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  On the face of it, Maxwell had pulled off an amazing coup. But not everyone was convinced. Charlie Wilson, Editorial Director at Mirror Group Newspapers, who had conducted negotiations alongside Maxwell, felt the unions had been given far too many concessions. ‘The nearer we came to the deadline, the more he gave them. That took me aback; it was as if his judgement had become clouded or something. I couldn’t work out what was going on.’

  Wilson wasn’t the only one having doubts. Amid his relief that the 139-day strike was finally over, Jim Hoge couldn’t suppress a feeling of disquiet, a feeling so strong it was almost a premonition of disaster. ‘I could see that Maxwell was prepared to do anything to get it. The unions could see it too, and they’d run rings around him. He would say all this stuff about how he was going to get the circulation to over a million in less than a year, but there was no way he could ever make it work. Basically, he’d bought a death knell.’

  Later it would emerge that the Chicago Tribune had been so desperate to get rid of the New York Daily News that they’d paid Maxwell $60,000,000 just to take it off their hands. Nothing, though, could dent his delight. This was the moment Maxwell had always longed for. The moment when he had become a true international media baron – a ‘Lord of the Global Village’.

  To seal his triumph there was one last thing he wanted Hoge to do. ‘As soon as the ink was dry on the contract, he said, “I want you to call Rupert Murdoch and tell him that I’ve bought the New York Daily News.” When I asked why, he said, “I just need you to tell me what his reaction is.”

  ‘I said, “Bob, I don’t think that’s very appropriate. Besides, why should the call come from me? Surely, it should come from you?”’

  But Maxwell was insistent. ‘“Oh no,” he said. “You’ve got to do it.”’ As it happened, Hoge had a number for Murdoch and managed to get him on the phone. ‘I think he was in Australia so it may well have been the middle of the night. When he answered, I explained to him, “Mr Murdoch, Bob Maxwell would like you to know that he’s just bought the New York Daily News.”

  ‘I remember there was a long silence and then Murdoch started laughing. He carried on laughing for quite a long time and when he’d finished, he said, “That is so courteous of Bob. Will you thank him from me.”’

  Then he hung up.

  The first thing next morning Maxwell arrived at the Daily News offices to take possession of his new paper. Hoge and the paper’s Editor, Jim Willse, were outside to greet him, standing beneath a huge Art Deco mural depicting a symbolic cross-section of New Yorkers under a lightning-forked sky. This time an even larger crowd had gathered.

  ‘I love New York,’ Maxwell told them. ‘I am a New Yorker! Bob the Max will do his duty!’

  Several members of staff were also there, some of them so relieved the strike was over that they were in tears. ‘We’re gonna build it up for you, Mr Maxwell,’ one of them shouted. ‘We’re betting on you.’ Although it was a cold morning and the sun hadn’t yet risen above the skyscrapers, Maxwell was already sweating heavily. Off came the cap again, held aloft for longer this time, as if releasing pressure from a valve.

  Photographers jostled to take his photograph. The motor-drives whirred as Maxwell continued to grin from ear to ear. But, for all his outward bonhomie, there was something not altogether convincing about it. ‘I am a jungle man,’ he often liked to say of himself, and the sense of a big beast on the prowl was never far from the surface.

  ‘Will there be a change of Editor?’ one of the journalists asked.

  Putting his arm around Willse’s shoulders, Maxwell declared, ‘This man is my Editor for life!’ Then, leaning in closer so that the microphones couldn’t pick up what he was saying, he whispered, ‘Just remind me of your name again.’

  ‘What will happen to anyone who tries to cross you?’ another of the journalists wanted to know.

  Maxwell narrowed his eyes, causing his eyebrows – as black as his hair – to inch together. ‘You’ll get about as much pleasure out of chewing frozen concrete as you will fighting Captain Bob,’ he told him.

  A woman in the crowd called out that she had brought her baby specially to see him, even though she lived in Crown Heights, more than an hour’s journey away on the subway. Greatly moved, Maxwell bent forward and kissed the baby’s forehead. Then, doffing his cap one last time, he disappeared through the revolving doors.

