Part Two: Robert Maxwell: How Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad Ruined Science

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part Two – Robert Maxwell: How Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad Ruined Science

Release Date: May 8, 2025

Introduction

In the second installment of the "Behind the Bastards" series, hosts Robert Evans and Adam Conover delve deep into the tumultuous life of Robert Maxwell, a man whose actions have had lasting repercussions on scientific publishing and beyond. This episode meticulously traces Maxwell's rise from a war hero to a media mogul, highlighting his moral ambiguities and the destructive legacy he left behind.

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Early Life and War Period

The story begins in the aftermath of World War II, where Robert Maxwell emerges as a complex figure shaped by his traumatic experiences. Having lost most of his family during the Holocaust, Maxwell grapples with his Jewish heritage while navigating the war-torn landscape of Eastern Europe.

• [04:46] Robert Evans: "He just got nothing but bad news really. He is particularly scarred to hear that his 19-year-old sister Shenya had been arrested in Budapest and likely shot and then tossed into the river."

Maxwell's determination leads him to Berlin, where he assumes the identity of a British officer. His fluency in Russian and combat experience position him uniquely within the British military intelligence framework.

• [06:12] Robert Evans: "He is a war hero. And he is able to take care of his family because, number one, his legal status is super clear."

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Post-War Activities and Scientific Publishing

Transitioning from his military role, Maxwell identifies a lucrative but underexplored sector: scientific publishing. Collaborating with Ferdinand Springer, the owner of the world's largest scientific publisher, Maxwell capitalizes on the vast repository of unpublished German scientific literature accumulated during the war.

• [10:14] Unknown Speaker: "And Max, just like a guy, man. The Downfall of the Third Reich and the Holocaust and all that. Really bad for my dog breeding business."

Maxwell's strategic move to secure worldwide distribution rights for German science literature lays the foundation for his future empire, Pergamon Press.

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Pergamon Press and Exploitation of Scientific Publishing

Maxwell's ingenuity shines as he revolutionizes scientific publishing. By offering financial incentives to scientists for exclusive publishing rights, Maxwell taps into an unlimited demand fueled by Cold War-era government funding.

• [17:55] Robert Evans: "He starts a company with the goal of shipping Springer's scientific publications over to the UK and finding journals to publish them."

This business model not only ensures rapid dissemination of scientific knowledge but also creates a monopolistic environment where Pergamon Press thrives with astonishing profit margins.

• [36:22] Unknown Speaker: "Like, something along the lines of, hey, really? He's taking some notes."

Maxwell's aggressive expansion strategy leads Pergamon to dominate the scientific publishing landscape, outpacing established giants like Elsevier.

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Personal Life and Family Tragedies

Despite his professional successes, Maxwell's personal life is marred by tragedy. The loss of his young daughter to leukemia and his son’s prolonged coma severely strains his marriage and relationship with his children.

• [56:47] Robert Evans: "He and Betty lose their three-year-old daughter to leukemia... This just breaks everyone."

These personal hardships contribute to Maxwell's increasingly erratic behavior and strained familial relationships, painting a picture of a man driven by ambition yet emotionally isolated.

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Political Ambitions and the Labour Party

Maxwell's aspirations extend beyond business into the political arena. Identifying as a socialist, he enters the British Labour Party with hopes of ascending to Prime Minister. His tenure is characterized by attempts to modernize the party by undermining traditional union support.

• [58:03] Unknown Speaker: "He identifies as a socialist his entire life."

Despite initial successes, including a seat in Parliament, Maxwell's political maneuvers are met with resistance, ultimately leading to his electoral defeat in 1970.

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Rivalry with Rupert Murdoch

Maxwell's ambition brings him into direct competition with media magnate Rupert Murdoch. His unsuccessful bids to acquire major British newspapers like the News of the World and The Sun fuel a longstanding rivalry.

• [68:33] Unknown Speaker: "He considers himself Rupert Murdoch's nemesis."

This rivalry not only highlights Maxwell's relentless pursuit of media dominance but also underscores his inability to maintain sustainable business practices.

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Business Downfall and Deception

Maxwell's empire begins to crumble under the weight of unsustainable debt and fraudulent accounting practices. His aggressive acquisitions, such as the purchase of the New York Daily News, exacerbate his financial woes.

• [91:34] Unknown Speaker: "He starts gambling in London casinos... watching James Bond movies while leading takeout."

In a desperate attempt to salvage his faltering businesses, Maxwell resorts to unethical measures, including siphoning funds from pension plans, which devastates numerous employees and retirees.

• [95:21] Unknown Speaker: "He steals nearly half a billion dollars from the pension plan."

These actions culminate in severe investigations that unveil the extent of his financial misconduct.

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Death and Legacy

On November 1, 1991, facing insurmountable debts and mounting legal troubles, Robert Maxwell mysteriously dies after falling overboard from his yacht near Tenerife. The circumstances of his death remain shrouded in ambiguity, fueling conspiracy theories about potential foul play.

• [96:03] Robert Evans: "It's perfectly possible either he knew that he was fucked and he wanted to die... or that he had a heart attack because he was super stressed out."

Posthumously, Maxwell's legacy is tarnished by revelations of his financial fraud and the collapse of Pergamon Press, which has left an indelible mark on the scientific community.

• [97:46] Unknown Speaker: "I didn't think I could end with a lower opinion of Gillan Maxwell. I didn't anticipate that."

Maxwell is remembered as a visionary turned villain, whose insatiable ambition not only ruined his own life but also inflicted lasting damage on scientific publishing and countless individuals reliant on his financial stewardship.

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Notable Quotes

• [06:12] Robert Evans: "He is a war hero. And he is able to take care of his family because, number one, his legal status is super clear."

• [17:55] Robert Evans: "He starts a company with the goal of shipping Springer's scientific publications over to the UK and finding journals to publish them."

• [36:22] Unknown Speaker: "Like, something along the lines of, hey, really? He's taking some notes."

• [56:47] Robert Evans: "He and Betty lose their three-year-old daughter to leukemia... This just breaks everyone."

• [58:03] Unknown Speaker: "He identifies as a socialist his entire life."

• [68:33] Unknown Speaker: "He considers himself Rupert Murdoch's nemesis."

• [91:34] Unknown Speaker: "He starts gambling in London casinos... watching James Bond movies while leading takeout."

• [95:21] Unknown Speaker: "He steals nearly half a billion dollars from the pension plan."

---

Conclusion

Robert Maxwell's story is a cautionary tale of how unchecked ambition and unethical practices can lead to personal ruin and widespread harm. "Behind the Bastards" presents a compelling narrative that not only examines Maxwell's intricate involvement in scientific publishing but also underscores the broader implications of his actions on society and the scientific community. Through detailed storytelling and critical analysis, this episode sheds light on the dark side of a man who once appeared to be a war hero turned media tyrant.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

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[Adam Conover]

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[Gilbert King]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Jeremy Scott]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Gilbert King]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Jeremy Scott]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Gilbert King]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Soledad O'Brien]

It's April 2020. A woman announces on Facebook that she has Covid and won't be seeking medical attention.

[Robert Evans]

I didn't want to be talked out of this plan.

[Soledad O'Brien]

Then she disappears.

[Robert Evans]

Anyone else think this is strange? I just had to know, how did this happen?

[Soledad O'Brien]

Listen to what happened to Talina zar on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Unknown]

How could a beautiful young first grade teacher be stabbed 20 times, including in the bat, allegedly die of suicide? Yes, that was the medical examiner's official ruling. After a closed door meeting, he first named it a homicide.

[Robert Evans]

Why?

[Unknown]

What happened to Ellen Greenberg? A huge American miscarriage of justice. For an in depth look at the facts, see what happened to Ellen on Amazon. All proceeds to the national center for Missing and Exploited Children.

[Adam Conover]

Call Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Ah, we're back. This is behind the Bastards, a podcast about terrible people. And in part one of the story of Robert Maxwell killing Maxwell's dad. He was pretty fucking rad. And unfortunately, we're now going into part two where it's wild that this is like an episode where our bastard commits several war crimes. And we're not angry about about the war crimes really. Like it's the other stuff he's gonna do that sucks.

[Unknown]

So real.

[Robert Evans]

So real. And with us once again is the great Adam Conover. Adam, welcome back to the show. How you doing?

[Unknown]

Thank you for having me. I'm just so excited to hear more Stories of our cool friend Abraham. Robert. Ivan.

[Robert Evans]

Private. Private, Private. Yes. Oh, oh, oh.

[Unknown]

The best one was Leslie.

[Robert Evans]

Leslie. Yes.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And he's just a great guy. He's just murdering a few more Nazis than he should. Yeah, that's not great. But you know, he's taking his revenge.

[Robert Evans]

It's forgivable. Yes, and understandable. Part two is going to be less so. Although don't worry, he still does get to kill one more Nazi, so we've got that going for us. So. The immediate aftermath of the big dub dub dose was a busy time for Robert Maxwell. He taught himself Russian, assuming spycraft would be a lucrative part of his future. He's like, number one, I'm pretty good with languages. Number two, I bet living in Berlin, knowing Russian is going to be lucrative very soon. And he is correct about that. And then he kind of goes, he takes like a break from his like, like a leave of absence and travels alone to war torn Prague to try and track down the survivors of his family. And he gets nothing but bad news really. He is particularly scarred to hear that his 19 year old sister Shenya had been arrested in Budapest and likely shot and then tossed into the river. One older and one younger sister survived. His younger sister was actually rescued directly by Raoul Wallenberg, who we've covered in our, one of our reverse bastards episodes. Yeah, Wallenberg in Budapest was like writing, I think Swedish, I think it was Swedish. Swedish visas for everyone on every Jewish person under 15 and just like lying and saying they're all, they're all citizens, like every one of them.

[Unknown]

Oh my God, there's only Swedish people here.

[Robert Evans]

Wow, a lot of Swedes in Budapest right now. And he saved, I mean again, we've talked about this, he saves like 100,000 people and one of them is Robert Maxwell's younger sister. So this is obviously about as devastating a road trip as you can go on traveling through like the battle scars of Eastern Europe to find out basically no one lived in your family. And this is kind of the last time that he directly acknowledges his Jewish roots for decades. When he returns to occupied Berlin to work as an interrogator, he fully inhabits Robert Maxwell, British officer. He's been promoted to a captain at this point. And it's not like hidden, like he doesn't try to cover up his origins, but he doesn't tell people, he starts meeting now about them. And the vast majority of people who know and work with him have no idea that he's Jewish, that he grew up, you know, in eastern Czechoslovakia and He, you know, it's one of those things. I don't think he was ever religious, so I think Judaism was never like his. His faith in a meaningful way, because I think he's just kind of a natural atheist. And I think after this, acknowledging that that's his heritage is just too painful because his family has been annihilated. Right. And so he just really doesn't. For decades. He does take care of his sisters. He sends them both to the United States. He sends his younger. He pays for his younger sister to go to college. So he continues to take care of his family. He just. I think it's too painful for him to kind of acknowledge his background in any way.

