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Who was Robert Maxwell? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
0:16
Speaker 2: should Know, the great Man version of History edition.
0:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, great Man, Except this is an interesting episode because
0:29
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell was kind of a horrible person in a
0:33
Speaker 1: lot of ways. He achieved a lot of things, he
0:36
Speaker 1: also did a lot of terrible things, so it was interesting.
0:40
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about this guy at all, and
0:41
Speaker 1: I can't remember if I heard about him because he's
0:46
Speaker 1: the father of Glaine.
0:48
Speaker 2: Maxwell, but which makes him even worse.
0:52
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean yeah, I'm not sure where this
0:56
Speaker 1: came from though, because this one was like a year
0:57
Speaker 1: and a half ago. That we wreck was the article,
1:00
Speaker 1: and it had just been gathering dust, and so we
1:03
Speaker 1: dusted it off and now we're going to talk about
1:05
Speaker 1: this jerk.
1:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, great Man. History, by the way, is it's a
1:11
Speaker 2: way of interpreting history through the leader's political and social
1:17
Speaker 2: military Leaders like the people who make history happen, rather
1:21
Speaker 2: than society or individual people. The problem is is that
1:25
Speaker 2: those great men usually are not great people, like personally speaking,
1:31
Speaker 2: And this is a really good example He was revered
1:34
Speaker 2: because he was super rich, but he was also, I
1:36
Speaker 2: have to say, a very interesting person. I think he
1:39
Speaker 2: was a big liar in a lot of ways, but
1:42
Speaker 2: stuff that he claimed that could be proven was still
1:47
Speaker 2: pretty nuts.
1:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean he was just the broadest overview.
1:52
Speaker 1: He was a tycoon, he was a bully, he escaped
1:59
Speaker 1: Nazi German and he's rath. He was a decorated British soldier.
2:03
Speaker 1: He was a member of parliament. He was also a
2:06
Speaker 1: crook who stole from the pensions of companies he started,
2:10
Speaker 1: and a lot of like terrible business dealings. It sounds
2:13
Speaker 1: like it was a pretty awful husband and father at
2:15
Speaker 1: the same time.
2:17
Speaker 2: Well there's the episode.
2:19
Speaker 1: Well let's talk about him. He was born Jan Ludwig
2:23
Speaker 1: Hoch in nineteen twenty three and Slatvignon, which was Czechoslovaki
2:31
Speaker 1: at the time. It's now Ukraine. But he was from
2:34
Speaker 1: a you know, he was very poor, He was raised
2:36
Speaker 1: very poors from a big family. His father seems like
2:39
Speaker 1: it was a pretty awful guy too, So you know,
2:43
Speaker 1: behind every awful person is usually an awful parent or two.
2:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's intergenerational.
2:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the way it generally works.
2:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and that's why I never had kids.
2:55
Speaker 1: Oh no, so yeah, he said at.
2:58
Speaker 2: One point, I was never young. I never had that privilege.
3:01
Speaker 2: And it was basically because his family was so poverty
3:04
Speaker 2: stricken and his father was such a jerk that he
3:08
Speaker 2: wasn't He didn't have much of a childhood, but he
3:11
Speaker 2: did remember that he loved his mother like his whole
3:14
Speaker 2: life from childhood on, and he would use her as
3:17
Speaker 2: an example of what his children needed to aspire to.
3:21
Speaker 2: You know, this woman who could handle raising all these
3:24
Speaker 2: kids in these terrible conditions and still you know, be beloved.
3:29
Speaker 1: Sure, I mean suffered from hunger as a child and
3:31
Speaker 1: had some disordered eating as an adult and that sort
3:35
Speaker 1: of gorging himself on food. And his wife, his later wife, Betty,
3:39
Speaker 1: would say that, you know, she thinks that all came
3:41
Speaker 1: back from the hunger that he had as a child. Yeah.
3:46
Speaker 1: He was Jewish. He was from a Jewish family, and
3:48
Speaker 1: like I mentioned earlier, he managed to escape the god
3:53
Speaker 1: I think kind of the only member of his family
3:54
Speaker 1: to escape the Nazis in March of nineteen thirty nine
3:57
Speaker 1: when they invaded Czechoslovakia, cutting off his sidelocks and like
4:04
Speaker 1: getting the heck out of there, and for a lot
4:06
Speaker 1: of his adult life, like I don't know if he
4:10
Speaker 1: denied it, but never came forward as being Jewish, like
4:14
Speaker 1: changing his name and everything.
4:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was low key Jewish for a lot of
4:19
Speaker 2: his life until later on when he was talked into
4:23
Speaker 2: I guess coming out. I don't know what you would
4:25
Speaker 2: call it in that sense. Yeah, but you said that
4:28
Speaker 2: he escaped the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, and he definitely did,
4:32
Speaker 2: but very quickly he turned right around and went back
4:36
Speaker 2: to join the Hungarian underground in Budapest, and he was
4:41
Speaker 2: essentially trying to move, like people escaping like him, further
4:47
Speaker 2: on to safety because Hungary still wasn't you know, safety,
4:50
Speaker 2: It was better than being in Czechoslovakia, but he still
4:53
Speaker 2: needed to keep moving and he was going to help people.
4:55
Speaker 2: And almost immediately he was captured and and tortured as
5:01
Speaker 2: a member of the Czech resistance, which is not what
5:03
Speaker 2: you wanted the Nazis to consider you.
5:06
Speaker 1: No, apparently there was going to be no trial at all,
5:10
Speaker 1: and then the French embassy stepped in and because he
5:13
Speaker 1: had a planned execution and arrange what seems to be
5:17
Speaker 1: like a sham of a trial and he ended up escaping,
5:22
Speaker 1: escaping like on the way to prison. So you know, again,
5:26
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff is from his authorized biography
5:29
Speaker 1: and stories he told, some of which was no doubt
5:33
Speaker 1: like embellished. Probably, so he seems like one of those
5:38
Speaker 1: guys that would like kind of pump up a story
5:40
Speaker 1: about himself.
5:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, agreed, He's definitely that type for sure. Yeah,
5:47
Speaker 2: but he escaped, like you said, literally with his life.
5:51
Speaker 2: He escaped with his life because he would almost certainly
5:54
Speaker 2: have been executed, and he joined the Foreign Legion in
5:58
Speaker 2: France and they sent him to England because France was
6:02
Speaker 2: overtaken by the Nazis as well, and in England he
6:06
Speaker 2: basically found a new home. He signed up for the
6:09
Speaker 2: British Army. He was there when Normandy was stormed, and
6:15
Speaker 2: he also displayed like real actual valor, both valor and ruthlessness.
6:21
Speaker 2: Kyle helped us with this, and Kyle really loved to
6:23
Speaker 2: focus on ruthlessness, which in these cases is a synonym
6:29
Speaker 2: for war crimes. Cut and dried war crimes.
6:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, he really tried to remake himself as
6:37
Speaker 1: a British guy like pretty successfully, Like I said, he
6:39
Speaker 1: changed his name a couple of times, eventually landing on
6:42
Speaker 1: Ian Robert Maxwell, and like taught himself English, apparently would
6:47
Speaker 1: listen to churchill speeches, so he would get that sort
6:50
Speaker 1: of that grand English accent that Churchill had. Sure, but yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: he you know, flat out admitted to he had a
6:58
Speaker 1: real knack for like going undercover and doing like special
7:01
Speaker 1: ops and stuff, but also, like you said, disobeying orders
7:04
Speaker 1: and being pretty ruthless. Like he like admitted to his
7:07
Speaker 1: wife in a letter that he like executed more than
7:10
Speaker 1: one like unarmed German person, including a mayor in Germany.
7:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, civilian even Yeah. Yeah, and again that's a war crime,
7:20
Speaker 2: and he would later be investigated for it, but they
7:23
Speaker 2: were not able to find anyone who could corroborate that
7:27
Speaker 2: any witness said yes I saw him shoot that mayor,
7:30
Speaker 2: or yes I saw him shoot those unarmed troops who surrendered,
7:34
Speaker 2: So they had to close the case. So is that
7:37
Speaker 2: a case of him just pumping up his own legend again?
7:40
Speaker 1: Right?
7:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but again the stuff that can be
7:44
Speaker 2: verified is kind of amazing. Like he did work for
7:49
Speaker 2: the British intelligence after the war. He ended up being
7:53
Speaker 2: recruited by six it's six, right, yeah. Six. He could
7:59
Speaker 2: speak English, German, French, Yiddish, Hungarian, Czech, and Romanian by
8:04
Speaker 2: the end of the war, so he was extremely valuable
8:08
Speaker 2: post war while Europe was being divvied up and being
8:11
Speaker 2: rebuilt and people were having to interact with all these
8:14
Speaker 2: other countries. And he'd also changed his identity four times
8:18
Speaker 2: before then too.
8:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like you said, he legit achieved in the
8:23
Speaker 1: armed forces. He worked his way up eventually to become
8:26
Speaker 1: a second lieutenant in the Queen's Royal Regiment and had
8:30
Speaker 1: a very apparently daring rescue for a trapped Allied platoon
8:34
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands and received a military cross, like a
8:39
Speaker 1: Distinguished Service Military Cross. So again, it's sort of a
8:43
Speaker 1: conundrum with this guy because he did learn all those languages,
8:46
Speaker 1: and he was a very valuable person for I six
8:49
Speaker 1: and did some spy work. But there was also rumors
8:52
Speaker 1: over the years that he was and we'll get into
8:54
Speaker 1: this a little bit more, but like he spiled he spied
8:56
Speaker 1: for the Soviet Union, or that he spied for Israel's.
9:00
Speaker 1: I don't think that anyone knows the real truth behind
9:02
Speaker 1: that stuff.
9:03
Speaker 2: No, but it is the more you know about him,
9:06
Speaker 2: the easier it is to believe that that's quite possible,
9:09
Speaker 2: you know, for sure. So he made it through the
9:13
Speaker 2: war quite successfully. He was stationed in Berlin, I think
9:17
Speaker 2: at the end of it he was interviewing German prisoners
9:20
Speaker 2: of war to get as much intelligence out of them
9:23
Speaker 2: as possible. And so while there he was also in
9:28
Speaker 2: the chaos of all of this, of Europe being devastated
9:31
Speaker 2: and just beginning to rebuild. There's a lot of money
9:35
Speaker 2: to be made. It's like in that Spike Lee movie
9:38
Speaker 2: The Inside Man.
9:40
Speaker 1: Yea, that and that's like one of the better later
9:44
Speaker 1: Spike Lee is I know.
9:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the better, like just suspense movies too.
9:49
Speaker 2: It's really well done. Great movie, please see it. But anyway,
9:52
Speaker 2: in one part, Christopher Plumber says, when there's blood on
9:56
Speaker 2: the street, by real estate, and that was essentially what
10:00
Speaker 2: Europe was like at this time. And Robert Maxwell was
10:03
Speaker 2: exactly the kind of person to buy real estate when
10:06
Speaker 2: there was blood on the street. So he was making
10:08
Speaker 2: all sorts of money on the side, just taking advantage
10:10
Speaker 2: of the desperation of the people who he was interacting with.
10:15
Speaker 2: And in addition, like other business opportunities came up and
10:19
Speaker 2: improbably if you ask me, he ended up in the
10:21
Speaker 2: scientific publishing world, Yeah, and became essentially like a scientific
10:26
Speaker 2: publishing magnate in the coming decades.
10:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. So while he was in Berlin, he was working
10:32
Speaker 1: with dere Telegraph and that paper was owned by Springer
10:36
Speaker 1: Verlog to two words with a dash in the middle.
10:40
Speaker 1: I think Verlog was a big academic publisher, which is
10:43
Speaker 1: kind of like you mentioned where we were headed with this.
10:46
Speaker 1: He met the publisher Ferdinand Springer, and he learned that
10:51
Speaker 1: there were like, you know, more than sixty thousand books
10:54
Speaker 1: and journals like stockpiled in a warehouse and they had
10:59
Speaker 1: been you know, like away from public view since nineteen
11:02
Speaker 1: thirty nine, like pre war. And so his wheels started
11:05
Speaker 1: turning on how he can make some money. And then,
11:08
Speaker 1: along with his eventual business partner, this guy named Paul
11:11
Speaker 1: Rosebaud started a company I guess bought his way into
11:16
Speaker 1: a company called Butterworth Springer, which was rebranded Pergamon Press,
11:21
Speaker 1: and they got a deal with Springer Verlog to get
11:25
Speaker 1: these books, like these scientific textbooks out into the world.
11:29
Speaker 1: And he got six to finance this deal.
11:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they basically paid for three hundred tons. Yeah,
11:38
Speaker 2: three hundred tons of books and journals to be shipped
11:40
Speaker 2: to London so that they could be translated and then
11:43
Speaker 2: published for money, like you said. And they also he said,
11:46
Speaker 2: I want to buy some shares in the company too,
11:49
Speaker 2: So they gave him twenty five thousand pounds and I
11:52
Speaker 2: did some back of the envelope work.
11:55
Speaker 1: Oh boy, you're not gonna call it maths, are you?
11:58
Speaker 2: No? I wouldn't even dare. But that is about eight
12:04
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty five thousand US dollars today.
12:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you're wondering, like, well, how did he
12:10
Speaker 1: get I six? Like why would they invest secretly invest
12:13
Speaker 1: in something like this, I think he well, you know
12:17
Speaker 1: everything we're about to say, the guy take a base value.