  The New York Daily News lobby is one of the wonders of 1930s design, reputed to be the inspiration for the Daily Planet offices in the original Superman comics. In the centre of the lobby stands what was once the world’s largest indoor globe. Above it is a black-glass domed ceiling representing the infinity of space. Inset in the grey marble floor are brass lines giving the distances to the world’s most important capitals: Jerusalem – 5696 miles, Paris – 3634, Mexico City – 2110.

  No distances are given to anywhere in the Soviet Union, presumably because few if any Americans in the 1930s would have dreamed of going there. The whole effect is intended to give the impression of standing at the very centre of the Western world – at the same time as emphasizing just how insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of things. Beside the globe is a notice which reads, ‘If the sun were the size of this globe and placed here then comparatively the Earth would be the size of a walnut and located at the main entrance to Grand Central Terminal.’

  Walking past the front desk, Maxwell asked one of the security guards, a Miss Mackenzie, why she was smiling.

  ‘I’m just happy, sir,’ she told him. ‘It’s a happy day.’

  It would not remain a happy day for Miss Mackenzie for long. Before he stepped into the elevator, Maxwell held up a copy of the New York Daily News’s front page for the photographers. As soon as they’d finished taking pictures, he dropped the paper on the floor.

  Upstairs, Maxwell was shown into his new office. In preparation for his arrival, the bookshelves had been stacked with copies of his official biography, a richly sugared account of Maxwell’s life written by his loyal amanuensis, Joe Haines.

  His first act was to call in the paper’s head of security, a man called Grover Howell.

  ‘You are in charge of security?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Howell confirmed.

  ‘Right,’ Maxwell told him. ‘I’m sacking the paper’s entire security staff.’

  Howell swallowed.

  ‘Including me?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Maxwell. ‘Including you.’

  Just in case the penny hadn’t dropped, he added, ‘In fact, you are the first person I’m laying off.’

  After a stunned Howell had been led away, Maxwell went to address the paper’s advertising department. Before he spoke, he looked around the room. ‘Why do we have only one coloured person in this department?’ he demanded.

  Several people stood up.

  ‘Ah, it appears I am colour-blind,’ said Maxwell. ‘Are minorities well represented here? I will be looking at that.’

  Before he went back into his office, one of the News’s executives told him quietly, ‘That was great, Mr Maxwell. Absolutely great. But I thought you should know we call them black here. We don’t really call them coloured.’

  Maxwell tipped his head.

  ‘Thank you for putting me right.’

  In order to announce his purchase of the New York Daily News to a wider audience, he had decided to make a television commercial – to be aired the following evening. He was particularly keen this should be accompanied by suitably rousing music. As far as Maxwell was concerned, there was only one real candidate, the city’s unofficial theme song: Kander and Ebb’s ‘New York, New York’.

  Sadly, the rights were not available, one of the ad men informed him. Would he consider using something else, possibly Billy Joel’s ‘New York State of Mind’?

  Maxwell looked at the man as if he was mad.

  ‘Not is not a word that I accept,’ he told him.

  Picking up the phone, he asked to be put through to th
e head of Time Warner. ‘You are speaking to Robert Maxwell. Have you ever heard of me? No? Well, does the New York Daily News ring a bell? I’m the new owner and I need to use “New York, New York” in our television commercials. What are your rules for licensing in an emergency? I don’t have time to be pushed from pillar to post here. I want to pay a decent price; I’m not a schnorrer, but I’m not to be ripped off either . . . You can do that? Good, thank you. You’ve made my day.’

  After banging the phone down, Maxwell did something that caused even more confusion. With no warning, he fell fast asleep. A good deal of whispered discussion followed about whether he should be woken or not. Before a decision could be taken Maxwell opened his eyes.

  ‘The Prime Minister wants to speak with you,’ another of his associates told him.

  Maxwell looked around.

  ‘Which one?’ he asked.

  That afternoon another incident occurred that made a big impression on Jim Hoge – and which he too would find himself reflecting on in the light of subsequent events. ‘At one point my secretary ran into my office, white as a sheet. Apparently Mr Maxwell was very upset and wanted to see me straight away. When Maxwell came in, he said, “Look, you’ve got to help me out.” He was pacing around and I could see he was embarrassed about something. Eventually, he said, ‘Would you mind if I stood here with the door open and shouted at you for a while?”