[Unknown]

What kind of, like, documentation would one even have at this point? You know, like how. Like what. You know, what is he a citizen of? And is there any such thing as, like, records given what's happened in Europe?

[Robert Evans]

Yes. So. But he is lucky for a lot of people there aren't. Right. Because of how many states are destroyed and how chaotic the movement is. But he enters the UK as part of the Dunkirk landing. So he has, number one, papers from France because he's enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. And then he gets papers because he enlists in the British military. And so he is an official citizen. And he is able to get. Get papers for his family as a result. Because he's now a captain, he's fairly influential. He's good at meeting and knowing people. He's a war hero. And he is. He's able to take care of his family because, number one, his legal status is super clear. And he's a hero. Right. And he does take care of his family, though what little is left of it. Now. He is an interrogator now in Berlin, and that is. It is unlikely that his job as an interrogator always stuck to the letter of international law, by which I mean, he probably tortured people. Right. This is the start of the Cold War. He is in Berlin interrogating people, and initially a lot of former Nazis. But, like, one has to assume there's some ugliness to this job. Now, this is also a time, 1946, when a foreign occupier could behave more or less any way they wanted to among the captive German population. And Maxwell certainly did for an idea of, like, how. Because everyone's starving in Germany, and also most of them had been Nazis. So, like, for example, my grandpa is at the exact same period of time in basically the same area. I have in my house, like, two grandfather clocks that he bought for like 50 cents each. He bought like a shitload of these like 150-year-old grandfather clocks from starving Germans and just shipped them back to the US because he was like, as a poor Oklahoma boy, he's like, yeah, I'll take all these formerly rich Europeans grandfather clocks for pennies for fuck em. Like hard to blame anybody for that. I consider them war booty. And Maxwell's Maxwell does the same thing, but with so much more panache because so, because he's got this job where he's like interrogating old Nazis. He meets Hitler's former dentist, which is first very weird connection. And so Hitler's old dentist tells Robert Maxwell, you know, I know the guy who bred Hitler's beloved German shepherd, Blondie. That's the dog that he fed cyanide to in the bunker. Like, this is his pet. And there's this dude who's like the kennel operator who bred the dogs that were Hitler's dogs. And so Robert Maxwell's like, I gotta meet this motherfucker. So he visits this guy.

[Unknown]

Hitler must have just like the number of people. Yeah, I was Hitler's optometrist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

You know, I used to scrub Hitler's pool.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

A lot of personal services the guy needed done.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people working with Hitler one way or the other.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I set up his aquarium. It was like really complicated. And he needed me to come out every two weeks to clean Hitler's aquarium.

[Robert Evans]

My aunt, when she was like hitchhiking through Germany in like the 50s, got picked up by a guy she later found out was Hitler's photographer. Like, we have a bunch of photos he gave her. He just picked her up on the road.

[Unknown]

Photos of Hitler.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. We have like a lot of weird Hitler photos in my family that she was just like, I didn't know what to do with them.

[Unknown]

You gotta go on Antiques Roadshow and with my Hitler.

[Robert Evans]

Oh my God.

[Unknown]

Yeah, they never have the good shit on there. You gotta go on with the Hitler pics and the grandfather clocks.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I prefer the grandfather clocks to the Hitler picks, so. But Maxwell's story is so much cooler. So he finds Hitler's dog breeder and this guy is like on the edge of destitution. Obviously the war was not good for Hitler's dog guy. And he has one breeding male left, right? This like one German. And his hope is that I can rebuild my business with this male, right. And maybe get my feet back on.

[Unknown]

And Max, just like a guy, man. The Downfall of the Third Reich and the Holocaust and all that. Really bad for my dog breeding business.

[Robert Evans]

Horrible for guys who sell German shepherds.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I sold German shepherds to Hitler. I thought it was a good bet at the time.

[Robert Evans]

I thought it would keep going.

[Unknown]

Seemed like he was on the way up.

[Robert Evans]

It was the MySpace of its day. How could it have failed?

[Unknown]

Why won't anybody think of how this affects dog breeding businesses?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, fucking Eisenhower. Kept awake at night. We never thought of the dog breeders. So Maxwell, his biographers always say that he buys the dog off this guy. And reading between the lines, I don't think he gave the breeder a choice, Right. I think he was like, I'm a British officer, I have a weapon. I'm taking the dog. And I believe this because within days of him taking this guy's last dog, Hitler's dog breeder commit suicide. This story is so bizarre, Maxwell. He tells his comrades, his fellow soldiers this, and he's like, ha, ha, isn't this fucking funny? And they're like, horrified that he kind of killed Hitler's dog breeder.

[Unknown]

Well, I mean, also, this man, his entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.

[Robert Evans]

It's like the morality of this is.

[Unknown]

I don't know, Hitler's dog breeder sounds like a side mission from Wolfenstein. You know of someone, you go, mur.

[Robert Evans]

You gotta kill Hitler's dog breeder. He's got four arms and like a Cerberus. Yeah, you need the minigun for that level.

[Unknown]

So is it Hitler's dog? Is that what you're saying?

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no. This would have been, I think it was like the sire of Hitler's dog maybe, or at least related to the sire of Hitler's dog.

[Unknown]

No, no, no, this wasn't Hitler's dog. No, no, no, no, no. This was the sire of Hitler's dog.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I stole Hitler's dog's dad.

[Unknown]

Every Nazi owned dogs who were sired by this dog.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And it's. It's so funny that he's like, this is a bragging point for him that I destroyed this man. And his, like, his colleagues are like, that's kind of fucked up.

[Unknown]

And I, I also just have to say, if your biographer is like starting a paragraph with and then he met a dog breeder and arranged to purchase a dog. It's not a good dog purchase story.

[Robert Evans]

Like, there's not any of those really, like, from a breeder.

[Unknown]

Both dog purchases don't make it in. I mean, yeah, you know, like, Nixon's biography doesn't spend A lot of time on checkers, you know what I mean?

[Robert Evans]

Right. So, yeah, he couldn't kill Hitler, but he got the guy who made Hitler's dog. I guess.

[Unknown]

Wildlife Eddie owned the dog. What did he do with the dog?

[Robert Evans]

By all accounts, he cared about. He liked the dog. Obviously not the dog's fault.

[Unknown]

He takes revenge on literally everybody who had anything to do with Nazi. Just people who were just hanging around in Germany for a day. He slaughters them. But he's like, the dog I like.

[Robert Evans]

The dog's fine. The dog's fine.

[Unknown]

Hitler's dog's fine. Dad, that's a Nazi I'm okay with.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. So Maxwell kind of around this period, has a fairly. He works as a spy. He's kind of like a contractor for MI6, probably. It's one of those things where we don't know exactly who he's working for 100% because it's spy stuff. And because of some other things he does, because he's always a little involved in this world of espionage, this will be mythologized. But what we can confirm is really cool, which is that he befriends a Soviet colonel because he speaks Russian really well, and you have to imagine they're very drunk. He convinces the Soviet colonel to break into Georgy Zhukov's office so they can photograph his papers. Like so much vodka has to have been part of this story to get this colonel to like, yeah, fuck Zhukov.

[Unknown]

Insane.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's nuts. He also carries out clandestine surveillance of his old homeland, Czechoslovakia, which is where he gets noted by the Czech, like, foreign service as looking like a hotter Clark Gable. He is also described by many who knew him as being a bit of a dick. An article in the Guardian at this time describes him as tall, brash, and not at all content with his already considerable success. An acquaintance at the time recalled him confessing his greatest desire to be a millionaire. So, you know, what else is there after killing every. Literally getting down to the fact that you're down to Hitler's dog breeder, so you got no more Nazis to kill. Yeah.

[Unknown]

I mean, it just.

[Soledad O'Brien]

War.

[Unknown]

War affects everybody so differently. You know, I would think that if I escaped the miserable poverty of. Of central Eastern Europe and, you know, and the worst war in the history of humanity, killed a bunch of people, managed to not die in either the Holocaust or the.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And then achieved a position of social prominence, I'd say, you know what, maybe I'll take a summer off. You know, maybe I'll just, like, be content to be alive. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Take a break, go to the sea.

[Unknown]

But ambition, man.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, like that. He is like this ambition is. And maybe, you know, he would never have admitted this. Maybe there is a degree that it's like given what he's experienced, he has to just keep moving. Right. Like, you can't. You kind of can't just sit with what you. What's happened to you and what you've done. And that's certainly like what one's left to interpret from where his life goes next. So he talks a lot at the time about how he's going to become a millionaire. And he talks about specifically, I'm going to find a great unexploited resource and find a way to put myself in the middle of the distribution chain. Right. So again, he has this kind of eye for business and he doesn't know what. He doesn't want to do anything in particular other than find the next great resource and make himself key to it. Right. He's probably thinking this way because both oil and uranium have gotten way more valuable in very, very recently as a result of some things. But the resource that Maxwell is going to lasso and use to make his fortune is more dangerous and more valuable than either of those raw knowledge. So science is a discipline, given how crucial it is to World War II, by the time that war starts, the concept of science as a professional field that people go into is still pretty new. And in fact, Even in like 45, 46, some of the senior scientific minds in the world had grown up and started their careers at a time when science was something gentlemen hobbyists did. Right. It wasn't like the product of a national educational and industrial apparatus. Right. This was something like men who were like the Earl of such and such. And my hobby is figuring out how heredity works or whatever. Like, that's kind of how things had worked not all that long ago. And obviously things have professionalized a lot prior to World War II, but the field is still really new and people are still figuring out stuff like, how are we going to disseminate and spread new discoveries around the world? What is that infrastructure going to look like? Right. And the Manhattan Project is a major part of that. Right. There's suddenly this understanding that, like, it's kind of dangerous for countries to not be completely up to date on what's happening scientifically. Right. Particularly the British government is kind of caught off guard a little bit by the success the US has with the Manhattan Project and the scale of the achievement. And even though they're on our side during this, they're like, well fuck, we do not have a scientific industry that's capable of competing with the Americans in the way that we need to.

[Unknown]

They're like, ah, we've been chemically castrating mathematicians. We got shit over here.

[Robert Evans]

Oh fuck. We really should probably stop doing that, huh? Yeah, stop poisoning our smart guys. As the Guardian writes, quote, top British scientists from Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, to the physicist Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of Charles Darwin, were concerned that while British science was world class, its publishing arm was dismal. Science publishers were mainly known for being inefficient and constantly broke. Journals, which often appeared on cheap thin paper, were produced almost as an afterthought by scientific societies. The British Chemical Society had a months long backlog of articles for publication and relied on cash handouts from the Royal Stock Society to fund its printing operations. So there is no money in scientific publishing. It's like they barely even consider. It's like, oh yeah, you figured out how nuclear energy works. We should probably write about that at some point. In a place other people can read it. But not a priority. You know, we'll just let that happen. Whenever, uh huh.

