Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul

by Gordon Thomas

Robert Maxwell—ruthless, volatile, defiant; a man of gargantuan appetites, for food, wine, women, power, money—unabashedly bared his ambition to the world, as he strove to build a publishing empire. But, throughout his career, Robert Maxwell also nurtured another, more driving, and—until now—altogether hidden ambition, and that was to spy for Israel’s Mossad. In the end, as Gordon Thomas, an author who has long been trolling the murky waters of international intelligence, shows in this gripping narrative, the conflict between the tycoon’s public interests and spy’s secret pursuits led to his mystifying death, officially by drowning, in November 1991, offshore of the Canary Islands. According to Thomas’s well-placed sources in Israel, Washington, and London, Maxwell first came into Mossad’s orbit in the 1970s, when the crack Israeli spy organization stole from the United States its most sophisticated piece of intelligence-gathering software, Enhanced Promis. Of it Mossad made an electronic Trojan horse, secretly amassing strictly classified information from inside the very organizations worldwide to which they were selling it. Mossad’s representative for these extremely sensitive transactions costing tens of millions of dollars in China, Russia, India, and twenty other countries was Robert Maxwell. Only Maxwell was also helping himself to some of Mossad’s profits—as well as $750 million from his employees’ pension fund—in desperate attempts to maintain his empire and to meet the demands of increasingly intolerant creditors. Aboard his yacht that November night in 1991 Maxwell no doubt still clung to the hope of a bailout by Mossad. But Mossad’s spy masters could not afford to smile on blackmail. This book reveals all the shocking reasons why. Eight pages of black-and-white photographs add to this astonishing tale of international intrigue, espionage, the Mossad, and murder.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Politics, Conspiracy Theories, Espionage, Israel

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2002

About the author

Gordon Thomas (born 1933) is a Welsh author who has written more than fifty books.
Thomas was born in Wales, in a cemetery keeper's cottage where his grandmother lived. He had his first story published at nine years old in a Boy's Own Paper competition. With his father in the RAF, he traveled widely and was educated at the Cairo High School, the Maritz Brothers (in Port Elizabeth, South Africa) and, lastly, at Bedford Modern School. His first book, completed at the age of seventeen, is the story of a British spy in Russia during World War II, titled Descent Into Danger. He refused the offer of a job at a university in order to accompany a traveling fair for a year: he used those experiences for his novel, Bed of Nails. Since then his books have been published worldwide. He has been a foreign correspondent beginning with the Suez Crisis and ending with the first Gulf War. He was a BBC writer/producer for three flagship BBC programmes: Man Alive, Tomorrow's World and Horizon.

He is a regular contributor to Facta, the respected monthly Japanese news magazine, and he lectures widely on the secret world of intelligence. He also provides expert analysis on intelligence for US and European television and radio programs.His book Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors became a major documentary for Channel Four that he wrote and narrated: The Spy Machine. It followed three years of research during which he was given unprecedented access to Mossad’s main personnel. The documentary was co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm.

Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors has so far been published in 16 languages. A source for this book was Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence agent, and legendary Israeli spy Rafi Eitan. According to Charles Foster in Contemporary Review: "Writers who know their place are few and far between: fortunately Mr Thomas is one of them. By keeping to his place as a tremendous storyteller without a preacher's pretensions, he has put his book amongst the important chronicles of the state of Israel."

Reviews

[Valiant Thor · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book that sheds some light on the opaque world of billionaires, criminal networks, media, and intelligence agencies. Maxwell's story is fascinating in and of itself, but gains importance due to Maxwell's profound but shadowy impact on history. Mind-boggling cynicism and ruthlessness abound.