12:19
Speaker 1: But one thing he was really good at was like
12:22
Speaker 1: he could be very charming. He was kind of a
12:24
Speaker 1: jekyline hide from what I saw, So as awful as
12:28
Speaker 1: he could be, he could also be super charming and
12:29
Speaker 1: like work his way into a room or work his
12:31
Speaker 1: way into a deal. And I think that's what he
12:33
Speaker 1: did with I six, when he basically was like, hey,
12:36
Speaker 1: having all these German scientific research books is good. It's
12:41
Speaker 1: like an asset to US an intelligence asset, maybe a
12:44
Speaker 1: propaganda tool, and m I six bought it.
12:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we'll put his role in academic publishing to
12:52
Speaker 2: the side, but just suffice to say that the current
12:55
Speaker 2: state of affairs where journals determine what science has conducted,
13:00
Speaker 2: and the scientific community as a whole has kind of
13:03
Speaker 2: shied away or moved away from doing its job the
13:06
Speaker 2: way it should be and instead conducting experiments and studies
13:11
Speaker 2: that will get published. Their eye popping that actually came
13:14
Speaker 2: from Robert Maxwell and the way that he changed the industry.
13:18
Speaker 1: Oh interesting.
13:19
Speaker 2: There's a really good long form Guardian article from twenty
13:22
Speaker 2: seventeen called is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing
13:27
Speaker 2: Bad for science? And you can guess that the answer
13:30
Speaker 2: is yes. But it talks a lot about this and
13:33
Speaker 2: other stuff too. But it's a good article. I'd say
13:36
Speaker 2: go read that if you're interested.
13:37
Speaker 1: All right, we'll check it out. Should we take a break, Yeah,
13:41
Speaker 1: all right, I'll go read the article right now. We'll
13:42
Speaker 1: be back in what twenty minutes or so?
13:44
Speaker 2: Sure?
13:45
Speaker 1: All right, be right back.
14:08
Speaker 2: So one of the things about Maxwell was he when
14:11
Speaker 2: he got into scientific publishing, he really went like full
14:13
Speaker 2: bore into it, and his whole jam with business was
14:20
Speaker 2: like buy one thing and then use it to buy buy,
14:23
Speaker 2: buy another thing, start another thing. Like basically get into
14:25
Speaker 2: one industry and just mushroom everywhere. You can't because the
14:28
Speaker 2: more stuff you have, the more money you can soak
14:31
Speaker 2: up in that industry or that sector. Right. So he
14:34
Speaker 2: bought another publisher, Simpkin Marshall, And this is a really
14:38
Speaker 2: good demonstration of his business techniques. He bought it with
14:42
Speaker 2: the loan from a business partner. The business partner came
14:46
Speaker 2: back and was like, Hey, how's Simpkin Marshall doing? And
14:50
Speaker 2: Maxwell was like, no, I'm not, I'm not at liberty
14:54
Speaker 2: to say. The guy found out that the company was
14:57
Speaker 2: severely in debt and he had borrowed. Maxwell had borrowed
15:02
Speaker 2: a ton of money against the company's credit. Yeah, and
15:05
Speaker 2: then sold off all the assets and kept the money
15:09
Speaker 2: for himself. And this publishing house, which had been around
15:12
Speaker 2: for more than a century went under thanks to Robert
15:15
Speaker 2: Maxwell raiding it. And it was essentially proto private equity
15:21
Speaker 2: like move that he did. That's what private equity does, Chuck.
15:25
Speaker 2: Have you been to Dunkin Donuts lately?
15:27
Speaker 1: Uh? No, I don't go there.
15:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't normally either, but I went and got
15:31
Speaker 2: a coffee and I walked in and I was like, God,
15:33
Speaker 2: this place is just it's like the like a death
15:37
Speaker 2: march in here. This is awful, like every like the
15:39
Speaker 2: employees hated their life, Like stuff was broken, like a
15:43
Speaker 2: serve your self machine was there next to the cash register.
15:47
Speaker 2: It was just terrible. And I was like, I'll bet
15:50
Speaker 2: private equity owns this now, and sure enough two years
15:53
Speaker 2: ago private equity brow Yep. They do it like anytime
15:57
Speaker 2: you are in like you work with a business or
15:59
Speaker 2: you like a store or something like that, and it
16:01
Speaker 2: suddenly goes downhill. Go online and search that business in
16:05
Speaker 2: private equity, and I guarantee you private equity got involved,
16:08
Speaker 2: and it's just running it into the ground because they
16:11
Speaker 2: don't care.
16:11
Speaker 1: So he was doing something like this in the nineteen fifties,
16:16
Speaker 1: which is crazy, and it seemed like, you know, a
16:19
Speaker 1: lot of time. He was definitely not afraid to burn
16:21
Speaker 1: bridges because apparently he didn't even repay that loan to
16:24
Speaker 1: the guy who loaned him the money. For Simpkin Marshall right,
16:28
Speaker 1: there was a rag called the Private Eye, or called
16:32
Speaker 1: Private Eye that called him the bouncing check as in Czechoslovakian.
16:36
Speaker 1: So he definitely had a reputation of you know, just
16:40
Speaker 1: doing what he could by hooker crook to get something
16:42
Speaker 1: done and then like walking away and leaving people penniless
16:45
Speaker 1: behind him. That Springer ver Loog who got him that
16:48
Speaker 1: first deal. They ended up severing contact with him in
16:50
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight Pergamon Press he lost control of would
16:56
Speaker 1: eventually take it back, but during a seventy one Board
17:00
Speaker 1: of Trade inquiry they said he was They declared he
17:03
Speaker 1: was unfit to run a public company. So, like his
17:05
Speaker 1: reputation was well known even back then.
17:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a big deal when the government
17:10
Speaker 2: says you you can't be a CEO. Sorry they Yeah,
17:13
Speaker 2: like the board says you can. We're saying you cannot
17:16
Speaker 2: because you are that untrustworthy.
17:19
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
17:20
Speaker 2: Uh.
17:20
Speaker 1: And later in life, well not that much later, he
17:24
Speaker 1: would find an enemy, a grave enemy, in the nineteen
17:28
Speaker 1: sixties with a guy, an Australian named Rupert Murdoch. So
17:32
Speaker 1: we talked about Murdoch in our episode on the on
17:37
Speaker 1: News on the news.
17:38
Speaker 2: Cycle twenty four hour cable news.
17:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty four hour cable news. So everyone knows who
17:43
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch is if Fox News. He and Maxwell were
17:46
Speaker 1: grave enemies, and it seems like Maxwell was pretty much
17:49
Speaker 1: obsessed with trying to outdo him, Like anytime he would
17:53
Speaker 1: go to buy a newspaper, Murdock seemed to be right
17:55
Speaker 1: there in front of him buying it, and he ended
17:59
Speaker 1: up buying the left wing. Maxwell did the left wing
18:02
Speaker 1: Daily Mirror just to counter Murdoch's right wing buys. Like
18:08
Speaker 1: by all accounts, Maxwell was never even though he would
18:11
Speaker 1: eventually be in Parliament as the Labor Party, like he
18:15
Speaker 1: said that he was conservative, but he wasn't part of
18:17
Speaker 1: the Conservative establishment, so he would just be like, all right,
18:20
Speaker 1: part of the Labor Party, or I'll buy this left
18:22
Speaker 1: wing newspaper.
18:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it just made sense financially, so you know,
18:28
Speaker 2: he could be whatever whatever he needed to be. I
18:30
Speaker 2: guess in that sense, it kind of demonstrates that to me,
18:34
Speaker 2: I was reading about Rupert Murdoch in him their rivalry,
18:41
Speaker 2: and apparently it was one of those rivalries like where
18:45
Speaker 2: it meant everything to Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch was
18:49
Speaker 2: like who oh, yeah, I remember him whatever, like and
18:52
Speaker 2: that just drove Robert Maxwell crazier and crazier and just
18:56
Speaker 2: made him want to, you know, compete with Rupert Murdoch.
18:59
Speaker 2: Like Rupert Murdoch was really competing and he would just
19:02
Speaker 2: buy paper after paper, like they would be directly competing
19:06
Speaker 2: trying to buy a newspaper. But Murdoch most of the
19:09
Speaker 2: time won. And he said later on that his impression
19:15
Speaker 2: of Robert Maxwell is that he was a total buffoon, really,
19:19
Speaker 2: like he was just this boastful guy who wanted to
19:22
Speaker 2: win but would get in his own way in the
19:25
Speaker 2: process of winning. That was kind of what his personality
19:29
Speaker 2: was like.
19:30
Speaker 1: And by kind of, I mean yeah Murdoch. They talked
19:34
Speaker 1: about the Max factor, a play on the Uh. Was
19:38
Speaker 1: that like a makeup or something.
19:41
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, I think there's like a makeup line.
19:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, max factor, But they would use that as not
19:47
Speaker 1: a compliment, Like the max factor wasn't like, hey, this
19:50
Speaker 1: guy's great, he can go in and close deals. It
19:52
Speaker 1: was more like he loses out on deals because of
19:54
Speaker 1: the Max factor because no one wants to deal with
19:56
Speaker 1: this guy exactly.
19:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean like people got in bed with him
19:59
Speaker 2: be because they had no choice. He had just bought
20:02
Speaker 2: their company. He was now their boss. People didn't get
20:06
Speaker 2: into bed or business. I guess I should probably say
20:09
Speaker 2: with him because they liked him or they wanted to
20:13
Speaker 2: they they were usually they just found themselves in the
20:15
Speaker 2: unfortunate situation of having to work closely with him.
20:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But he bought the Daily Mirror in
20:22
Speaker 1: eighty four, he started the London Daily News in eighty seven.
20:27
Speaker 1: He started another paper that was sort of what I
20:30
Speaker 1: understand is like a European USA today, called European in
20:33
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. So he's, you know, he's launching all these
20:36
Speaker 1: newspapers and then eventually he says, all right, I need
20:39
Speaker 1: to look toward the States and ends up buying McMillan
20:44
Speaker 1: US and nineteen eighty eight for two point six billion
20:46
Speaker 1: dollars money in nineteen eighty eight, oh totally, and something
20:51
Speaker 1: called the Official Aviation Guide in for seven hundred and
20:54
Speaker 1: fifty million.
20:55
Speaker 2: Dollars, which again that's a crazy amount of money in
20:58
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight. So he was this spending spree, especially
21:02
Speaker 2: in the US where he's trying to take on Murdoch again.
21:06
Speaker 2: I think Murdoch had already bought The New York Post
21:09
Speaker 2: by this time. It was a lot like the USSR
21:14
Speaker 2: being driven to extinction by spending, the US spending having
21:19
Speaker 2: to keep up with spending. Yeah, Rupert Murdoch would go
21:22
Speaker 2: do something, and now he was in the United States,
21:24
Speaker 2: so now Robert Maxwell had to do it, and Robert
21:25
Speaker 2: Maxwell had to outdo him. So he started spending money
21:28
Speaker 2: he didn't have and was expanding his empire, and his
21:31
Speaker 2: empire started to lose its foundation, it started to crumble
21:36
Speaker 2: financially because of him trying to keep up.
21:39
Speaker 1: Essentially, Yeah, that's a great analogy. Actually, in February ninety one,
21:45
Speaker 1: he bought the New York Daily News, and that's one
21:48
Speaker 1: where Murdoch kind of rubbed it in his face because
21:50
Speaker 1: as soon as Maxwell bought it, he was like, all right,
21:53
Speaker 1: the publisher needs to call Rupert Murdoch and tell him
21:55
Speaker 1: that Robert Maxwell just bought the New York Daily News.
21:58
Speaker 1: And apparently Murdoch like laughed at this and said, yeah,
22:01
Speaker 1: thank Bob for the courtesy of that, like basically like
22:04
Speaker 1: I didn't want that ate like failing paper anyway.
22:07
Speaker 2: Sure, there's one other thing that he very famously lost
22:10
Speaker 2: out on, and we must have talked about him in
22:13
Speaker 2: our episode on Tetris. The Wild History of Tetris. Oh yeah,
22:17
Speaker 2: two twenty twenty four. I think it's how weird people
22:20
Speaker 2: put it. He owned Mirrorsoft at the time, and mirror
22:25
Speaker 2: Soft had Tetris in their hands and just through a
22:29
Speaker 2: series of miscommunications and bad deals, lost it. And had
22:33
Speaker 2: they had Tetris, who knows what that would be because
22:37
Speaker 2: they were already a powerhouse in video games, especially in
22:41
Speaker 2: the UK, And if they had continued owning Tetris, they
22:45
Speaker 2: might have they might still be around. But because they
22:47
Speaker 2: lost it under Maxwell, it's just another huge black eye
22:52
Speaker 2: on his reputation as a businessman.
22:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So I mentioned politics early on in
22:57
Speaker 1: parliament and that he was a conservative of human in
23:01
Speaker 1: his heart, but because he wasn't part of that establishment,
23:04
Speaker 1: he was like, all right, I'll go to the labor
23:05
Speaker 1: parties and that's what he did. He became a Labor
23:07
Speaker 1: Party member of Parliament from sixty four to seventy and
23:13
Speaker 1: he was like, you know, he's one of these politicians
23:17
Speaker 1: kind of say whatever just to get in there. And
23:20
Speaker 1: he was like, you know what, I came from a
23:22
Speaker 1: farm laborer's background and I had no money, so like,
23:27
Speaker 1: I'm basically a socialist. Even though he was the farthest
23:29
Speaker 1: thing from that in reality, and was just they called
23:34
Speaker 1: him the biggest gas bag in the Commons. Like he
23:36
Speaker 1: was not well liked within the House, the walls of Parliament.