[Unknown]

People are writing each other handwritten letters and shit going, I discovered something.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, Nukes. Yeah. Yeah. So by late summer of 1946, Robert Maxwell has talked himself into maybe the sweetest gig anyone gets during the Allied occupation of Germany, which is he starts running the press section of the Public Relations and Information Services Control organization. So obviously right after we occupy Germany, we're not letting the Germans have newspapers of their own again. Not that they're running. Right. Cuz that didn't go well last time. Yeah, yeah. German media got a little out of pocket. So he is basically put in charge of all German print media. Right. So as newspapers start up again, he is like both the censor, so he's like approving everything that goes out, but he's also figuring out how to make these profitable. And he just turns out to be really good at it. Like he's shockingly good at knowing how to make a newspaper work financially. He probably got the cause, he has no experience in this. He probably got the job because he was trusted by the intelligence services. You know, he's in with MI6 and they're like, probably good to have a guy who is with us running the papers in post war Germany. But he launches his first big paper as a social democratic paper that like becomes wildly successful and makes a huge amount of money. And it's like it's really hard in Germany, which is devastated, to get enough, like, ink and paper. And somehow he manages to. And no one really knows how. The assumption is a mix of, like, bribery and his connections with, like, organized crime. And just. He's also, like, people will say, like, he was scary. He'd killed dozens of men and he was huge. So if he needed something and he couldn't get it through other reasons, he would just threaten to beat the shit out of you.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

And, yeah, I probably wouldn't have wanted to fight. 1946, Robert Maxwell.

[Unknown]

His articles are all like, it's great to murder Germans.

[Robert Evans]

Actually pretty cool.

[Unknown]

Blowing a mayor's brains out because a tank fired at you is a heroic deed.

[Robert Evans]

I wrote a poem about it. This paper, the first paper that he is social Democratic paper that he starts, is owned by a company, a publisher called Springer Verloc. You've heard of Springer. If you've ever read an academic publication or like, I think they do textbooks too, you have seen Springer on a publication.

[Unknown]

I can picture the logo.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And this is that company, right. And he gets to know the owner of the company, an elderly man named Ferdinand Springer, quite well. Now, pre war, Springer had been the world's largest publisher of scientific literature because Germany had been the scientific center of the planet in many ways prior to Hitler's rise to power. But once the war starts, science kept going because obviously the Nazis still funded science, but Germany was a pariah state. And so they weren't publishing anything for the rest of the world. And so papers would continue to be written, like sort of collecting the whole history of, like, all of these scientific achievements being made during the Nazi period. And they were just building up in a warehouse that Springer had that he was trying to keep far enough away that it didn't get blown up by Allied bombs. So at the end of the war, Ferdinand Springer is broke. But he has 63,000 books filled with the science of rocketry, which the Nazis had developed to a massive extent, and advanced metallurgy and medical. All of this really important, crucial science that's going to be a big part of the space race. It's just sitting in Springer's warehouse, unpublished, right? And Maxwell becomes this guy's friend. And so while they're talking, Ferdinand explains to him how scientific publishing works. And he's like, you know, so governments fund scientific research, as do universities, and there's grants. And those grants come from, you know, sometimes from governments, from different funds from wealthy philanthropists, and they pay for the science and then the scientists produce these papers about their findings and then publishers basically get them for free. Free. And Maxwell's like, wait a second, free? The most, like, important, valuable resource in the world. People aren't even really charging for it. I got a motherfucking idea. Yeah. Part of his idea is that Sprenger can't do anything with all these papers because German nationals are not allowed to ship things overseas right? Now, like, there's a limited quantity that you can mail outside of Germany as a German, for obvious reasons. But Robert Maxwell can mail whatever the fuck he wants, right?

[Unknown]

Whoa.

[Robert Evans]

So he's found his great resource and he's about to start exploiting it. He starts a company with the goal of shipping Springer's scientific publications over to the UK and finding journals to publish them, right? He gets Springer, who, again, is broke, hands him the worldwide distribution rights to all of German science. Right? As long as he can find a way to move it. Now, Maxwell's comfortable at this point, but he's not rich. And 63,000 books worth of stuff is. You have to be rich to ship that somewhere. We don't actually know how he pays for this because it's expensive. He has no real customers initially. For years, he'll have kind of claimed that, like, oh, my wife's family has some money, so I used my savings and theirs and that funded this. But his family is like, no, we didn't really give him. We didn't like him. We didn't give him anything because his wife comes from kind of a bougie family. And they do know that Maxwell's like a poor Jewish kid from nowhere. They don't care that he's like a war hero now. So we find out years later. We don't learn this until after Maxwell dies in the year 2000. A former MI6 officer claims that British Intelligence, literally the James Bond Agency, funds Maxwell's startup because he had been working undercover for them and they considered it a potentially valuable venture. Mi6 is intelligently, like, probably good to have a hand in all of scientific publishing. That might work out for us. Actually, here's some money. And the MI6 officer who reveals this says it's the only time MI6 ever completely funded a startup. Maybe that's true, maybe that's not. I don't credit a literal MI6 officer with necessarily being honest about everything.

[Unknown]

Yeah, they fund all those startups that make James Bond's little gadgets, Right?

[Robert Evans]

Right, Right. Yeah, there's gotta be a couple of those, right? Q's. Gotta have some, gotta have some companies he's working with. So as noted earlier, Max will start shipping this stuff to the uk and while he's doing this, his plan right now, his business is just, I wanna get this over to the UK and I'll figure out a way to make it work financially because there's obviously a hunger for this material. But the uk, this just adds to the problem the country has, which is the scientific publishing in the UK can't handle the UK's backlog of unpublished science, 63,000 books worth of added stuff. It's just over massively overloaded the system. Right. Per the Guardian quote, the British government solution was to pair the venerable British publishing house Butterworths with the renowned German publisher Springer. To draw on the latter's expertise, Butterworths would learn to turn a profit on journals and British science would get its work out at a faster pace. The Butterworth's directors, being ex British intelligence themselves, hired the young Maxwell to help manage the company. And another ex spook, Paul Rosebaud, a metallurgist who spent the war passing Nazi nuclear secrets to the British through French and Dutch resistance as scientific editor. When Butterworths decided to abandon the fledgling project in 1951, Maxwell offered £13,000, about 420 grand today, for both Butterworths and Springer's shares, giving him control of the company. Roseboud stayed on as scientific director and named the new venture Pergamon Press after a coin from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon featuring Athena, goddess of wisdom, which they adapted for the company logo, a simple line drawing appropriately representing both knowledge and money. So what starts as a British program to like get scientific publishing up winds up entirely in Maxwell and Roseboud's hands because the company that the British government contracts with is like, ah, there's probably not a lot of money in this. Yeah, we'll take £13,000 for now being in control of all of scientific publishing for Germany and the United Kingdom. That's where Maxwell's made himself. He's not 30 like, like he's not.

[Unknown]

30 years old yet.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, he would have been so he's 23 when the war ends. He would have been like 28 or 29 right now I think. Wow, he's doing well.

[Unknown]

I'm 42 and I haven't like murdered.

[Robert Evans]

Anybody, haven't murdered dozens of SS men.

[Unknown]

I haven't killed any mayors, I haven't taken over the scientists scientific publishing of two entire nations yet.

[Robert Evans]

Right, yeah.

[Unknown]

Like the last generation was just stronger and better, you know, I'm sorry.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the energy this guy had, it's.

[Unknown]

Because of the cell phone, you know, that's why I haven't murdered any Germans yet.

[Robert Evans]

It's the cell phone I had. A. Robert Maxwell secretly invented Adderall. He was just keeping it from everybody for a while.

[Unknown]

Injecting it into his leg.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's his only food. So while this business was starting off with a bang, Maxwell is still a serial entrepreneur. And most of his attempts at business don't work quite as well as Pergamon does. A great example of this would be a business deal he sets up in the early 50s. So he gets in bed with his German chemist, and this chemist has set up a deal to exchange chemicals shipped from Germany for glass, china, and goods manufactured elsewhere. Right. Because Germany doesn't have a lot of stuff at the end of the war except for some raw materials. A decision is made midway through the process that we should probably send all of the stuff through Argentina, because Argentina can pay with pork bellies. Now, look, I'm not an economic expert. I don't know why this made sense to them, but they decide, like, oh, yeah, pork bellies, that's better than cash. That'll really work out. Yeah.

[Unknown]

This is Settlers of Catan logic.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And I know someone might be saying, well, pork belly futures is probably what they were talking about. No, no, literal pork bellies. And this becomes obvious because when they try to exchange these pork bellies to the British government for cash, the British government's like, well, these have gone rancid. These are all rancid pork bellies. We don't really want these. So Maxwell, they keep going. He keeps trying to sell these rancid pork bellies to different countries, and he finally finds country that's, like, starving to death. Austria. And Austria's like, yeah, we will literally take anything. It's rancid. Fine, we'll make it into sausage. We're doing so badly right now, toxic pork is the best Austria can do. Thanks, Hitler. Yeah. Again, there's like a. If you've been to Berlin, you've had, like, currywurst, right? Which is like a Berlin dish. And it's like curry on a sausage or a hot dog. It got started because in this period of time, their sausages were, like, more than at 50% sawdust, and they had curry powder because the British were there. So it was like. People won't notice the sawdust as much if we put curry on it.

[Unknown]

Every time you eat a currywurst, think of Maxwell and his quest to take over all of publishing.

[Robert Evans]

All of publishing in the rancid pork business. Jesus Christ. My favorite side fact about this is that they get Austria to buy this rancid pork by pretending the meat had come from a fake country called Oceania. And nobody in Austria, like in the trade part of Austria or whatever, recognizes that he just made up a country. This is not real. Yeah, that sounds real to me.

[Adam Conover]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Again, we just got out of the Nazi period. Not super knowledgeable about the rest of the world here.

[Unknown]

You guys don't even want to know what's been happening in South America, man.

[Robert Evans]

There's.

[Unknown]

Oceania's taking over. They make the best pork bellies. You really want some?

[Robert Evans]

The freshest pork. Pork bellies, yeah. Wow. So in 1955, back doing their pergamon business. We're out of the pork belly thing. Maxwell and his partner Rose bowed. I also just have to say the fact that, like, this scientific publishing starts with, like, the guy who murdered a significant portion of the SS and the guy who smuggled nuclear secrets to the French Resistance. You'd think this would have ended cooler than it does.

[Unknown]

Yeah. These guys sound awesome.

[Robert Evans]

They fucking are at this point.

[Unknown]

And they're arbitraging pork bellies instead of money, by the way. Maybe the. Maybe the first clue that they're not as smart as we think they are. That they were like, hey, we could. You know, it'd be better than being paid in money. Being paid in pork bellies.

[Robert Evans]

Pork bellies.

[Unknown]

Receiving the pork bellies and then having to travel around Europe reselling your rancid pork bellies for Austrian money. The Austrian money can't be great.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That can't have been like, a great profit margin, right?

