Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is anything but boring--calling this book boring strikes me as a desperate subterfuge by someone who want to keep its explosive contents from fuller circulation. This book is *fascinating* and explosive, not least because of the very well documented coverage it provides of how Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, used Robert Maxwell to penetrate not just the U.S. government, including the Department of Justice, the military, and the national laboratories, but many foreign governments including the Chinese, Canadians, Australians, and many others, with substantial penetration of their intelligence service databases, all through his sale of a software called PROMIS that had a back door enabling the Mossad to access everything it touched (in simplistic terms).

Also shocking, at least to me, was the extensive detail in this book about how the Israeli intelligence service is able to mobilize Jews everywhere as "sayanim," volunteer helpers who carry out operational (that is to say, clandestine) support tasks to include spying on their government and business employers, stealing documents, operating safehouses, making pretext calls, and so on. I am a simple person: if you are a Jew and a US citizen, and you do this for the Israeli intelligence service, then you are a traitor, plain and simple. This practice is evidently world-wide, but especially strong in the US and the UK.

The book draws heavily on just a couple of former Israeli intelligence specialists to address Israeli use of assassination as a normal technique (and implicitly raises the possibility that it was used against Senator John Tower, who died in small airplane crash and was the primary "agent" for Maxwell and Israel in getting PROMIS installed for millions of dollars in fees all over the US Government).

Finally, the book has a great deal of detail about the interplay between governments, crime families, Goldman Sachs and other major investors, and independent operators like Robert Maxwell who play fast and loose with their employee pension funds.

This book is not boring. Far from it. It is shocking, and if it is only half-right and half-accurate, that is more than enough to warrant its being read by every American, whatever their faith.

Really quite a shocking story of a media giant, whose true passion was international geo-political manipulation and personal greed. A must read for anyone who is concerned about the concentrations and misuse of power.

Through British citizen Robert Maxwell, vain, gross, brilliant and criminal, Thomas and Dillon paint a picture of corruption and decadence in the West, Eastern Europe and the Middle East today. Maxwell's loyalties are to himself and to Israel; Senator John Tower is in his pocket; and so forth. The United States, apart from furnishing the likes of Tower, furnishes the intelligence stolen by Israel and the subsidies that keep that country in business stealing from its patron. Maxwell is a kind of super sayan (singular form of sayanim) and the book to some degree is an expose of the extent to which these volunteers-for-Israel around the world do damage to their host countries.

The Maxwell-Mossad team steals spy software PROMIS from the United States, Mossad puts an undetectable trap door in it so Mossad can track the activities of anyone using it, then Maxwell sells it around the world (including back to the U.S. -- with the trap door). When Maxwell finally goes bankrupt, the losses are passed on to "the little people," while Israel and Maxwell's protected heirs remain in the black, at least materially. Thomas/Dillon present, in thrilling mystery adventure mode, the theory that Maxwell became a loose canon to his beloved Israel, among other things hitting on Mossad for a bigger pay-off, and its agents assassinated him.

The authors, both top-notch investigative journalists, base their study on official documents and on interviews -- what they uncover is bound to shock and put on the alert anyone who loves his country, respects honesty, good will and just about any other virtue within its borders.

This book is an entertaining work of fiction, but expecting to know more about Robert Maxwell after reading it is tantamount to expecting to be an expert on World War II after watching "Inglourious Basterds."

Dillon and Thomas, the authors, spend (or waste, depending on your viewpoint) a lot of time tracing tenuous (and spurious) connections between people who may, or may not, have had access to that person, who may, or may not, have once had a meeting with someone who may, or may not, have an axe to grind with Robert Maxwell. Or knew him. Or met him once. Or may have seen him on TV once. Or may know nothing at all. They gleefully cite, time after time, Seymour Hersh's "The Samson Option" (thus sparing themselves the unpleasant necessity of, you know, doing, like, actual research)--apparently blissfully unaware that "The Samson Option" was almost wholly discredited years before this book came out.

The book's only value is in showing just how big a bogeyman Israel's Mossad has become to conspiracy nutjobs (or cynical entrepreneurs who know what'll sell) like Dillon and Thomas whose understanding of international politics and espionage seems to have come entirely from Ian Fleming. The Mossad (which--SPOILERS!!!---according to the authors, offed Big Bobby Maxwell after he put the screws to Israel to cover his debts) has become, in the minds of people like the authors, a vast and omnipotent shadow conspiracy capable of, oh, all KINDS of shenanigans and responsible for more than YOU'LL ever know, that's for sure. You can almost hear the authors' voices dropping and saying ominously, "The world will probably never know the true story."

And the whole thing is written in a sort of breathless, hush-hush, anonymous-sources "I can't tell you who REALLY said it, but I know it's true" style that I remember all too well from accounts of nefarious goings-on in the girls' locker room from junior high.

Ludicrous. And, by the way, utterly unsubstantiated.

Robert Maxwell was one of the biggest crooks of the 20th century. No question about it. Crooked as a dog's hind leg. And more than a little reminiscent of a James Bond bad guy. And, as a globetrotting con man with lots of fingers in lots of pies who was willing to do damn near anything to make a buck, certainly had more than his share of friends in high places, low places, and shady acquaintances in a lot of countries. But it strains credulity to imagine that he did all that he did on behalf of Israel just to turn around and try to blackmail them. Let's face it, the guy did what he did to make money for himself.