23:41
Speaker 1: Apparently no one liked working with him. There were a
23:45
Speaker 1: lot of rumors floating around about various improprieties. There was
23:48
Speaker 1: one rumor that he sold part of the Palace of
23:50
Speaker 1: Westminster's wine cellar to an anonymous buyer for like way
23:54
Speaker 1: less than what it was worth. I didn't see if
23:57
Speaker 1: that was really true. But the point is no.
23:59
Speaker 2: One liked him in Parliament apparently no, And it's believable,
24:02
Speaker 2: like you could, you wouldn't put it past him.
24:05
Speaker 1: That's just his reputation, right, Yeah, but I mean he
24:08
Speaker 1: won election and re election.
24:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently right before his election he was he was
24:13
Speaker 2: arrested shaving the day before while he was driving ninety miles.
24:18
Speaker 1: An hour, shaving while driving. Yeah, an s UI or no,
24:24
Speaker 1: I guess it would be DUS no, no DWS driving
24:30
Speaker 1: while shaving.
24:31
Speaker 2: Goo. Yeah, there you go.
24:32
Speaker 1: God, it took me a while.
24:36
Speaker 2: Should we take a break and then come back and
24:38
Speaker 2: talk about that max factor?
24:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
24:40
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to do that guys.
25:03
Speaker 1: All right, more promise of talking about the max factor,
25:06
Speaker 1: which was not a compliment for this guy. I mentioned
25:09
Speaker 1: early on that he was a bit of a bully.
25:12
Speaker 1: Apparently he was well known for just sort of his
25:14
Speaker 1: atrocious behavior. There was a Daily Mirror editor named Roy
25:19
Speaker 1: Greensdale who said when they were first met at this restaurant,
25:23
Speaker 1: he walked in Maxwell and like just like swept everything
25:27
Speaker 1: off the table, all the cutlery, saying like it wasn't
25:30
Speaker 1: laid out correctly. And apparently he had done that more
25:32
Speaker 1: than once. He would bring his kids into work and
25:35
Speaker 1: like belittle and lecture the staff, like to impress his kids.
25:39
Speaker 1: He would file fire people while they were on vacation.
25:44
Speaker 1: He would leave the door to this bathroom open. Apparently
25:49
Speaker 1: he would urinate off the top of the building. Just
25:53
Speaker 1: real boorish behavior.
25:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. At the same time, though, he's like cultivating this
25:59
Speaker 2: English gentleman persona, which was very much encapsulated by his accent.
26:06
Speaker 2: He didn't sound anything like someone who was born and
26:09
Speaker 2: raised in Czechoslovakia, not at all. No, he was like,
26:13
Speaker 2: I mean, being elected as a member of parliament, it's
26:16
Speaker 2: pretty good for your reputation. So like we know, so
26:22
Speaker 2: much about him now and like what he did throughout
26:26
Speaker 2: his life, his image now is not what his image
26:30
Speaker 2: was when he was, you know, alive and working and
26:34
Speaker 2: working in Parliament and doing all that stuff. I think
26:37
Speaker 2: people who worked closely with them knew what he was like,
26:41
Speaker 2: but I think in general he was just kind of
26:43
Speaker 2: this viewed as this larger than life personality by the
26:46
Speaker 2: public who knew about him.
26:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. But yeah, he was a blowhart.
26:51
Speaker 1: He would do things like if someone walked into his office,
26:55
Speaker 1: he would say, like, give me the White House on
26:57
Speaker 1: the phone, and then apparently just have like a fake
26:59
Speaker 1: conversation on the telephone to the White House.
27:02
Speaker 2: That's like, that's what insane people do.
27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I only do that if I'm trying
27:08
Speaker 1: to avoid somebody in public.
27:10
Speaker 2: Sure, did you even make the dialing sound like pee
27:13
Speaker 2: poop poop poop?
27:14
Speaker 1: Py? I do? I got a call? Sorry. He was
27:17
Speaker 1: not a good father and husband. Like I mentioned earlier.
27:20
Speaker 1: He lived in this huge mansion called Headington Hill Hall,
27:24
Speaker 1: which was at least from the Oxford City Council and
27:28
Speaker 1: apparently was like he would at dinner time he would
27:31
Speaker 1: assign his children topics that they had to like impress
27:35
Speaker 1: him with and he would judge them. Apparently there was
27:39
Speaker 1: physical abuse. He cheated on his wife like time and
27:44
Speaker 1: time again. His wife described him as as bullying, but
27:49
Speaker 1: would also take up for him at times.
27:51
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, she said the bar pretty low. She
27:54
Speaker 2: said he was he was no degenerate monster, right. He
28:00
Speaker 2: was also famous for he gave her six rules for
28:05
Speaker 2: basically getting along in a lasting partnership. And it depends
28:10
Speaker 2: on how you look at it. And you could look
28:11
Speaker 2: at it like he is a domineering bully, who was
28:15
Speaker 2: you know making his wife adhere to these rules that
28:19
Speaker 2: he was laying down. But if you if you read
28:21
Speaker 2: all the rules, it's actually these are actually pretty good
28:23
Speaker 2: sensible rules for for maintaining a partnership that if both
28:27
Speaker 2: people honor it, then then you've got something good. If
28:31
Speaker 2: you if it's just one person, then you've got a problem.
28:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got the impression it was, here are your
28:38
Speaker 1: six rules that you need to do to stay married
28:40
Speaker 1: to me.
28:41
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it past him.
28:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we'll go over them real quick. But
28:46
Speaker 1: in the context of this is what you need to
28:48
Speaker 1: do and not this is what I pledged to do
28:50
Speaker 1: for you, right. Number one, don't nag because I love
28:55
Speaker 1: that's his number one. Number two, don't criticize unduly. Number three,
29:00
Speaker 1: give honest appreciation. Number four paid little attentions. Sweet to
29:06
Speaker 1: me is what he was saying. Number five, be courteous
29:09
Speaker 1: to me. And then number six had the utmost confidence
29:12
Speaker 1: in yourself in me.
29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, really, if two people come at a
29:19
Speaker 2: relationship like that, look observing those six I guess rules
29:24
Speaker 2: or guidelines or whatever. I think that's kind of good.
29:27
Speaker 2: But yes, I'm quite sure you're right that. He was like,
29:30
Speaker 2: here's what you need to do for me.
29:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
29:33
Speaker 2: And he used it against her too. He said, like,
29:35
Speaker 2: don't nag me about me doing these rules. That's rule
29:39
Speaker 2: number one.
29:39
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. You don't talk about fight club.
29:42
Speaker 2: He got her with the legal mumbo jumbo.