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So in 1955, Maxwell and his partner, Rose Bowd, show up at the Geneva conference on peaceful uses of nuclear power. And this is kind of. We've talked about this before. One of, like, the inciting events to what becomes the Plowshare program, where the US Is like, we should be using nukes to dig big holes and hydraulically frack, you know? So they show up at this big conference because there's all these scientists who are presenting papers on, like, cutting edge nuclear research. So they rent an office nearby, and Maxwell spends the whole trip. He's just like, crashing seminars and luncheons and dinners and finding every scientist he can, who's got a paper out and is like, hey, man, sign an exclusive contract with me. I will give you money in exchange for the rights to everything you publish. Right. And this isn't a lot of money for him. I think he's giving these people like hundreds to thousands of dollars. But these are like, scientists aren't like rich men traditionally, especially in this period. And paper publishing had never really been worth money before. So they're like, this is a great deal, right? You know, suddenly finally someone values my work. So Maxwell is just like, he's like, he's basically just going door to door finding every scientist and being like, what'll it take take to sign you right now? Right? Like, he's like a Hollywood agent, but for nuclear physicists, you know, he's going.

[Unknown]

Around the open mics handing around, handing out $5 bills, right?

[Robert Evans]

Exactly. Yes. And no one had ever done this in the field of science, right? This is still a gentleman's endeavor. And journals tended to be focused on what they were interested in publishing, right? So they didn't like seek people out. You know, if you were a nuclear physicist and you had a paper, you'd go to the journal that did that and you would send them the paper and maybe they'd get to it eventually. And so Maxwell's coming up with a fucking check that's shocking to people, right? Don Frank, a competing publisher, considered this dishonest, but it worked. What made Pergamon so profitable was the fact that, and this is something that he realizes as a result of his conversations with Ferdinand. Every university and every government, scientific organization in the entire Western world needs access to all of the relevant research in their field as it's being published. This means subscriptions to every relevant journal are a necessity. Right? If you're a college and you have a bunch of different scientific programs, you're going to be subscribed to basically every journal there is, right? And the first thing Maxwell realizes is like, well, they'll pay whatever I charge, right? If I have exclusive rights, no one else can publish these things. I can charge as much as I want. And obviously once he makes money, competition enters. Other companies start figuring this out. But he makes another prediction, which is that, that this will work the opposite of the way most things work. The more publishers there are putting out more journals, the more money we will make, right? Because they can't not subscribe to everything because all of the research is unique and in order to stay up to date, they have to buy everything. And at this point in time, all of these universities, all these government, they're just being funded by these massive amounts of cold war era defense cash. So the money is unlimited, right? Like, and that's really what he realizes. Like, I can charge Whatever I want. I can put out as many journals as I want and there will be an endless amount of cash for me.

[Unknown]

And this is not like a huge part of the budget of any one university anyway. So he could charge. He could charge an arm and a leg. Yeah, but it's just going to be some, like the library has to pay for a little bit of it. Doesn't cost them as much as their mortgage.

[Robert Evans]

It's $100 instead of $10. Right. And we're getting all this defense money anyway because the US government needs physicists. Right? Right now it was his business partner, Roseboud, who had the idea that would truly make Pergamon into a force to be reckoned with. And Bob Maxwell, rich beyond his wildest dreams, per the Guardian quote. As science expanded, he realized that it would need new journals to cover new areas of study. The scientific societies that had traditionally created journals were unwieldy institutions that tended to move slowly, hampered by internal debates between members about the boundaries of their field. Rosebud had none of those constraints. All he needed to do was convince a prominent academic that their particular field required a new journal to showcase it properly and install that person at the helm of it. Pergamon would then begin selling subscriptions to university libraries, which suddenly had a lot of government money to spend. So you're literally walking up to guys and saying, hey, what you do seems new. You should have a journal. And suddenly every college in the Western world subscribes. Immediate profit, right? There are. So a really good magazine is working like a 10 to 15% profit margin, right? And that's a magazine that's doing very well. His profit margins on these journals are over 50%.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Like, it's insane how much money they make off of this. Speaking of insane money, help us get some of that, you know, so we can subscribe to scientific journals. No, we use Sci Hub. Everyone use Sci Hub. These people fuck scientific publishing as an industry. Steal it. Not legal advice.

[Adam Conover]

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[Unknown]

I'm Soledad O' Brien, and on my podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. every day she took a daily walk along a tow path near the E and O Canal. So when she was killed in a.

[Robert Evans]

Wealthy neighborhood, she had been shot twice in the head and in the back, behind the heart.

[Unknown]

The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. Was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet sweat, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist, because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man.

[Robert Evans]

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.

[Unknown]

John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the towpath with Soledad O' Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gilbert King]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Robert Evans]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Gilbert King]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Robert Evans]

Forward and he was just staring at me.

[Gilbert King]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Jeremy Scott]

Gilbert King I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Gilbert King]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Jeremy Scott]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Gilbert King]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Jeremy Scott]

If the cops and everything would have done the job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Gilbert King]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Jeremy Scott]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Gilbert King]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy, Jeremy, I.

[Robert Evans]

Want to tell you something.

[Gilbert King]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast and to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Soledad O'Brien]

It's the early days of COVID April 2020. A woman in a small town in Oklahoma makes a strange post to Facebook and then disappears. I'm on day nine of this virus and I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs. I made the decision at the onset that if it got bad enough, I.

[Robert Evans]

Would not go to the hospital.

[Soledad O'Brien]

Pretty quickly, a ragtag group of women on the Internet start their own investigation.

[Robert Evans]

It Felt like I was living out one of, like, my fantasy dreams of being a detective.

[Soledad O'Brien]

But the world they uncover is beyond their wildest imagination.

[Unknown]

How did this happen?

[Soledad O'Brien]

Listen to what happened to Talina zar on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. Sci Hub is a website that collects most of the journals you might want. If you, like, find a journal that's paywalled, you go to Sci Hub, Google it's. There's a bunch of different mirrors. Put the DOI number or just the URL link to the study you want, and Sci Hub will generally return it for free. It's great. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's not illegal for me to say.

[Unknown]

I mean, I think pretty much every grad student in the world is using it.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right, right. And they should be. And all of this should be free. Yes.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Cause it's. Oh, you mean scientific knowledge, the birthright of mankind, that our tax is paid for, the only. In fact, the only permanent and important thing humanity does on the entire planet to discover how the universe around us works. Yeah, that should probably be a free public resource.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it should probably be everyone's property. The collective genius of mankind. I don't know. Anyway, so Rosebowd, he has this idea which is very mercenary, but he also has, like, a conscience. He is a scientist, and he starts to feel ashamed as Maxwell runs with it and is like, oh, man, I really don't. I don't feel good being in business with you and doing this. I maybe contributed terribly to a great evil. And he leaves. And so Maxwell's in sole charge of Pergamon now. And once he grasps Rosebowd's idea, he runs with it like fucking Usain Bolt. He's launching new journals off the strength of, like, somebody. He's having, like, drinks, and some guy mentions a new idea, and he's like, bam, journal motherfucker. You know, if a researcher. Yeah. Like, that's literally how it's happening. Happening. By the late 50s, he brought a sort of sleazy. He's like the first 80s guy. Like, he's amazing, and he brings this energy to scientific publishing. And the fact that he is this way is so out of time that it's shocking to his new peers. So he'll show up at these scientific conferences in, like, these fine, tailored Italian suits. He's got his hair slicked back like a gangster. He described the journals that he owned as ewe lambs and himself as King David, like, cutting them up for partners, basically. Whoa, that's such a. Again, this is why RoseBoud quits in 56, is he's like, I don't know, maybe this feels gross.

[Unknown]

I also have to say, like, there's been a lot of talk in the last 20 years about, you know, for profit journals and, you know, all the problems in scientific publishing. I always thought that that profit motive was relatively recent. I didn't realize it was rapacious even at the dawn of this shit.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And it. Maxwell invents it now, obviously would something similar maybe, but like, it's him. He's the one who starts this.

[Unknown]

And presumably somebody could have started a version of academic publishing that didn't work this way. That was like, you know, a lot of people say, like, what if, what if Jimmy Wales had not started Wikipedia? Right. We would have maybe had a different business model. There could have been a business model that went a better way.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just don't know. And you know, I think we're probably doing better with Wikipedia than most things on the Internet these days.

[Unknown]

100%. No, I mean, that's a good example. If that hadn't existed, something bad could have taken its place. There could have been a better version of scientific publishing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Cost $100 a month or some shit or whatever. Yeah. And it tells you that, Elon Musk, you're going to get a hyperloop in your city soon or whatever. Yeah. So the next Geneva conference. Now, working alone, Robert Maxwell rents a mansion on the lake and he starts wining and dining the best minds of the scientific world again. He's taking these guys who have spent their whole. And ladies who have spent their whole careers with their nose in a book generally don't have much money begging for grants. And he is treating them like movie stars or pop musicians. Like, at one point he gets a bunch of these guys together to start a journal and he puts them on a chartered boat tour of the Greek isles to figure out how to make the journal like, it is like classic Hollywood era shit, right? Where you're like, go, go hang out in Italy for three months and write this movie together or something like that. Like that's what he's doing with these scientists. And like, yeah, yeah, they, they're like, this is much better than being a poor scientist.

[Unknown]

This would work on me.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, of course.

[Unknown]

If I was a scientist, I'd be like, this guy is so great. He's treating me the way I deserve to be treated. Of course. I mean, I study Ants. But of course I should go on a free, all expenses paid trip of Europe.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And, and, and one thing people say, to be fair to Maxwell, he introduces the mercenary capitalism to this. But, but he's always centered on the science. And one thing the scientists he work with will say is whenever we had a disagreement, he would always ultimately side with the scientists. Right. So it's after him that things do get much more evil. And it's with another company, Elsevier, where things get a lot worse. But he makes that process inevitable, even though he is really dedicated to the scientists in this period of time. And also, I just want to add to what Adam said. If anyone wants to put me on a chartered boat tour of the Greek Isles to start a journal, I'm in. You've got me, you bought me, I'm paid for. Like, yeah. So he told his deputy director at Pergamon, we don't compete on sales, we compete on authors. Right. So this is a talent driven business. And that's what again, it's very, it feels very similar to like Hollywood, at least at this time. I don't know how much that's an influence to him, but he is kind of working that way. His attitude is that like, drawing in more authors exclusively means like more journals that he owns and thus more sales. In 1959, Pergamon had 40 journals. By the mid-60s, it would publish more than 150, which is like almost like 10 times as many as El Salvier, which is again the most evil of these companies today. But at this point is just barely keeping up as like a competitor to Pergamon. Maxwell is not like a particularly patriotic businessman. He does not see national borders. He has really good connections with the ussr. It's always considered weird and part of why people are wondering about his spy credentials. Whenever he visits Moscow, the Soviet government puts him up in a mansion. They really like him. And I think he definitely is doing some spying. And I'm sure they're also putting him up in the mansion because it's wired and they want to spy on him. But he has really good connections too. He speaks really good Russian. He knows a lot of prominent people in the Soviet Union. And the evidence for that is that when the USSR launches spy budnik, he negotiates within days an English language deal with the Russian Academy of Sciences to become the exclusive English language publisher of like Russian science. Right. All of like these. Yeah. So he is connected.

