reason it stuck in my mind.

It was right near the end of WWII and Captain Robert Maxwell was in charge of some British infantrymen. They were facing some pill boxes and bunkers occupied by German troops. The British troops opposite them, knowing the war was nearly over, were disinclined to attack the Germans. The German troops, perhaps sensing the same thing, also seemed disinclined to take proactive actions.

Captain Maxwell ordered the British troops to storm the bunkers. The British troops refused, telling Maxwell the war was nearly over. Very well said Maxwell, I'll do it myself. With a sten gun and some grenades he stormed the bunkers killing all the Germans inside.

When he returned to his British troops, they all refused to speak to him.

Maxwell wrote, or said to whoever it was that was interviewing him, "It was at the point I understood what it meant to be British".

3/25/13, 3:19 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Did Boris Berezovsky Kill Himself? More Compelling, Did He Kill Forbes Editor Paul Klebnikov"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2013/03/24/did-boris-berezovsky-kill-himself-more-compelling-did-he-kill-forbes-editor-paul-klebnikov/

3/26/13, 6:37 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The Man Behind Putin"

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/till-death-berezovsky-defends-backing-putin/

"Whatever his exaggerations or omissions, he played a significant role in Russia’s transition from Boris Yeltsin to Putin. What strikes me is that years later — and up until his death — he still thought it had been a brilliant idea.

Berezovsky claimed to have been the mastermind behind picking a man with no public face, a former K.G.B. agent, to succeed Yeltsin as the president of Russia. He also said it was his idea to manufacture an entire nonideological pseudo-political pseudo-movement to serve as the new president’s base of support. Berezovsky also had another brilliant idea, which to his regret Putin did not grasp: creating a fake two-party system, with Putin at the head of a socialist-democrat sort of party and Berezovsky leading a neoconservative one, or the other way around."

Hmmm....sound familiar?

3/26/13, 4:52 PM

Anonymous David said...

Milchan was the producer ($8 million, I think) on Orson Welles's last theatrical feature in 1981-2, "The Big Brass Ring," about an aging homosexual in presidential politics. A bizarre script lauded by the catty Gore Vidal.

(The film fell through because Welles couldn't get an actor right for the part. Jack Nicholson said he needed more money. Other actors - including De Niro, I think - were regally rejected by Welles for being "too ethnic" for the role.)

3/27/13, 4:19 PM

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