Maxwell's "favorite daughter" and namesake of his beloved superyacht, the "Lady Ghislaine", was back in the news in yet another shameful episode for the Maxwell name: Ghislaine's seedy role Jeffrey Epstein's elite underage prostitution ring, for which she was granted immunity.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always had a strong distaste for this man and Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon's explosive and provocative book has certainly confirmed my dislike. 'The Assassination of Robert Maxwell', sub-titled 'Israel's Superspy' (2002) can be described as the untold story!
I knew of the man from his greasy Labour Party M.P. days, back in the 1960's, then the newspaper tycoon, his fingers attempting to get hold of Manchester United, and those same fingers ripping off pension schemes as his business empire fell. The told story doesn't hold a candle to what is exposed here.
Maxwell the wheeler dealer of international business deals with the political overworld and the criminal underworld, (often hard to distinguish between the two), whilst operating as a spy for Mossad.
The two authors of this book have done some highly commendable research, much of it in the murky and dangerous areas of international espionage and criminal high finance. The Index lists a vast array of political names worldwide, who were part of the Maxwell machinations, Yuri Andropov, George Bush Snr., Mikhail Gorbachev, Adnan Khashoggi, Col. Oliver North, Shimon Peres, Ronald Reagan, John Tower, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin.
All the intrigue of this fantastic story slowly builds to the mysterious events in 1991, of Maxwell's disappearance off his yacht Lady Ghislaine. Did he fall overboard as a result of heart failure or a suicide? Or was it a Mossad hit after he became a liability to the Israeli intelligence agency?
My eyes popped when I learned that Maxwell's body was lifted from the sea by a Jose Perdoma, a name very similar to the doorman of the Dakota building at the time of the John Lennon murder a decade earlier.
I couldn't agree with the author's statements regarding the JFK assassination of which I am more knowledgeable. "In 1962 Lee Harvey Oswald, after three years in Russia working in a factory, had written to Senator Tower from Moscow pleading with him to help him return to the United States with his wife, Marina. Shortly afterwards Oswald had assassinated Kennedy in Tower's home state of Texas. Tower later claimed he passed the letter to the State Department. Marina Oswald, when giving evidence to the Warren Commission investigation into the murder of President Kennedy, accused Tower of complicity in the assassination."
The hand written, undated letter from Oswald in Russia to Senator Tower was found in 1987 among items stored in the attic of the Washington D.C. residence of Tower's ex-wife. I have scanned the Marina Oswald depositions given to the Warren Commission, and nowhere does she mention Tower....although Lee Oswald's mother Marguerite frequently mentioned Tower in relation to her statements that Lee was a spy for some U.S. intelligence agency. It is also incorrect to state that Oswald assassinated Kennedy.
Senator Tower was killed in a plane crash in Georgia on April 5th, 1991.
So there is my only criticism of the book, it lacks any Notes to reinforce the stated claims...but, where there is so much smoke.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Puede que sí, puede que no.-

Género. Ensayo.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro El espía del Mossad (publicación original: Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul, 2002), con el subtítulo La apasionante historia del magnate Robert Maxwell, es un ensayo novelado, con herramientas de crónica y momentos de biografía, sobre la vida y, sobre todo, muerte del magnate Robert Maxwell, sus conexiones con el espionaje internacional y el israelí en concreto.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Air Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is pretty well constructed and has a decent amount of depth, containing Maxwell's biography, his ideology and motives to become both involved on intelligence matters (at the point of being declared a Superspy as the title says) and to explain the rise and fall of the empire he built.

The style is a bit sensationalistic as a device to not make just a dry recollection of facts and stories, but it can be annoying at times. It was a very interesting read and I was left wanting to know more about some parts though, so the minor style issues can be easily forgiven.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening book. A great introduction to the mechanisms behind money and the dirty tricks involved in maintaining a semblance of 'normality.'

[Antti Mäki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real life foreign policy making and power struggles of the super powers.

[Jpcueva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prety good read

[Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Especially when the conclusions are based on conjecture and speculation. Thomas and Dillon present a mountain of research detailing the rise and fall of Robert Maxwell, billionaire media mogul. But to call him Israel’s superspy is a bit of a stretch. At best he was a Mossad sayan, an unpaid helper using his international business connections to gain intelligence for Israel.

Maxwell led a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence. To his credit, Maxwell’s was a rags to riches story, born poverty stricken in rural Czechoslovakia, to become a World War II hero, then a publishing magnate to multinational business tycoon. With his larger than life persona and multilingual talents, he became friends with heads of state and power brokers throughout the world. As a Jew, he used his connections within Russia to help Soviet Jews emigrate to Israel.

On the negative side of the ledger, he was an impulsive, narcissistic, manic, megalomaniac given to frequent outbursts and mood swings. He was a profligate spender given to excesses in food, wine and women. Maxwell would also do anything to make a buck including selling spy software, arms dealing and associating with international organized crime syndicates. In his bid to become one of the richest people on Earth, he overextended his buying capabilities, running debts up to $2 billion.