[Unknown]

He sounds like a blast to spend a weekend with.

[Robert Evans]

He sounds like a shitload of fun. Yeah, right there's so many quotes about this guy. Like, all of the scientists who work with him are like, he was a piece of shit. A lot of fun, though. Like, yeah, he was an asshole.

[Unknown]

Threw great parties.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Like, I really enjoyed spending time with this guy who sucked. Yeah. Now, obviously, Maxwell does not make this, as I said, as evil as it becomes. But the downsides of what he starts are very obvious. Today, the modern field of scientific literature is cripplingly expensive for institutions like libraries and colleges, the latter of which pass their costs on to students. And while Maxwell initially wowed scientists with promises of payouts, by the mid-60s, he'd helped to normalize a system where individual researchers were more reliant on journals than journals were on them. Per the Guardian, scientists create work under their own direction, funded largely by governments, and give it to publishers for free. The publisher pays scientific editors who judge whether the work is worth publishing and check its grammar. But the bulk of the editorial burden, checking the scientific validity and evaluating the experiments, a process known as peer review, is done by working scientists on a volunteer basis. The publishers then sell the product back to the government funded institutional and university libraries to be read by scientists who in a collective sense, created the product in the first place. It is as if the New Yorker or the Economist demanded that journalists write and edit each other's work for free and ask the government to foot the bill. And like, nothing works like this industry does. And that is, by the way, a description of how it is now.

[Unknown]

That's an incredible summary of how it works. And like peer review, you know, we're taught in college anyway, that this is a good thing. The fact that it's free labor, and not just free labor for science, but free labor for the journals themselves. Like, it begs the question, like, what exactly is the publisher even doing other than, you know, hitting start on the printing press.

[Robert Evans]

Fuck.

[Unknown]

Which all. Which is the easiest part. Like, that's the, like fucking Random House does that shit. Like, what is the, what is the power that the. That these companies have? Like, why, why wouldn't a university system just start their own journal and do this themselves?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, well, I mean, they do. There are some cases of that. But like you also, I mean, it's just how kind of everything works in capitalism. There are economies of scale. By the time this gets underway, the big companies are so big, you and your dinky journal, like, they'll probably just buy you, right? And if the college gets offered money for our journal, well, it's money, right? Everyone's thinking short term about shit like this, not how it fucks you in the long run, you know. And again, like no industry works the way scientific publishing does. It is such a fucking grift. It's all a grift. It's a huge fucking evil grift.

[Unknown]

Goddamn, you got me mad. This is the kind of thing I normally do segments about. You got me mad about it.

[Robert Evans]

You can find very good quotes in articles about this, including some that we'll have linked in the show Notes where there are prominent scientists being like the primary barrier to scientific progress is the way scientific publishing works. Right. Like it's. I mean, maybe not right now, given things the administration's doing. Yeah, yeah, these are a little older articles, but it's a massive problem now. The ultimate result of the system that Robert Maxwell built is one in which as long as the government maintains a priority in funding sciences, the industry is super profitable. Right? The US or whoever pays for research, yada, yada, yada. And so we'll see what happens to publishing now that some of that's starting to change. But yeah, it's interesting, it's also such.

[Unknown]

A classic example of rent seeking as economists. Economists call it, because again, the government is funding it. The journals are making money off of it. Like Maxwell made so much money that his daughter is an heiress.

[Robert Evans]

Billions, Billions.

[Unknown]

And so they are profiting off of it, but they do not put money back into the system. Like, if they are making money off of the production of science, why not fund some fucking science? But they don't do that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, why would the fuck. Why would they do that? Why would they give any money to anybody? That's not what they're going to do. They're going to take it to, as Maxwell's about to do, buy a palace. And again, he's the least. He's not as bad as the guys who replace him. Right? Because he does. Ultimately he makes. A lot of times he will make decisions that cost him money because a scientist says it's the right thing to do and he does ultimately side with his scientists. And there's a. And he's able to do that because there's so much flex, there's so much extra profit. He can afford to. But the guys who replace him aren't, aren't even going to have that little level of scruples. Right? They're just not going to give a fuck. And this is going to disrupt the timeline of these episodes a little bit. But in order to talk about kind of where things are today with scientific publishing, I want to Quote once more from another Guardian article. The publishing business is perverse and needless, the Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen wrote in a 2003 article for the Guardian, declaring that it should be a public scandal. Adrian Sutton, a physicist at Imperial College, told me that scientists are all slaves to publishers. What other industry receives its raw materials from its customers, gets those same customers to carry out the quality control on those materials, and then sells the same materials back to the customers at a vastly inflated price? Today, every scientist knows that their career depends on being published, and professional success is especially determined by getting work into the most prestigious journals. The long, slow, nearly directionless work pursued by some of the most influential scientists of the 20th century is no longer a viable career option under today's system. The father of genetic sequencing, Fred Sanger, who published very Little in the two decades between his 1958 and 1980 Nobel prizes, may well have found himself out of a job. And that's actually, I think a really important point is that so many of the foundational discoveries of modernity as we know it were not the result of like a team of people working in, you know, for profit, for a company, in order to make a thing. It was the result of a scientist who had an interest and kind of, in a meandering way, pursued it for decades until he changed life for every human being. Yeah, right, right. Jonas Salk had a personal crusade against polio. You know, like, that doesn't happen. It can't happen. And this is part of why. Right, and that's really bad for all of us.

[Unknown]

Well, and part of it is the, is the social or career pressure of having to publish, which is an, I'm going to guess is an entirely different problem. Like that. That is the what, what scientists careers are based on is the pressure to publish. But it feeds again back into the. This system. Like, you don't last long in a tenured position if you never publish anything.

[Robert Evans]

Right, exactly. Maxwell, we're back to him now. I just, I really felt we should go to like, yeah, this is how bad things end. Right. But that's after his death. So Maxwell moves out of London. We're still in the, in the 60s. Here he purchases the Headington Hills hall estate in Oxford, which had been built in 1824 and become one of the most iconic residences in the country. I'll have Sophie pull up the picture. The Noble family who'd had to live there, sold it off in 1953. And Maxwell buys it in part because, like, again, he's not English, he's not naturally part of high society, but by buying this palace, he can kind of force himself to be right now. He can throw these kind of parties that everyone in high society will show up at. And he makes this both his home and the headquarters of Pergamon Press. Right. And it, you know, that's kind of the way things work in the uk. I think still to this day that like you can skip a bunch of levels of the social hierarchy if you buy the right house, you know. He And Betty had nine children ultimately in 19. And this is. His life is never, his personal life is never easy like this. For all that he's like a wealthy monster. He really has a tough life. In 1957, he and Betty lose their three year old daughter to leukemia. In 1961, their oldest son Michael is in a car crash that leaves him coma bound for seven years. He dies finally in 1968. And that, that nearly a decade. And this is during his like most productive period as a businessman. His son is just in a fucking coma die. It just, it kind of breaks everyone. Like his family is sort of ruined as a result of this. He and Betty stop talking really like they don't. Their relationship is never the same. And normally when we say that for a man this rich it's because, and he does cheat on her a bunch. But like in this case it's because, you know, it's just, this just breaks their relationship and it breaks their ability to kind of care for their other kids. Like he stops talking to his surviving children until, and I hate to make anyone sympathetic to Gillan Maxwell, but in 1961, his youngest daughter Gillan, at age 3, tells her mother, mummy, I exist in an attempt to get attention because like after this accident they're just ignoring their kids so much. Like she has to like state to her parents. I am a person at age 3 who reported this. This was in his biography by Preston and I believe this was reported by one of the Maxwell brothers. And again this is well before the scandal. So.

[Unknown]

No, no, I know, I'm just like, well, Gillen wouldn't remember this and the parents don't know the kids exist, so they probably wouldn't remember it.

[Robert Evans]

His brothers are old.

[Unknown]

One of the brothers, like, oh man, that was a real bummer when our 3 year old sister said, mummy, I exist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that really us all up actually.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, I still don't feel bad for her.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I didn't, I, I'm not saying you should feel bad for her, but this, this should tell you like how bad things are in his personal life. Not great.

[Adam Conover]

Still, don't feel bad for her.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. He does start to smother her with affection from this point forward. Right. Partly as a result of that. This. And she's kind of the only one in his immediate family that he acts with love towards. After this, he will lash out at his sons and at his wife for the rest of his days, but he never really does. At Gillen, she becomes coddled and is obviously his favorite. So again, there we go. There we go. Sympathy ended. We're good now. Don't have to think about that sad 3 year old anymore. Now, if you recall, Maxwell had promised his future wife, Betty, that during the war he would one day be rich and become the Prime Minister. He had obviously already become rich. And in the mid-1960s, he starts to work towards political power. In 1964, he runs for parliament in the constituency of Buckingham and he wins as a member of the Labour Party. And this is a weird aside. He, he identifies as a socialist his entire life.

[Unknown]

Really? He identifies as a socialist?

[Robert Evans]

Yep. He strongly identifies as a socialist.

[Unknown]

So he, he, he thinks that, like, public goods should be available to the public at low or no cost, subsidized by the government.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, here's the thing.

[Unknown]

But not scientific research.

[Robert Evans]

Not scientific research. That doesn't count. And also unions don't count.

[Unknown]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

I think he identifies as a socialist because his mom did. And he, he isn't one. He never acts as one. But I think that's just a part of his ego is like, he doesn't. He knows his. He probably knows his mom would not like what he's done with his life at this point. But yes, he is. And he is a part of the Labour Party and he has a. He plays a role in the switch from labor to New Labor. Right. Which is when the British Labour Party jettisons the unions. Right. Like Robert Maxwell is part of that process. How?

[Unknown]

What does he do?

[Robert Evans]

We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Speaking of things we'll talk about, here's ads.

[Unknown]

Ugh.

[Robert Evans]

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[Unknown]

I'm Soledad O' Brien, and on my podcast Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. every, every day, she took a daily walk along a towpath near the E and O Canal. So when she was killed in a.

[Robert Evans]

Wealthy neighborhood, she had been shot twice in the head and in the back, behind the heart.

[Unknown]

The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. Was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one murder woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist, because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man.

[Robert Evans]

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.

[Unknown]

John F. Kennedy Listen to Murder on the Top Hat.

[Robert Evans]

Who spoke?

[Unknown]

Soledad O' Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gilbert King]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Robert Evans]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Gilbert King]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Robert Evans]

Forward and he was just staring at me.

[Gilbert King]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Jeremy Scott]

Gilbert King I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Gilbert King]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Jeremy Scott]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Gilbert King]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Jeremy Scott]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Gilbert King]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Jeremy Scott]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Gilbert King]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy, Jeremy, I.

[Robert Evans]

Want to tell you something.

[Gilbert King]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to hear the entire new season season ad free with exclusive content. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Soledad O'Brien]

It's the early days of COVID April 2020. A woman in a small town in Oklahoma makes a strange post to Facebook and then disappears. I'm on day nine of this virus and I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs. I made the decision at the onset that if it got bad enough, I.