29:45
Speaker 1: He had, you know, quite a few kids. He lost,
29:47
Speaker 1: very sadly a couple of them. He lost a daughter, Karein,
29:50
Speaker 1: of leukemia at age three, and they had a son
29:53
Speaker 1: named Michael that died at age twenty one after being
29:56
Speaker 1: in a coma after a car crash. Like the little
30:01
Speaker 1: apple of his eye was young Gallaine. He named his
30:05
Speaker 1: yacht after her Lady Gallaine. And even though she had
30:10
Speaker 1: a hard time impressing him at times, it seems like.
30:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly she put herself on his radar at age
30:17
Speaker 2: three when she went and presented herself in front of
30:20
Speaker 2: her mom and said, Mommy, I exist, Yeah, as a
30:24
Speaker 2: three year old, And I guess that really captured Robert
30:26
Speaker 2: Maxwell's attention, and from that point on he was She
30:29
Speaker 2: was very clearly his favorite. Yeah. But yeah, even still
30:34
Speaker 2: I don't think like it seems like he was. He
30:36
Speaker 2: would still berate her at the drop of a hat
30:39
Speaker 2: or something like that. He just maybe did it slightly
30:42
Speaker 2: less than he did to others, or maybe he didn't
30:44
Speaker 2: beat her. I'm not sure, but everyone knew that she
30:47
Speaker 2: was the favorite. Although when it came to business, it
30:50
Speaker 2: was his two sons that he brought into business with him,
30:53
Speaker 2: not his daughter, not his wife. And when he died,
30:58
Speaker 2: his philosophy was that you didn't leave your estate to
31:02
Speaker 2: a woman. So he didn't leave anything to Gallen, he
31:05
Speaker 2: didn't leave anything to his wife. He left it all
31:08
Speaker 2: to his sons. In this case, that turned out to
31:11
Speaker 2: be quite yeah, quite a bit of baggage. Not not
31:15
Speaker 2: anything good.
31:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get to that. So he died under shady circumstances.
31:21
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk a little bit about his death
31:23
Speaker 1: and then sort of everything that was happening to him
31:28
Speaker 1: at that time, which leads people to speculate like was
31:31
Speaker 1: it suicide, was it murder, or was it an accident?
31:34
Speaker 1: But was on November well, he did have the max factor.
31:39
Speaker 1: On November fifth, nineteen ninety one, when he was sixty eight,
31:42
Speaker 1: he fell to his death from his yacht, his fifteen
31:45
Speaker 1: million pound Lady Gallaine. And he had earlier that year
31:50
Speaker 1: he had sailed into Manhattan to buy the New York
31:52
Speaker 1: Daily News. That's what I mentioned was nineteen ninety one,
31:55
Speaker 1: and then in the fall he sort of splur the
31:59
Speaker 1: moment trip to the Canary Islands, where looking back, crew
32:03
Speaker 1: members were like, it was weird and that he showed
32:05
Speaker 1: it by himself, which was unusual, didn't have like his
32:09
Speaker 1: butler or his like people like his caretakers. And they
32:12
Speaker 1: said he also seemed like in really good spirits, which
32:15
Speaker 1: was sort of unusual. And he didn't work while he
32:17
Speaker 1: was on board, which was super unusual.
32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he was essentially getting away from his world,
32:23
Speaker 2: collapsing in on him. Yeah, like he said that he
32:28
Speaker 2: needed to go do something, I think, but there was
32:31
Speaker 2: no one who was fooled. Like he was just trying
32:33
Speaker 2: to get away from things. That's especially kind of signaled
32:36
Speaker 2: by the fact that he didn't work. Apparently there was
32:39
Speaker 2: no line between his private life and his business life,
32:42
Speaker 2: so he was always working.
32:43
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah. And you know when you were talking about
32:46
Speaker 1: business collapsing, like you know, financial failures, but also sort
32:50
Speaker 1: of his his schemes, like you know, the walls closing
32:54
Speaker 1: in on his schemes. Like you mentioned, he was basically
32:57
Speaker 1: raiding his companies for profit a lot of the times
33:01
Speaker 1: from the pension funds. I think it ended up being
33:03
Speaker 1: close to close to five hundred million pounds from pension funds.
33:07
Speaker 2: You do not do that, man, No.
33:09
Speaker 1: And he was at the same time he was selling pergamon,
33:15
Speaker 1: he was secretly buying shares in his companies to prop
33:19
Speaker 1: up stock prices, like while he was trying to rid
33:21
Speaker 1: himself of these things.
33:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was. He was in a really bad spot
33:26
Speaker 2: because a bunch of factors basically came together to have
33:31
Speaker 2: all of his creditors basically call in all his debts
33:36
Speaker 2: at once, right, Yeah, And he had used those pension
33:39
Speaker 2: funds as collateral, which is that's on Lehman Brothers, that's
33:42
Speaker 2: on Goldman Sachs, like, you should not take pension funds
33:46
Speaker 2: as collateral, even if and he was fully legally in
33:49
Speaker 2: charge of those pension funds, so he legally could do that,
33:53
Speaker 2: but just being a banker like that and knowing the
33:56
Speaker 2: look that the optics of being like, yep, give us
33:59
Speaker 2: those pension fund because we're calling in a debt you
34:01
Speaker 2: can't repay. Of course, that's just a terrible collateral to take.
34:05
Speaker 2: That's neither here nor there as far as Robert Maxwell's concerned.
34:09
Speaker 2: The other bankers though that held shares in his companies.
34:14
Speaker 2: They were threatening to basically say, we're gonna sell these
34:17
Speaker 2: shares that you gave us as collateral. We're gonna dump
34:19
Speaker 2: them on the market all at once, and that's gonna
34:22
Speaker 2: drive your stock prices down even further, which is gonna
34:25
Speaker 2: mean you have even less money to repay us. Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 2: so he's getting it from every which way. And then
34:30
Speaker 2: not to mention, they didn't know about the pension rating
34:33
Speaker 2: until after he was debt, so there was it was
34:36
Speaker 2: not like people were beating the drum that anticipation was
34:40
Speaker 2: hanging over him as well.
34:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, he you know, seemed to be in
34:45
Speaker 1: a pretty paranoid state. He had his his offices and
34:49
Speaker 1: businesses bugged. Apparently he had his own house bugged, so
34:53
Speaker 1: you could hear what his family was saying about him nuts.
34:56
Speaker 1: And then there was this other sort of wall closing
34:58
Speaker 1: in on him, and that there were allegations that he
35:01
Speaker 1: was a spy for Israel. He had invested at one point,
35:05
Speaker 1: I think about two hundred and fifty million pounds in
35:09
Speaker 1: just various Israeli companies. And in nineteen ninety one there
35:14
Speaker 1: was a guy claiming to be a former intelligence officer
35:17
Speaker 1: for Israel name Ari Ben Minashi who told the News
35:23
Speaker 1: that Maxwell and one of his editors that was working
35:27
Speaker 1: with him at one of his papers were Israeli agents.