  ‘I told him to go ahead. Immediately, Maxwell started lacing into me, banging on my desk with his fist and saying how it was outrageous that I had an office that was larger than his. After about forty seconds of this, he said, “Thank you” in a much quieter voice and went out.’

  Later, Hoge learned that this had all been staged for the benefit of Maxwell’s youngest child, his 29-year-old daughter, Ghislaine, who had accompanied her father to New York and would shortly be appointed as his ‘Emissary’. As soon as she saw her father’s office, Ghislaine had complained that it wasn’t big enough.

  However absurd the incident may have been, it left Hoge turning over a question in his mind: how much of Maxwell’s behaviour was for show and how much was real – and was Maxwell himself able to tell the difference?

  Before he left for the day, Maxwell dictated an editorial that would appear in the next morning’s paper. ‘This evening in a dramatic blaze of glory . . .’ he began.

  He broke off saying it didn’t strike quite the right note; possibly it might even be considered too self-serving. But anyone who feared that Maxwell’s gift for hyperbole might have deserted him at this crucial hour need not have worried. After a few moments he began again:

  ‘Today the Daily News is back on the streets where it belongs. It is as good as it was before and I promise you it will get better. You may ask why this Brit should want to save New York’s hometown paper. My answer is simple: the Daily News is the greatest paper of the greatest city in the world. I want to put it back up there and then keep it there.’

  The editorial, signed simply ‘Maxwell’, would appear beneath a headline, ‘Roll ’Em’, printed in a typeface so large it was only ever normally used to report moon landings and the deaths of presidents. As he walked back through the lobby, Maxwell passed Miss Mackenzie – now looking a lot glummer than she had done before.

  That evening, Bob Pirie, Maxwell’s investment banker and President of Rothschild’s Bank in New York, took him out to dinner at Fu’s Chinese restaurant on 3rd Avenue, reputedly the best Chinese restaurant in town. It would be an evening Pirie would never forget. ‘As we went up First Avenue, people would recognize him and open their car doors and come out and shake his hand,’ Pirie recalled.

  When they reached Fu’s, something extraordinary happened. As soon as he saw Maxwell, the former Mayor of New York, John Lindsay, stood up and started applauding – whereupon the entire restaurant followed suit, the diners clapping away as he was led to his table. ‘Maxwell was overwhelmed. I remember him saying, “In my entire life in London, no one’s ever acted like this.”’

  All this flattery had clearly sharpened his appetite. Diners sitting nearby watched agog as course after course was brought to the table, each one dispatched with evident relish. Leaving the restaurant that evening, Maxwell was asked by a reporter waiting outside if he had any celebrations planned.

  ‘I never celebrate,’ he told her sternly.

  Two days later a party was held on board the Lady Ghislaine to mark Maxwell’s purchase of the News. Various grandees attended, including the Mayor, David Dinkins, and the former Senator for Texas, John Tower, whose hopes of becoming US Secretary for Defense had recently been derailed after accusations of womanizing – it was said that no woman under the age of ninety was safe with him in a lift.

  When they arrived, each guest was asked to remove his or her shoes before being shown into the yacht’s stateroom. There, they ‘feasted on cold salmon, roast beef and Dom Pérignon champagne’. As the Daily News’s diarist noted, ‘It was a very strange sight to see some of New York’s most high and mighty standing around in their socks, or in blue bootees that had been specially provided to protect the cream deep-pile carpet.’

  Among the invitees was the man Maxwell had just supplanted as the most talked-about businessman in New York: Donald Trump. Like Maxwell, Trump had been obsessed with buying the Daily News. Three years earlier, he’d repeatedly phoned Jim Hoge to ask if it was for sale.

  ‘Donald would never take no for an answer. He never asked whether the paper was making money, or anything like that: he just wanted it. I think about the fifth time he called, I said, Donald, let me put it to you in plain English: it’s not for sale. At the time I had no idea why the hell he wanted to buy this struggling tabloid; it was only later that I realized he was looking for a base for his entry into politics.’ But since then Trump’s fortunes had tumbled and he no longer had enough money to buy – let alone run – a newspaper.