[Robert Evans]

Would not go to the hospital.

[Soledad O'Brien]

Pretty quickly, a ragtag group of women on the Internet start their own investigation.

[Robert Evans]

It felt like I was living out one of, like, my fantasy dreams of being a detective.

[Soledad O'Brien]

But the world they uncover is beyond their wildest imagination.

[Unknown]

How did this happen?

[Soledad O'Brien]

Listen to what happened to Talina zar on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

So Robert has now gotten himself into parliament, is part of labor, and you have to remember, remember again, he's a socialist. And he's also a business owner, though. And so he hates unions because they compete with his power. And so when interviewed after the election, he tells everybody, I come from a very humble farm laboring family and would rather cut off my arm than betray my class. And it's true that he does come from a humble farm laboring family, but there is no bigger class trader than this fucking guy. His political peers who knew him claimed that he also told them he wanted to become prime minister. And one colleague cited in the book Fall later quoted him as having admitted, well, of course I'm conservative, but I'm not a member of the establishment, so I've got to become labor. Which is a very Trumpian comment, right? That like, I'm not a member of the establishment, I'm a billionaire, I own all of science, but I'm not part of the establishment, fundamentally. So I, I'm a conservative, but I, I, I'm with labor. Right. I'm actually a progressive somehow. It's like an Elon Musk statement.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it's an in group, out, group thing, thing. They were, they were mean to me growing up. I'm not a lord, I'm not a lord and lady. I'm not invited to social functions, therefore I must join this party.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And he, he also considers so a big thing once he gets into labor is his, he's telling, he starts telling everyone else, we have to modernize the Labor Party. And what he means by that is our pro union attitudes are outdated. We have to stop being pro union right now. This is not initially super popular. A lot of unions voting in this period of time still, they have not been crushed by Thatcher entirely. Eventually he switched out his chauffeured Rolls Royce for an old Land Rover to try to portray himself as a man of the people. And like, buddy, a Land Rover, still an expensive car. It's like, no, I'm gonna trade my Maserati for a Lambo so people know I'm a working man, right? Like, I don't know, man.

[Unknown]

It's not chauffeured now. I just mow over the peasants under my own power.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. So this did not have the intended effect. And although he was reelected in 1966, he ultimately lost his seat in 1970 and failed to win it back during the next cycle. Still, Adam, you'll be happy to hear this. He achieved the goal of every politician in the 60s and 70s having an awkward photo taken with Henry Kissinger. Just look at the two of them. Just look. And Maxwell's over in the corner there. He's just like, smiling in the corner. Looking like a mob boss. Next to kissing. I love this picture.

[Unknown]

That guy's a wheeler dealer. He's drunk already.

[Robert Evans]

He's. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Like, I. I can smell him based on this photo. Does that make sense?

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely.

[Unknown]

Smells like mothballs and vodka.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Yeah. My. And maybe a little aqua velvet in there, too.

[Gilbert King]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He smells like the back room of an Italian deli. That's actually a mob front.

[Unknown]

He's going, how you doing, sweetheart? He's like, patting the waitress's ass. Like, this guy is such a piece of.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's shocking to me again that he's like a Czech Ruthenian Jewish guy. Because if you had told me this man was the most Italian fellow ever, I'd be like, yeah, that guy is Italian as shit. Look at him. Like, he has the face of a mob boss. Like, you could have put him in the Sopranos.

[Unknown]

It really is the 20th century dream, right. Of starting in this little backwater and becoming a sort of like poly national wheeler dealer, billionaire player, asshole.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He does it all. And he is like, again, a monster. But the only guy I've ever heard of who you can really say, like, yeah, he is kind of was a self made billionaire. Like, he did come from nothing.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And then destroyed science. Great.

[Unknown]

I think there's more. I feel like that was more possible after an event like World War II, where everything gets scrambled and you can rush in and pick up the pieces.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, well, I mean. Yeah. I mean, think about it. Both Maxwell and Kissinger really are both, like. They both start their lives as, like, shrapnel from this horrific conflict, persecuted by the Nazis. And then the world of possibilities that opens up in the wake of the Second World War allows both of them to reach these incredibly high levels of power. So. Yeah, I mean, I think you've got a really good point there that, like, the. The way the world opens up after World War II makes a lot of these guys improbable lives possible.

[Unknown]

I can't wait for World War 3.

[Robert Evans]

It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great.

[Unknown]

Just think about all the new billionaires we're gonna get. And I'm gonna be like, I wish I was a younger man.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

I wish I was just trying to get my start after World War iii, you know, after the nukes go off and I could build the nuclear mitigation business.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. But maybe we'll get a chance to fight some SS guys on a farm, you know? You know, at least there could happen. It could happen here. Yeah. Through the late 1960s, Maxwell repeatedly tried to expand his empire into news media. He attempts to buy News of the World in 1968 and the sun in 1969, and Rupert Murdoch beats him both times. This enrages him. He considers himself Rupert Murdoch's nemesis. Rupert Murdoch is always like, oh, I don't. I've never even heard of that guy. Who are you talking about? Nemesis? Nah, nah.

[Unknown]

You're not making him less sympathetic, though.

[Robert Evans]

By this part, nativism does play a role in him losing News of the World because an editorial, when he's trying to buy it, declares, this is a British newspaper run by British people. Let's keep it that way.

[Unknown]

What was he considered at the time? He was British.

[Robert Evans]

They knew. Yeah. But they figured. They found out he'd been born Jan. He hadn't been born Jan, but that's what they thought.

[Unknown]

This guy's a Ruthenian.

[Robert Evans]

He's a Ruthenian. Yeah. So his political career is uneven at best. Business seemed to be a welcoming place for him, at least until late 1969, after he negotiated what should have been a great deal to sell Pergamon Press to a wealthy American investor, Saul Steinberg. Unfortunately for our boy, Maxwell illegally concealed the true value of the company, basically pretending it was a lot worth more than it was, via what writer Robert Philpott calls smoke and mirrors accounting practices. He gets removed from the board of directors, and the UK starts an investigation in his activities that concludes in 71. After finding huge amounts of fraudulent payments moved from one department to another to hide the cost of other investments that went bad and prop up segments of his business that were struggling. The report concluded Robert Maxwell is not, in our opinion, a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a public company. And that's the end of the story, right? Obviously, you know.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, five years later, he takes control of Pergamon again. He's running it all. And his. His sudden rise and fall earns him the nickname the bouncing check. Like Czeh, which is not bad. That's not bad.

[Unknown]

Great work.

[Robert Evans]

Look, the British press check good at some things. Yeah, I love that shit. And for the next 10 years after this unprobable rise back he goes from strength to strength. He buys Europe's largest printing company. He becomes owner of the Mirror, Britain's largest left leaning paper. And now that he finally owns a paper, this is how he really plays a major role in the shift to New labor. Because he starts using it, the biggest left leaning paper in the UK to attack union organizers. He runs what the Socialist Worker described as a smear campaign against Arthur Scargill, head of the mine workers union. This is during a big fight between the mine workers and Thatcher, I believe, quote, Scargill and the socialist values he represented were seen as a barrier to the modernization of the labor party. The vile attacks which lasted for the better part of a year were baseless, yet they did terrible damage. And he does this over and over again. Again, right. He has like a one man war against the unions in the UK wielding the left wing paper to execute it.

[Unknown]

He just has animus for unions because he's a business owner and that's the way the wind is blowing.

[Robert Evans]

And that's the. I think the way the wind is blowing doesn't hurt. I think he is a personal. I should be able to, I know what's best. I should be able to make all the decisions. And if you got a union, the boss doesn't make all the decisions. Right. They're restricted to some extent.

[Unknown]

No, that's what anti unionism is fundamentally about. It's about anyone else having power. Unions are about workers having power and the people on top don't want them to have the power.

[Robert Evans]

Right, exactly. And Maxwell the socialist uses this big left leaning paper as an engine to push labor against unions. And unfortunately while he does this, the paper grows in circulation and becomes more profitable than ever. Because again, he's really good at the nuts and bolts of running a newspaper. Like he's just, he's like, it's like he's like almost like LeBron. Right? Like he's just got this built in skill he was born with for knowing how to make a paper profitable. I don't know why.

[Unknown]

We could use a little bit of that right now to be quite honest.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we need another one of those who's not evil. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Now we just got Bezos and Patrick soon shong.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Right. So he buys more publications, he becomes a media maven on such a scale that Bob Bagdikian, the dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism declared, neither Caesar, nor Franklin Roosevelt nor any pope has commanded as much power to shape information on which so many people depend.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

And Murdoc is obviously his rival at this time, but this is kind of before Murdoc has done most of what he's going to get famous for. Like, Fox News isn't really a thing yet. And Murdoch, to a degree, cribs a little bit from this guy's notes in terms of like, oh, really? He's taking some notes. Not that he's not doing any of this before, but he's influenced a little bit by the degree to which Maxwell is able to turn these publications he owns to push his own agendas. And he is a famously terrible guy to work for. Per a biography in the Times of Israel, he bullied and humiliated staff, relentlessly calling his ludicrously titled chief of staff at 4am one Sunday morning to ask him the time and instilled a culture of distrust and rivalry. He bugged his staff, by which I mean he bugged them with surveillance devices, spending hours alone listening to the recordings for evidence of disloyal, and even had them followed, thank Christ.

[Unknown]

Like, dude, you're obsessed with me. You're spending hours alone listening to the recordings of me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's kind of flattering. You are.

[Unknown]

What you're really pulling into focus now is this man is a long lost Succession character.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. Nailed it.

[Unknown]

Where is the Holocaust surviving Ruthenian, Czech Jew, you know, who managed to survive and build an empire on that. That's a wonderful character.

[Adam Conover]

He would have participated in Boar on the Floor. There's no way.

[Unknown]

He sounds like he created Boar on the Floor.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he is.

[Adam Conover]

Boar on the Floor.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah, Boar on the Floor.

[Robert Evans]

We missed a flashback scene if he's machine gunning the ss. Alas. So this is. And again, to kind of play on the Succession vibes, his sons are. He puts in his business, right, and he fires them. He fires his son, Ian Maxwell, because, like, he doesn't have. He's not like, waiting for him when he lands on a plane. He instead, like, sends a chauffeured vehicle. And so Maxwell fires his kid. And Ian's first words when he gets fired are, thank Christ, I'm finally out of the madhouse. And then three months later, he hires Ian back on half his salary. He's just such a piece of shit.