35:30
Speaker 1: And apparently in nineteen eighty six there was a nuclear
35:34
Speaker 1: scientist named Mordecai Venunu who went to London, as I
35:39
Speaker 1: guess is like a whistleblower saying that, like, there's a
35:43
Speaker 1: dangerous nuclear arms program happening in Israel, and he was
35:45
Speaker 1: going to blow the lid off of it and sell
35:47
Speaker 1: it to the Sunday Times, and Maxwell convinced him to
35:52
Speaker 1: sell it to him instead to the Mirror. He ends
35:55
Speaker 1: up sending that information to Israel as supposedly like to
35:58
Speaker 1: fact check it and confirm it, but he ended up
36:00
Speaker 1: stiffing Venunu for the money and never ran the story.
36:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a technique that billionaire tyrants who own news
36:10
Speaker 2: organs too. They'll it's like catch and catch and kill,
36:15
Speaker 2: catch and kill. Yeah, or you buy the story, you
36:17
Speaker 2: buy the exclusive rights to the story, and then you
36:19
Speaker 2: don't publish it. You just sit on it to keep
36:21
Speaker 2: the public from knowing about it.
36:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's what happened in this country. Remember,
36:26
Speaker 1: happens a lot.
36:27
Speaker 2: It's really messed up.
36:28
Speaker 1: And as far as Venunu, he was later drugged and
36:32
Speaker 1: kidnapped and jailed for eighteen years in Israel.
36:35
Speaker 2: Right, So Maxwell was like, I'm not an Israeli spy.
36:39
Speaker 2: This is all just bs. And then Seymour Hirsch flew
36:42
Speaker 2: in with a book and in the book it wasn't
36:45
Speaker 2: just about Maxwell, but he's tangentially in the book, and
36:49
Speaker 2: Seymour Hirsch was like, yeah, that's all true. Seymour Hirsch
36:52
Speaker 2: is one of the most indisputable journalists of all time.
36:57
Speaker 2: If he says something is true, he has done so
37:00
Speaker 2: much research on it that he's he'll stand behind it
37:03
Speaker 2: every time, and most of the time it is, if
37:06
Speaker 2: not every time, it's quite true. So he said that, yes,
37:09
Speaker 2: this this guy was in Israeli spy all this time,
37:13
Speaker 2: that he was a businessman too, and it got brought
37:16
Speaker 2: up in parliament. In Great Britain, their libel laws are
37:20
Speaker 2: very heavy against the papers, and for good reason, so
37:23
Speaker 2: the papers tend to kind of stay in line about
37:26
Speaker 2: even talking about rumors like that. But once it was
37:29
Speaker 2: brought up in parliament, now the papers could report on parliament,
37:33
Speaker 2: mentioning it and dig into it, and they could report
37:36
Speaker 2: on it without any fear of libel. So this is
37:38
Speaker 2: going on at the same time too.
37:40
Speaker 1: All right, So yeah, walls are closing in and you know, financially, professionally, politically,
37:48
Speaker 1: I guess, and this you know, whole spy allegation business.
37:51
Speaker 1: So he falls off this yacht. Supposedly his last words
37:56
Speaker 1: at four forty five am were complaining to the bridge
37:59
Speaker 1: crew of out how the temperature in his cabin and
38:03
Speaker 1: apparently this guy like peeing off the things, because apparently
38:06
Speaker 1: he went to pee off the back of the boat,
38:09
Speaker 1: which they said was like a normal thing for him
38:11
Speaker 1: to do, and then fell over a low rail and this,
38:15
Speaker 1: you know, this was a not the yacht where you're
38:17
Speaker 1: falling from like six stories up. It's like a you know,
38:21
Speaker 1: it was a yacht, but it wasn't like he was
38:23
Speaker 1: falling from one hundred feet or something like that, so
38:26
Speaker 1: it was like a low fall. And pathologists, like, no
38:28
Speaker 1: one's ever agreed on what happened to him. Pathologists failed
38:32
Speaker 1: to agree on anything besides he drowned. Some people said
38:36
Speaker 1: he had a heart attack first. Some said that no,
38:39
Speaker 1: he actually tore his arm muscles, so he was clearly
38:43
Speaker 1: trying to hold on, so it wasn't suicide. They ended
38:47
Speaker 1: up finding his naked body floating about fifteen miles away,
38:51
Speaker 1: I think maybe the next in the next day or two,
38:53
Speaker 1: and the whole thing was like, did he fall, did
38:56
Speaker 1: he jump? Or is it possible he was murdered? Has
38:59
Speaker 1: been sort of the question since then.
39:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think the reason why he was he
39:04
Speaker 2: drowned was because the ship was cruising at the time,
39:07
Speaker 2: so without anyone knowing that he'd fallen over, he was
39:11
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere by the time that that
39:13
Speaker 2: ship realized that he was gone hours later. Right, Yeah,
39:18
Speaker 2: so let's start with these, Chuck, there's let's start with suicide.
39:23
Speaker 2: You said, I think what kind of convinces most people
39:26
Speaker 2: is he clearly on his way down, tried to grab
39:29
Speaker 2: onto the rail and pulled his his tore the muscles
39:33
Speaker 2: on his side. I can barely say it. It just
39:35
Speaker 2: sounds so painful. So he wanted to live, right, And
39:39
Speaker 2: also it wasn't a high jump in the first place,
39:42
Speaker 2: so suicide probably wasn't it. Some people who who some
39:46
Speaker 2: of his biographies even were like, he would not have
39:49
Speaker 2: done well with all the public attention that was about
39:52
Speaker 2: to be unleashed on him. His reputation was about to
39:55
Speaker 2: be completely ruined. Financially, he was about to be completely ruined.
39:58
Speaker 2: So yes, suicide makes sense. But again, that torn arm
40:02
Speaker 2: muscles basically say now that that's just not what this was.
40:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, his family has always said
40:09
Speaker 1: it was an accident. Just I think beyond the arm muscles,
40:13
Speaker 1: just I think they're knowing him. I think his wife
40:16
Speaker 1: said it just wasn't in his character. They thought he
40:20
Speaker 1: was just the kind of guy that would never give up,
40:22
Speaker 1: even facing all of this stuff. He would still like
40:25
Speaker 1: try and fight his way or buy his way or
40:28
Speaker 1: get loans to get out of this stuff. Most of
40:32
Speaker 1: his family, I think, in closest people, were convinced it
40:34
Speaker 1: was just an accident. There was one pathologist who argued
40:38
Speaker 1: against suicide because of the arm thing for sure, or
40:44
Speaker 1: the fact that he was naked. That seemed a little
40:47
Speaker 1: strange I think to them as well.
40:50
Speaker 2: So accident seems pretty pretty prominent, right, Yeah, there's also assassination.
40:57
Speaker 2: Remember Israel was supposedly being outed as having used him
41:02
Speaker 2: as a spy for years and years and years. That
41:06
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to fuel that rumor of Israel killing him.