The premise of the book is that Maxwell asked for $400 million from the Mossad to help pay down his immediate debts, or else he would reveal secrets of the Israeli spy agency. With that threat, a cabal within the Mossad decided to eliminate him. This makes no sense. Unlike terrorists and other enemies of Israel, Maxwell was of great help to the fledgling State, investing capital, starting businesses, facilitating the Aliyah of Jews from behind the Iron Curtain and providing invaluable foreign intelligence. The elimination of such a high profile target would have to be approved at the prime ministerial level. And if discovered, it would have enormous blowback on Israel. Israel didn’t even assassinate its traitors, such as Mordechai Vanunu who revealed its nuclear secrets. Nor did they touch ex agents, such as Ari Ben Menashe and Victor Ostrovsky, who fell in disfavor with the Mossad.

If Maxwell was murdered, it would have more likely have been from the Bulgarian secret service or his underworld enemies. Thomas and Dillon give four possible scenarios to Maxwell’s death aboard the The Lady Ghislaine in 1991: 1) heart and lung disease, 2) accidental fall, 3) suicide, and 4) murder. They chose murder at the hands of a Mossad kidon (assassination team) as the most sensational explanation. The highly respected forensic pathologist, Iain West, was under pressure from Lloyds of London to make a finding to ensure that Lloyds would not have to make an insurance payout.

Using the principle of Occam’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is the best, suicide seems to be the most likely cause. At the time of his death, Maxwell was an utter mess. He was obese (286 pounds), addicted to sleeping pills such as Halcion and Xanax, exhibited erratic behavior and talked in baby talk. He was also beset with insurmountable debt and the collapse of his financial empire. Everything that he had worked for was coming to an end. The most likely explanation is that he climbed over the ship rail in the early morning hours and jumped. IMHO the authors have failed to prove that this was a hit by a Mossad assassination team.

In closing, a few final critiques. A glossary would have been helpful to define Hebrew spy terms, although some of these are included in the index.

And the authors could have used a fact checker or proofreader. On page 39, Maxwell “was looking out towards the Dome of the Rock, that sacred shrine for two millennia of people, one that his own mother had told him represented all that was enduring in their faith.” Maxwell and his mother were Jews, not Muslims. And the Dome of the Rock was built about 1500 years before the writing of the book. The authors refer to the Jerusalem neighborhood Ein Karen. Ein KareN does not exist, but Ein KareM (spring of the vineyard) does. Toward the end of the book there are frequent references of a well-connected Israeli lawyer, Ya’atov Neeman. Google has never heard of Ya’atov, but it has heard of Yaakov Neeman who was an Israeli lawyer who also served as Minister of Justice and Minister of Finance.

Despite these shortcomings, the book still deserves four stars as a thrilling read.

[Mario Lodos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante trabajo periodístico sobre la figura de un relativamente desconocido personaje del espionaje mundial

[Gerardo González · Rating 5 out of 5]

El espionaje al más alto nivel internacional.

[Rita Karmiol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read not an easy man ! Wow corrupt as they come ! I labored over all the details but quite fascinating . Not altruistic in any sense ! No love lost in life or death ! Ashamed he was so corrupt .in reality until his death thought he was an altruist !

[Grethel]

La historia de Robert Maxwell es la historia de un hombre que surgió prácticamente de la nada, de un pueblo remoto de lo que más tarde sería Checoslovaquia. Maxwell pasó de ser pobre judío de europa del este a convertirse en un héroe de guerra. Su capacidad de adaptación y una habilidad innata para el autobombo, así como una ambición desmesurada, le llevaron a formar uno de los grupos editoriales más importantes del mundo y poseer una de las mayores fortunas de la historia…

Pero Maxwell tuvo un lado oscuro, y es que durante gran parte de su vida fue además un espía del Mossad, un leal siervo de Israel. Maxwell, usando de tapadera una de sus empresa, vendió a los principales gobiernos del mundo el software Promis, el cual contenía una puerta trasera que permitía a los servicios secretos israelíes controlar todos los movimientos de sus homónimos en otros países.

[bobby van leering · Rating 5 out of 5]

More of the origins of PROMIS, brilliant book.