[Unknown]

Yeah, this is very successful. You're in, you're out, you're up, you're down. Dad loves you. He doesn't love you. You never know where you Stand. Except you'll never be free.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, definitely will never be free. Free. Now, that quote comes from a massive piece on Maxwell in the Times of Israel. And the Times of Israel is covering him in particular, because in the mid-80s, after decades of really ignoring his Jewish heritage, he meets a guy who's like, you should go to Israel. And he becomes all in and starts investing massively in the Israeli economy. His wealth gives him instant access to the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shmir, and he announces his intention. I'm going to put a quarter of a billion dollars into Israel. And he normally lands lies when he says stuff like this, but he does this. And he uses his profits from the Mirror in order to do this. And I'm going to quote from his biography. Over the next four years, thanks to his mere group profits, Maxwell pumped millions into the country, buying newspapers, investing in high tech and pharma companies, and in the process becoming the largest single investor in Israel's economy. Maxwell also began to pass on useful information to the Mossad. And boy, is he useful to the Mossad. In 1986, he tipped. So there's this scientist, this Israeli scientist, Mordechai Vanunu, who's part of, like, Israel's nuclear program, that Israel still does not acknowledge that they have nukes. Right. We know they, like, everyone knows, but it's like kind of they don't acknowledge.

[Unknown]

They have them now.

[Robert Evans]

I don't believe. I still don't believe they've officially acknowledged their nuclear capacity. I should actually double check on that. I know it took a long time, but they have not at this point. Right. Like, they. It is not officially stated. It's just kind of a thing everyone knows. And Mordecai goes to the British press with inside info about Israel's nuclear program, and one of the papers he goes to is the Mirror. And so he leaks to Maxwell's paper and Maxwell gives him up to the Mossad and He's jailed for 18 years, which is like, in journalism terms, bad.

[Unknown]

Yeah. To give somebody up to a foreign intelligence service and then they're jailed.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, Real bad.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Usually they try not to do that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Bad publisher move. Hey, Robert here. And I just wanted to come in and note that the story of Mordechai Vanunu is a lot more complicated than just Robert Maxwell or the Mirror. The Mirror is not the first publication that he linked to. I think he went after the Sunday Times first. But Robert Maxwell is involved. It's a little bit unclear. It seems like a situation where maybe more than one Person kind of went to the Mossad about what he was saying. But, yeah, Maxwell definitely was involved when somebody else sold the story to the Sunday Mirror and he went to the Mossad over it. So, anyway, Mordecai is a very interesting guy, obviously very courageous guy. Story's really worth looking at into. I also did want to note, because we had a question about this earlier. Israel still does not officially admit that they have nuclear weapons, although they're believed to have somewhere between like 1 and 400 warheads. It's that their kind of official defense posture strategy is to neither confirm nor deny that they do. It kind of became clear in the late 70s that they did. But this is not something that is like, officially admitted. So anyway, just wanted to add that clarification. Now, there are allegations, unfortunately, because he's involved in the Mossad, and he definitely is. There's also insane allegations, right? Like you can find every conspiracy connected to this guy, and he's basically framed as, like, having been a major Mossad agent. And that's just really not accurate. One of the big things you'll hear is that, and this comes from the book Robert Maxwell, Israel Super Spy, which is, let's say, somewhat exaggerated. And they allege that he stole a piece of surveillance software called Promise without an E, which was programmed to let law enforcement agencies track criminals and having a backdoor installed in it. And the Baltimore sun sums up their argument. They report that Maxwell sold the program to most of the important government intelligence services in the world at a personal profit of more than half a billion dollars. Into the program, they write, Israeli technicians collaborating with Maxwell implanted an electric trapdoor that allowed Israeli intelligence to tap many of the highest state secrets of the Soviet Union, Britain, the US and other nations. And this is not true. And it's also not true in a way that is blaming, is denying what the US Government did. Because Promise is a real thing, and it really was used to tap a bunch of governments. But the US government was the inciting agent here, right? This is one of ours. Now Maxwell is involved. I'm going to explain what happened. So this software was designed by a software developer in Washington called INS Law so prosecutors could monitor case records and keep track of different people in the system. Right? Like that is the purpose, so prosecutors can monitor the progression of cases against different accused criminals. It was developed under a Department of justice grant, so the DOJ was licensed to use it, but the license said the government cannot modify, create derivative versions of it, or sell it. And the Reagan administration said, like, well, Fuck it. What if we just do that anyway, right? Per an article in the New Statesman, under the Ronald Reagan administration's covert intelligence initiative known as Follow the money, the NSA misappropriated promise for sale to banks in 1982. The version of promise sold by the NSA had been espionage enabled through a backdoor in the program, allowing the agency to covertly conduct real time electronic surveillance of the flow of money to suspected terrorists and other perceived threats to U.S. national interests. A letter from the U.S. department of justice in 1985, later obtained by INS Law because the company sues the shit out of the government for this, documented more plans for covert sale and distribution of the espionage enabled version of promise, this time to governments in the Middle east, which would surreptitiously allow the US to spy on foreign intelligence agencies. The letter outlined how sales of the software were to be facilitated by the late Saudi billionaire Khalid Bin Mahfouz and the arms dealers Adnan Khashoggi and Minutia Ghorbanafar. Promise should be delivered without pay, paperwork, customs or delay, it stated, and all of the transactions paid for through a Swiss bank account. So number one, this is on us. The Mossad does not start this program and they don't put the back. It's not Israeli technicians who put the back door in. Reagan's guys do, right? A bunch of the shadiest. Now Israel does get involved in this and they do profit from this, but it starts with us. A bunch of the shadiest operators in the 1980s are allowed to sell pirated versions of promise. Basically, the Attorney Attorney General under Reagan, Ed Meese, will give you the, like, basically license you to sell pirated compromised versions of promise to foreign governments if you're his friend. Like, that's how the, that's part of how this works. It's like a way the Reagan administration is like rewarding loyal people. It's like, hey, you've got a good. Hey, you did us good. And you've got a good connection over in, you know, Ecuador or whatever, why don't we let you sell this to their government and then we get a backdoor into the government and this guy gets to make, right? And one of the people who gets tapped as a result of this program because they wanna sell promise to Iraq, Libya and several other Middle Eastern countries. And this is hard. So they enlist the help of a Mossad guy named Rafi Aytan. And that guy in the Mossad is like, maybe a guy at the Mossad isn't the best dude to sell to Iraq. But you know who can sell shit to anybody? Bobby Maxwell, baby. And that's where he comes into this, right? Right now, Gordon Thomas, who's the author of that Israel super spy book, will claim he's the one, he's the source of the claim that Maxwell makes half a billion in licenses doing this. I don't know how much Maxwell really makes, but he doesn't start like he is. He's kind of a middleman in the process. And Thomas portrays him as like at the core of the process. But this is like fucked up. And he does sell. He sells, I think, to the Soviet Union. He sells to a shitload of governments that allows the US to spy on them. And he profits personally from this. So this is like a lot of skullduggery it's involved in. It's just a lot more centered on Ed Meese and the Reagan administration than some of these other claims make. And obviously Israel profits from this too, because they are using Maxwell to sell it to countries that they want intel on. Right? So that is happening. That is a part of this story. It's just not the start of it. Now there are numerous allegations of Maxwell's fingers in arms dealers that the Israeli government found useful to too. And some of these are true, but it's often portrayed as he is an arms dealer. He's not. He is a guy who knows logistics. And so when a friend is like, hey, we need the shipment to get through this port, he's like, I know guys there, I'll make sure it moves, right? He's a, he's a, you know, that's the kind of thing he's, he's useful for. And so he's, he is connected to the Mossad because he's a powerful rich businessman who desperately wants to prove his loyalty to the country, to Israel, and has connections everywhere. And that's kind of his use. And there's a much more accurate look at his spying and his involvement in intelligence agencies in the book Foreign the Secret Life of Robert Maxwell by Russell Davies. And Davies outlines the dimensions of these shady dealings in a way that I think is a lot more accurate because he argues it's hard to imagine Maxwell himself doing an arms deal directly. Right? But he could certainly have been of use securing the cooperation of foreign governments when it came to routing illicit cargoes through their unadvertised and outlawed destinations. Maxwell, he argues, would have been insulted to have been accused of working as a common spy or agent because again, he is on first a first name basis with every Prime Minister of Israel during this period of time. Right. Like he's not like an employee of the Mossad. He is incredibly, he's way. He's so highly connected. By 1988, Maxwell estimated his own net worth at about $4 billion. And the parties he threw, attended by everyone who was anyone in UK politics, were legendary. John Preston describes his 1988 birthday, an event that had to take three days because more than 3,000 people attended. There's like tiers of guests in terms of like which day you're allowed to be at.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

It'S fucked up.

[Unknown]

It really seems like, you know, he did some bad shit, but he wins me back with the parties. The parties sound great.

[Robert Evans]

The parties sound great. The arms dealing, the spying on every foreign government in the world for the CIA and the Mossad, I don't love that. But the parties, there's one like Margaret Thatcher gives a speech at his birthday this year where she talks about how awesome she is because he doesn't like her. They're like enemies in public, but she's like, I think he secretly likes me. And then explains all the ways that she thinks she's cool. Like, it's such a fucking Thatcher moment. Oh man, it is sick. I want to read a quote from John Preston's book that sort of gives you a description of the vibe of this party. On the night of the first party, guests passed down a receiving line where they were greeted by Maxwell, Betty and all seven of their children. Some of the guests arrived bearing birthday presents. The broadcaster David Frost turned up with a 500 pound bottle of wine, unaware of how much it had cost. Maxwell chef later tipped it into a beef stew at. As guests sipped their drinks, the band of the Coldstream Guards marched back and forth across the lawn. Before dinner started, Robert and Betty made their formal entrance into the marquee to an announcement from the master of ceremonies. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome your host and hostess, Robert and Elizabeth Maxwell. In a fanfare of herald trumpeters, everyone stood to applaud. Along with a row of medals pinned to his black tailcoat, Maxwell was wearing a large white enamel cross on a chain around his neck. This was the Order of the White Rose of Finland, a decoration normally given to foreign heads of state in recognition of outstanding civilian or military conduct. Betty Maxwell wore a dress made of gold embroidered tulle over yellow taffeta silk. So like parties, parties like real rich people parties.

[Unknown]

See, I missed the boat with World War II. If I had just been able to.

[Robert Evans]

Murder a couple Germans, couple dozen Germans.

[Unknown]

I Could have been on the road to have to be being covered in silver tacks and having Margaret Thatcher sing my praises.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, kind of. We'll sing her own praises at your birthday. Yeah, classic Thatcher. Make it all about her.

[Unknown]

The greatest generation, though.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, definitely the greatest generation. There's like a really funny moment from this where like one of his friends goes like, during this party, kind of like finds his way walking around like the back of the house outside of like the areas they're supposed to be partying in and notices that like, well, all the furniture, furniture outside of like the big public areas kind of looks like shit. And all of the books on his bookshelf are fake. Like they're made out of cardboard. They're like fake books. Now, Preston says only the books concealing his stereo system were fake. I don't know, but this is kind of evidence that as rich as he was on paper, and this is the thing, he's worth 4.4 billion on paper or something like that, that he's not actually doing as well as it seems, right? And 1998 is nearer to the end of his time in the limelight than the beginning. That year, the same year as this fucking party, he spends $2.6 billion buying U.S. publisher Macmillan. And that's a billion dollars more than its own shareholders valued it at. Like he kind of does a musk where he's like, I'll offer you 2.6 billion. And they're like, we were not going to ask for that much, but oh, fucking K. Right, yeah. He had to borrow from 44 banks to afford it. And he does this not because, again, he's got profitable businesses. Preston says this is out of desperation because Murdoch is buying more and more publishers and he's like desperate to win. He doesn't want Murdoch to get McMillan, so he kind of endangers his entire empire buying it in order to beat Rupert Murdoch. And again, all Murdoch will say about this guy is like, who? Huh? What guy?