41:11
Speaker 2: What the rumor was is that he had asked Israel
41:14
Speaker 2: for a loan and Israel said no, and he said, well,
41:18
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to go tell everybody about
41:20
Speaker 2: me being a spy for you. And they were like, no, not,
41:23
Speaker 2: We're going to rub you out. That's basically what when
41:27
Speaker 2: people say he was murdered, that's usually what they point to.
41:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was some the initial pathologists I think
41:34
Speaker 1: had speculated that his body was dead longer than it
41:37
Speaker 1: was in the water, So that kind of spurred a
41:41
Speaker 1: little bit of speculation about murder, but apparently the crew
41:45
Speaker 1: of the Lady Glaine was like, no one was on board,
41:49
Speaker 1: that wasn't authorized. No one could have climbed aboard that
41:52
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have known about. Ken Lennox was a guy
41:56
Speaker 1: who knew him, said he like saw the corpse and
41:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't you know, it didn't have like any markings
42:02
Speaker 1: of struggle or gunshot or throat cut or anything like that.
42:06
Speaker 2: Right. There's also a theory that he faked his death,
42:10
Speaker 2: which is quite possible, but he was pretty recognizable, so
42:16
Speaker 2: it would have been difficult for him to start a
42:17
Speaker 2: new life somewhere without you know, completely changing his face
42:21
Speaker 2: at least in his voice.
42:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's one of those things where,
42:25
Speaker 1: like they said, well he had mentioned it before. I
42:28
Speaker 1: think he was one of those guys that would just
42:30
Speaker 1: like muse about something like that.
42:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you listener were just like fake your death,
42:34
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear more about that. Well, we did
42:36
Speaker 2: an episode on faking your death. You can go look
42:39
Speaker 2: up too.
42:40
Speaker 1: Oh. God, that was early on, wasn't it.
42:42
Speaker 2: No, that was like a year or two ago.
42:44
Speaker 1: Oh, wasn't what am I thinking of? Then?
42:46
Speaker 2: Going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
42:49
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was a long time.
42:50
Speaker 2: There was the worst way to die. That's probably what
42:52
Speaker 2: you're thinking of.
42:54
Speaker 1: Oh maybe. So either way, you mentioned earlier that he
42:58
Speaker 1: sort of did his wife and daughter of favor by
43:02
Speaker 1: not leaving them the business because the business was I
43:05
Speaker 1: think it was the largest may still be the largest
43:08
Speaker 1: bankruptcy in Britain's history. Yeah, debts of like well over
43:12
Speaker 1: four hundred million pounds that they were initially on the
43:16
Speaker 1: hook for. They were I think prosecuted for fraud as
43:20
Speaker 1: well in nineteen ninety six, but they both successfully defended
43:24
Speaker 1: themselves and the pensioneers were eventually bailed out by public
43:29
Speaker 1: funds apparently. Yeah, they got their money back.
43:32
Speaker 2: They got like half, like basically fifty cents on the dollar.
43:35
Speaker 2: So they still lost out, but at least they weren't
43:38
Speaker 2: just completely screwed, which is cool the UK to swoop
43:41
Speaker 2: in and do that, you know, it was that means
43:44
Speaker 2: everybody in Great Britain chipped in, so those people wouldn't
43:47
Speaker 2: just completely lose their pension. That's pretty neat.
43:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:51
Speaker 2: So yeah, before before Gallaine Maxwell came along and tarnished
43:56
Speaker 2: her family's reputation, it had already been well tarnished by
44:00
Speaker 2: the time that rolled around, Like her father's death was
44:04
Speaker 2: like this is like his reputation just completely went downhill?
44:09
Speaker 2: How about that? Yeah, totally, Yeah, Gallaine Maxwell, that's a
44:13
Speaker 2: whole other episode if you.
44:14
Speaker 1: Ask me, oh, man, are we gonna do that one
44:18
Speaker 1: day someday?
44:19
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, if you want to know more about Robert Maxwell.
44:23
Speaker 2: In the meantime, there's all sorts of interesting articles about
44:26
Speaker 2: him too. There's documentaries. The House of Maxwell I think
44:30
Speaker 2: was a good BBC one from a few years ago.
44:33
Speaker 2: And since I ended this like an old school how
44:36
Speaker 2: stuff works episode, it's time for listener mail.
44:43
Speaker 1: This is about the tobacco settlements episode. Hey, guys, I
44:46
Speaker 1: wanted to provide some more info about one of the
44:47
Speaker 1: points of confusion you had. I worked for years doing
44:50
Speaker 1: health policy work for the Minnesota House, and this source
44:53
Speaker 1: of funds was a hot topic as we were discussing
44:56
Speaker 1: other policies to target the rise in youth tobacco use. Josh,
44:59
Speaker 1: you were asked about how the settlements worked with regard
45:01
Speaker 1: to tobacco companies paying in perpetuity while also having a
45:04
Speaker 1: specific settlement amount. For background, Minnesota agreed to about six
45:08
Speaker 1: point five billion in settlement funds. We were not part
45:12
Speaker 1: of the Master settlement. It's actually pretty simple. That six
45:15
Speaker 1: point five billion dollar number was an estimate of the
45:18
Speaker 1: settlement's value at the time of the settlement, not a
45:20
Speaker 1: cap on how much companies would pay.
45:22
Speaker 2: Oh cool.
45:23
Speaker 1: So Minnesota received a series of one time payments targeted
45:26
Speaker 1: at specific tobacco cestation in public health uses, but we
45:29
Speaker 1: also receive an annual payment each year that can be
45:32
Speaker 1: used for basically whatever the state wants. These annual payments
45:35
Speaker 1: are the ongoing payments that are based on a formula
45:37
Speaker 1: around tobacco sales and profitability that you touched on in
45:41
Speaker 1: the episode. In Minnesota, these annual payments are about one
45:43
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars each year, and when counting
45:47
Speaker 1: everything the state has gotten from the tobacco company so far,
45:50
Speaker 1: we've received something like five point seven billions so far.
45:54
Speaker 1: Hope it provides some clarity. And that is from Jeremiah
45:57
Speaker 1: wingstet Man.
45:58
Speaker 2: That's so awesome. I love hearing from pepeople who are there.
46:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and who actually know the stuff. Yeah,
46:04
Speaker 1: and we can always count on that all.
46:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so cool. And also big ups to Minnesota
46:08
Speaker 2: because they were the ones who, as part of the settlement,
46:11
Speaker 2: required the tobacco companies to make their documents public.
46:14
Speaker 1: That's right.
46:16
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Jeremiah. If you were there, no matter
46:19
Speaker 2: what we were talking about, we want to hear from you.
46:21
Speaker 2: And even if you weren't, that's fine too. We always
46:23
Speaker 2: like to hear a hello from our listeners. You can
46:26
Speaker 2: send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on
46:28
Speaker 2: the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at
46:31
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
46:36
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
46:39
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46:43
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