  A year earlier, Trump had come to another party on board the Lady Ghislaine. Removing his shoes with obvious reluctance, he had handed them to Maxwell’s valet, Simon Grigg, before donning his blue bootees. Trump then stood gazing at the yacht’s décor – described by one visitor as ‘1970s Playboy Baroque’. As he did so, Grigg noticed a peculiar expression come over his face: ‘It was almost like he was in awe, but didn’t want to show it.’

  This time, Trump chose not to share in Maxwell’s triumph.

  Jim Hoge spent much of the evening chatting to Liz Smith, doyenne of New York’s gossip columnists. Known as ‘The Grand Dame of Dish’, and rumoured to be the highest-paid print journalist in America, Smith had left the Daily News at the start of the strike to join Newsweek magazine. The moment Maxwell saw the two of them talking, he padded over in his monogrammed slippers, hoping to persuade Smith to return to the paper. For some reason he had decided that the best way to woo someone whose career had been spent chronicling the marital squabbles of the rich and famous was by presenting himself as a devoted family man.

  ‘He kept showing me all these pictures of his children and told me that he had been happily married to the same woman for forty-six years,’ Smith recalled.

  Hoge had also been on the receiving end of some syrupy homilies about the joys of family life. ‘Maxwell was always telling us what a wonderful marriage he had – and by implication what lousy marriages we all had.’

  As they drank their Dom Pérignon and ate their canapés, Hoge and Smith both had the same feeling – a sense that they were witnessing the end of an era. That the boom times were almost over and life would never be quite the same again.

  ‘I remember Liz looking round and saying wryly, “Well, this may be the last hurrah, but it’s certainly a blast.”’

  At the end of the party, after being reunited with their shoes, each guest was presented with a copy of Maxwell’s biography. On the first page was a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘Ambition’s debt is paid.’ It’s a quote generally taken to mean that an unquenchable thirst for power comes at a terrible price.


  Less than eight months later, Maxwell’s business empire would have imploded. His reputation would be for ever blackened, his name a byword for corruption and deceit. As for Maxwell himself, he would be dead in circumstances that were even more mysterious than anything in his life.

  1.

  The Salt Mine

  In the early 1920s, the Czechoslovak government, hoping to lure visitors to a remote province in the east of the country called Ruthenia, published a slim pamphlet listing the area’s attractions. There wasn’t a lot to see, the pamphlet admitted: ‘The very best thing here is fresh air.’ If you were very lucky, you might spot a wolf, or a wild boar, in the forest.

  As for the people, there wasn’t much to recommend them either. According to the pamphlet, they were not only unusually thick, but apt to be surly with it: ‘The rather unintelligent Ruthenians, whose expression is almost blank-stare, sit in the market-place, side by side, gazing at the distance, seldom speaking a word or moving a muscle.’ A far better bet was Ruthenia’s large population of Jews, who were generally better-looking, more sophisticated and less grumpy.

  In later life, Robert Maxwell seldom talked about his childhood, and what snippets of information he did provide tended to come richly coated in myth. Among the few things not in doubt are his date and place of birth: he was born on 10 June 1923 in a small town in Ruthenia called Solotvino, to a Jewish couple, Mehel and Chanca Hoch, and given – so he believed – the name Jan.

  Just as Maxwell would go on to change his name four times by the age of twenty-three, so Solotvino too seemed unsure of its own identity. Originally on the southern edge of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the town became part of Czechoslovakia following the First World War. In the 1930s, it was reclaimed by Hungary before being absorbed into the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War.

  It wasn’t so much that anyone particularly coveted Solotvino, simply that it stood on the border between two warring superpowers, right at the geographical centre of Europe. Then, as now, it was a bleak, isolated place, surrounded by thick pine forests and fields of sugar beet. In the winter, it was bitterly cold, in the summer swelteringly hot. The one thing that Solotvino did have was a salt mine. Unlike the rest of the town, this was a remarkable sight. An American visitor in 1938 wrote of standing on a little wooden catwalk watching the miners at work: ‘Below us yawned a gulf so profound that workers loading salt blocks looked as small as mice . . . Crystalline walls reflected twinkling lights. Around us, like the roar of a far-off waterfall, rumbled the echoes of pneumatic chisels, cutting this titanic temple vaster still.’