[Unknown]

That must make him even angrier. I don't know her, says Rupert Murdoch.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. Anyway, back to being evil. In March of 1991, he started making a series of ill advised acquisitions in New York media. He purchased the New York Daily News, which was like the oldest daily paper in New York at the time, but also in disastrous financial conditions. There's like a horrible strike going on. It is not a good buy. It's such a bad buy. The owners pay him $60 million to take it and they Pay him that. Because it's in a lot more debt than that.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Right? It's such a bad buy.

[Unknown]

So they're getting off scot free by paying a different dude to own it.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, please take this shit and all of its debts off of our fucking hands. Wow. And again, his assumption is because in the past, every time he's got a paper, he's been able to turn it around, right? And make it soup. He's got this skill. So he sails his yacht, the Lady Gillen, named after his daughter, into the city harbor to take control of the paper. He gives this like grand speech on the street and like there's all these articles in New York papers being like the savior of New York media, you know. And there's also a bunch of people who had worked for him in different papers in the UK being like, he's actually a giant dick. No one can stand to work for him. This is not going to end well for any of you. And it sure as shit doesn't, right? So the 80s comes to an end, sadly. I know we're all still mourning that. And suddenly there's a big economic pop, right? And interest rates skyrocket and all of this debt that he had taken on to keep building this. He's always robbing Peter to pay Paul, like a certain, certain guy that we all know about right now. Like, he's always in debt to a lot of banks for all this stuff. And suddenly it gets a lot more expensive to service that debt. And so in 1991 he has to sell Pergamon Press in order like. And that's his like, baby. In order to keep everything else afloat. And that's also the profitable part of his empire. So he has now sold the golden goose to pay for the shit that's horribly in debt that he can't make a profit on. Not a great move. So what do you do if you're a guy who sucks ass and hates unions and hates your employees and suddenly you're out of money and you need to keep funding all of this debt? Where do you go when interest rates are fucked and you simply can't take any more loans from banks?

[Unknown]

I'm racking my brain. Where do you go?

[Robert Evans]

Well, you know where there's a lot of money in any given company that's been around this long with a large workforce?

[Unknown]

The pension plan. He raids the pension plan.

[Robert Evans]

He raids the pen. He steals nearly half a billion dollars from the pension plan.

[Unknown]

Now I'm mad. Now I don't like him. Yeah, oh yeah, now I don't like him.

[Robert Evans]

He destroys so many people's lives and retirements. He fucking robs this pension plan, right? And it's not even enough because his debts are well over a billion dollars. Banks are hounding him constantly. He starts gambling in London casinos. All he'll do is like, gamble and then watch James Bond movies while leading takeout. And this is kind of his mental state. He's in this period of collapse. And also right around this time, it becomes known that he is being investigated for war crimes in World War II because he like, wrote letters to his wife and talked about him, like to journalists about like, again, I machined gun prisoners. And again, it's the least bad thing he ever did. But so he's got that too. He's got all these debts. His whole empire is about to collapse. When he sets sail on his yacht, the Lady Gillen, on November 1, 1991. He's getting letters constantly from different banks, being like, hey, this is overdue. Can you even prove that you're solvent in anymore. Swiss bank is threatening to go public and it has told the London police that he's broken a bunch of laws. Laws. So he's in a lot of Trouble. And around 5am on November 1, I think it's November 1, 1991, he falls overboard off the stem of his yacht as it passes towards Tenerife. And his body is fished out of the ocean about 12 hours later by the Spanish National Rescue Service helicopter. Nobody knows precisely what happened. The thing that you will encounter most commonly is that the Mossad had him killed. And I don't see any reason to believe that. For one thing, he receives a hero's funeral in Israel, like, attended by the Prime Minister. And the Israeli President, Shimon Peres is there. Right. They give him like, okay, so this is what the Israeli President says at his funeral. Kings and barons besieged his daughter doorstep. He was a figure of almost mythological stature. But there are like, allegations that basically he tried to blackmail the Mossad to get them to pay him $400 million. And it, I. I don't know, doesn't seem like the kind of move he'd have made. Again, he's a steal the pension plan guy.

[Unknown]

People treat these like spy agencies, as though, like they always have reason to kill anybody at any time. Yes, that like there's so many. Some they're like a deus ex machina that people use for a simple explanation to make themselves seem smart. Where, like, why? Why would they.

[Robert Evans]

Why? Why? Like, for what they. Israel wasn't angry at him.

[Unknown]

It's the most annoying thing in. In history analysis is people making this claim. Well, the Mossad had him killed.

[Robert Evans]

Why?

[Unknown]

What does that explain?

[Robert Evans]

You know, again, he was the number one investor over there. He was extremely popular there. He had destroyed the pensions of huge numbers of people in the uk. Like, if anyone wanted to kill him, it's a bunch of them.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And he was about to fuck up a lot of us publishing. But, like, yeah, it's just one of those things where there are three different coroner reports and they don't agree. And so that'll often get like. And none of the coroners could agree. But what the coroners can't agree on is did he have a heart attack or did he jump in? And both are. He's 68, he was in bad health. It's also. It's perfectly possible either. Either he knew that he was fucked and he wanted to die. Right. Or that he had a heart attack because he was super stressed out and 68 and not in good health and he fell off his boat.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Both of those are just likelier to me than like, the Mossad poisoned him with an untraceable poison on his boat so it would look like he fell over. Why? Like, again, he's being hounded by all of the governments. He knows he's heading to prison. Maybe he kills himself, maybe he has a heart attack. I don't really have trouble believing either. He is initially mourned as, like, this great figure because all of this hasn't come out yet. But a few weeks after his death, everything I've told you is published that he stole £400 million from pension funds, that he. There were 763 million British pounds missing from his companies. He is described as the crook of the century by Newsweek magazine.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

And not a. Yeah, maybe he's one.

[Unknown]

Of them, like, things finally caught up with old Bobby Maxwell.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Murdering people.

[Robert Evans]

No, they sure did.

[Unknown]

Destroying scientific publishing. Nah, he's fine. But stealing pension funds, that'll get you.

[Robert Evans]

Which does suck. Like, that is really bad. Yeah. One of his worst things.

[Unknown]

Yeah. No, absolutely. No. That made me. Up until. Up until now, he was sort of like, debonair. Ne' er do. Well, you know, I was. I was enjoying the story. Now I'm. Now I'm pissed off.

[Robert Evans]

Now I'm pissed off. Yeah. And so his. His sons, who are declared innocent of any involvement in the conspiracy, maybe they were a part of it, but I don't have trouble believing that. He just didn't respect his kids enough to tell them what he was doing, right?

[Unknown]

Yeah, of course not.

[Robert Evans]

They have to take over and they're left with like £400 million or so. They've got to like figure out how to put together his assets are sold off. Most of like the. The. What are called the Maxwell pensioners. Right. And these are the people who lost their retirement. So savings get half or less of what they were owed, you know, as a result of kind of this liquidation process. But Gillen stays comfortable for a while, you know. A while.

[Unknown]

Well, I didn't think. I didn't think I could end with a lower opinion of Gill and Maxwell. I didn't anticipate that.

[Robert Evans]

This is. Yeah. Shocking, right?

[Unknown]

Yeah. Oh, she's also a criminal. Nepo baby. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also didn't really call her dad being so cool up until age 23. Cause he's really knocking it out of the park up until age 23. Great first act.

[Unknown]

Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, it's like one of those movies that like really falls apart in the second half. Like. Ah. You could have used more editing. I was really on board.

[Unknown]

Well, it's funny how much it tracks. Sort of the standard, you know, it's a Citizen Kane or a what's his Face from Succession style story where it. It's like inspiring. In the beginning, all turns wrong, you know, Larger than life. All these insane details. He's present at every moment in history. Like the sort of figure who. You know, if I read a novel about this guy, I wouldn't believe it, you know.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, no. Yeah, it is like. And again, he did lie about a lot of it unnecessarily. Yeah. So that's, that's. That's where we are, you know, that's. That's this guy. Life. Thanks for sitting and learning about it.

[Unknown]

Incredible. He's. What a. What a bastard. I'm now behind him.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, we're now behind him. Well, got any pluggables to plug? We've kept you here long enough.

[Unknown]

I do. Once again, my podcast is called Factually. I do that on YouTube where I also do video monologues. And yeah, you can check out my stand up special unmedicated on Dropout right now.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, awesome. Well, awesome. Check out that. Check out Dropout. And you know, if you're going to machine gun the ss, don't go on to destroy scientific publishing and then hundreds of millions of dollars in pension funds. That's my advice to our listeners.

[Unknown]

Yeah. And don't tell people you did it. So proudly. Don't be like, I committed a war crime.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, maybe don't destroy your whole life competing with Rupert Murdoch and being a dick. Like, such a weird way to blow your life. Oh, man. So funny.

[Unknown]

Competing in an asshole contest with Rupert Murdoch. Not a great way to go.

[Robert Evans]

Not even being noticed. Oh, man. Murdoch was like, who it is. I don't want to ever give it to Rupert. But there's some of the great hater moments are just Rupert being like, who are you talking about? All right, well, that's the episode, everybody. Good night and good luck.

[Unknown]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Robert Evans]

This is awesome.

[Unknown]

Awesome.

[Robert Evans]

Thank you, Adam. Really appreciate you. Can't wait to get these episodes out. And we're done. Goodbye.

[Adam Conover]

Behind the Basterds is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Adam Conover]

Our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube.

[Robert Evans]

New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Friday, subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Adam Conover]

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[Gilbert King]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Jeremy Scott]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Unknown]

Evil.

[Gilbert King]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Jeremy Scott]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Gilbert King]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Soledad O'Brien]

It's April 2020. A woman announces on Facebook that she has Covid and won't be seeking medical attention.

[Robert Evans]

I didn't want to be talked out of this plan.

[Soledad O'Brien]

Then she disappears.

[Robert Evans]

Anyone else think this is strange? I just had to know, how did this happen?

[Soledad O'Brien]

Listen to what happened to Talina zar on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast?

[Unknown]

How could a beautiful young first grade teacher be stabbed 20 times, including in the bat? Allegedly die of suicide? Yes, that was the medical examiner's official ruling. After a closed door meeting, he first named it a homicide.

[Robert Evans]

Why?

[Unknown]

What happened to Ellen Greenberg? A huge American misconduct miscarriage of justice. For an in depth look at the facts. See what happened to Ellen on Amazon. All proceeds to the national center for Missing and Exploited Children.

[Robert Evans]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.