The danger of a steaming chunk of egregious garbage like this one is that, by making someone like Maxwell into a fictional character, it obscures what we can--and should--learn from cases like this one. If you're genuinely interested in Robert Maxwell, and in learning about the conditions that made it possible for him to do what he did, I recommend Tom Bower's excellent "Maxwell: The Outsider," and the follow-up volume, "Maxwell: The Final Verdict." Written by a genuine investigative journalist who actually does know what he's talking about, these books are scrupulously-researched, well-rooted in fact and in public-domain documentary evidence, and quote no mysterious (and probably fictional) anonymous sources. But more than merely accounts of Maxwell's life, they are also a scathing indictment of Britain's loophole-ridden financial laws, culture of secrecy, old-boy network, and willful blindness--the very conditions that allowed a conscience-less macher on the make like Maxwell to make off with more than a billion pounds sterling, which he promptly lost.

Read Tom Bower for the real investigative journalism about Maxwell and Jeffrey Archer for good thriller fiction based on Maxwell. Avoid this book, which is neither.

The book left out important information that reveals the author's biases. John Loftus, in "Secret War Against the Jews" (published BEFORE Thomas' book) noted that Maxwell had a cellmate in prison who was to become the future Foreign Minister of Czechoslavakia, who was instrumental in 1948 in supplying arms to the nascent state of Israel, that turned the battle in its favor. The Foreign Minister, Clementis, supplied Israel with everything he had, in defiance of Stalin. In 1952, Stalin hanged that government, including eleven Jews and Clementis. Clementis' support was garnered in part by Maxwell's exposure of a Communist coup that the government was able to monitor and deflect. Further, when that Czech government faced risk, there was absolutely no support from the United States or Great Britain forthcoming. Such detail is important because it was available to the author Thomas, but was ignored by author's choice. One can speculate in various ways about the rationale for that choice (including, possibly, bias, or sloppiness).

Another troubling issue is the role of the MI6 in destroying Maxwell's credit with the banks and driving him into ruin. That charge has been made explicitly elsewhere, and is based on the idea that they discovered he was a double agent serving Mossad. It is supported by the one detail Thomas gives in favor, namely the refusal of any British lawyer to take on Lloyd's of London, which screwed Betty Maxwell of her life insurance policy (pressure?). However, Thomas does not explore this angle whatsoever beyond the one tantalizing detail, that again seems like a calculated omission.

Thomas gives Maxwell responsibility for the creation and development of the Russian Mafia. Even though Maxwell may have been the potentate of Bulgaria, it seems excessive to place all that at his feet, even if he was involved with Mafia money laundering. Would the former KGB who formed the Russian Mafia not have been involved in illegal business had it not been for Maxwell? It takes a stretch. It certainly takes more than Thomas gave.

The best part of the book was the little details which shocked. For example, Yuri Andropov, fmr KGB then USSR head, was born Jewish. Another example: John Tower accepted a retainer of 200k per year to give Maxwell access to any part of the US government (how could this Texan be so brazen in his corruption?). A third: Tower was the guy Lee Oswald wrote to from the USSR when he wanted to be repatriated, comprising "Tower's role" (supposedly) in the JFK plot.

Summary-- good read, and food for thought, but beware of the British agenda behind it.

This book ties together many pieces of the Israeli puzzle from Post-World War II until the early nineties. If you enjoy reading about the Jews and revel in mysteries; the book is for you.
S.R.Erickstad

One of the best spy/Mossad books.
you will not be able to put down this book once you start it.

This is an E-Ticket Ride; in other words, a read with a roller-coaster effect obsorbing the reader's full attention. The revelations of Maxwell's high treason against the United Kingdom is alarming. Yet, what is more alarmimg is the complicity of the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Senator Tower's treasonous activity against the U.S. Government and his apparent blackmailing of the White House... all orchestrated by Israels' Mossad via their willing agent, Maxwell. At the literal risk of their lifes, Dillon and Thomas have metciulously recorded the breathtaking facts we seldom, if ever, see in American media. This super-page-turner is THE hottest book on the market.

I normally don't like spy thrillers in either print or film, but this book was something else. Serving as both personal and professional biography of Robert Maxwell, this book purports to expose a lot of national and international secrets related to organized crime, the global sex trade and drug trade, international finance, and the inner workings of many national governments, including the US, Israel, Russia, and the UK. All of these aspects of the world community touched upon, and were touched by the life and activities of Robert Maxwell. Born under a different name, he escaped Eastern Europe before the Nazis got him, went to the UK, became a military officer, and used his skills, accomplishments and self-boasting to claw his way to the top of the world media industry. Along the way he made money with and off many people, until it all caught up with him the year leading up to his death. And so we have a biography of one of the world's greatest white collar criminals, who traversed the halls of government capitols around the world. All told, a great book, and one I would normally give 5/5 stars. But seeing the strong and valid criticism of other reviewers, criticisms that I found compelling at times, I am going to give this book 4/5 stars.

Authors continue to use material from by ostrovky, an agent who worked for the mossad and then wrote an unking book about them, inorder to portray the mossad. Including one of his most lurid claims about how This is a very slanted view. Shows 0 scholoraship. It includes some of the more fantastic claimes by ostrovksy.If I was interested in ostrovsky view, which is that of a traitor to the mossad, then I could read ostrovsky, but to continue to use ostrvosky material here to describe the mossad is ludicrous.This includes Ostrovsky statement that everyone in the mossad uses sex to advance. Aside from this I wonder how the author got all the info about how the mossad operated with Maxwell, including the details of meetings etc.. How can they know this information, without making up stuff. At no point do I get the feeling of scholarship in this work. This is somewhat of a pot boiler. You might enjoy this work of fiction or (non fiction) any way.