Larger Than Life

By Martha Smilgis

The telephone console resting on a gargantuan round table boasts 90 buttons, and the man seated before it seems bent on using all of them at once. His plump fingers, the nails freshly manicured with clear polish, poke impatiently at the instrument. Visitors flow into the office in a steady stream, yet all the while the man continues a separate dialogue with the console. "He wouldn't be a bureaucrat unless he was in a meeting," he booms into the speaker in a British-accented baritone that is powerful yet velvety. "I want the man, not the message." Poke. A button away, he barks in German, "Cease offers. It is 400 million locked up for the duration." Poke. In French, he issues a command for his son Ian, 31, in Paris: "Call him at the restaurant. Tell him to get on the Concorde." Poke. Now, in English, he asks another son Kevin, 29, a workaholic like his father and heir apparent to the empire, "How is the market?"

Despite the world map branded with a giant M, the London headquarters of Robert Maxwell's communications empire is conservative by U.S. corporate standards. Yet there is nothing modest about the man at the round table, his command central. "Captain Bob" coined by the press -- is a boulder of a man: easily 250 lbs., and 6 ft. 2 in. tall. His ruddy face is a cross between Leonid Brezhnev's and Robert Mitchum's. His abundant hair, dyed black, is slicked back '30s style to counterpoint bushy black eyebrows that can appear deceptively clownish.

At 65, Robert Maxwell is a whirling dervish whose hyperkinetic activity seems designed to distract and confuse. In seconds, he can switch from a jaunty Brit to a ruthless schoolyard bully and back again. He is said to be worth $1.4 billion. Yet despite the colossal Mont Blanc gold pen he wields | like a fat cigar, the enormously expensive Lord & Stewart suit, the butter- soft cashmere overcoat, the private jet, the helicopter, the yacht with a crew of 14, the personal chef, the Rolls-Royces, the thing Maxwell really values most is time. Whether dealing with family, managers or minions, Maxwell is constantly ordering, pushing, scolding and hectoring, much like a nagging parent.

Five managers from his newspaper, the Daily Mirror, a working-class tabloid housed in the adjoining Mirror Group building, surround him at the table. Though they are accustomed to the constant interruptions, the lightning shifts in ideas, deals, languages, Maxwell knows they are growing impatient and holds them in check with his translucent amber eyes, which he uses like headlights to paralyze his prey. Punching a button on the console, Maxwell purrs, "You are up, good. It is 5 a.m. Find out how much they want for the National Enquirer." The citizens of Maxwell's empire know no time zones. Finally he is off the phone just long enough to address a problem with the Mirror's presses. "Fight, negotiate," Maxwell tells one manager. "I observe the master," the manager quips in response, noting that Captain Bob's spirits are high this morning.

Soaring mightily, in fact. Already he has built an empire that includes scientific journals, printing plants, newspapers, data bases, magazines, books, satellite communications and even two soccer teams. His company spans 28 countries and has nearly 40,000 employees, 15,000 of them in the U.S. For the past two years, Maxwell has been on a U.S. buying binge that culminated this month in the purchase of Macmillan Inc. for $2.7 billion.

The acquisition followed a long, hard battle and came in the wake of last year's attempt to take over another U.S. publisher, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. William Jovanovich restructured the company to thwart Maxwell's anticipated $2 billion bid. "Jovanovich killed the company. He's a dumb Croat coal miner. Had I met him, I would have told him so," Maxwell snarls with characteristic restraint. Some American publishers insist that he overpaid by as much as $1 billion for Macmillan. Not so, says Maxwell. "Information is growing at 20% a year," he explains in patient, professorial tones. "Communications is where oil was ten years ago. There will be seven to ten great global communications corporations. My ambition is to be one of them. You can't have a world communications enterprise without the U.S., which has 80% of the software and half the scientific information." So exactly how will Macmillan be integrated into his operations? "Synergy," he stonewalls, with a cat-that-swallowed- the-canary smile. "It fits like a glove."

Peter Jay, former British Ambassador to the U.S. and now Maxwell's chief of staff, enters with a load of letters. Maxwell pays the tall, handsome aristocrat something like a quarter of a million dollars a year to add a touch of class to his kingdom. Jay arranges meetings, meals and galas with foreign dignitaries and fields charity requests. "I am not the Salvation Army," bellows Maxwell, as he signs checks for needy causes. But Jay's real challenge is simply to keep the emperor's attention. After the first few letters, Maxwell's mind ticks elsewhere. He can drill to the core of any issue, but his attention span is that of a gnat.

With a wave, he dismisses Jay and greets two Israelis who have come to enlist his aid in a bond drive. Seated at the table, they wait. And wait. First Maxwell wraps a deal for a Moroccan satellite channel. Next his personal secretary, Andrea Martin, 25, a pale blond, appears with a message. Maxwell reads it and thunders, "He is as keen on this idea as if he was bitten by a rattler on the anus." Accustomed to such eruptions, Martin slips away as another button lights. "Latrine rumors!" he shouts into the speaker. "We are going to sue." Suddenly, he tells the Israelis he will aid the bond drive. "I always say yes. If I were a woman, I would always be pregnant," he says with a grin.

Trapped inside this billionaire publishing baron are a multitude of people: a peasant haggler, stage director, domineering patriarch, sophisticated currency trader, military commander, politician, Hollywood mogul and unabashed publicity man. Following his train of thought is like listening to ten tape recorders, constantly switching on and off, constantly interrupting one another.

Born Ludvik Hoch, Maxwell was the third of nine children of dirt-poor Hasidic Jews living in the eastern slice of Czechoslovakia known as Ruthenia. During World War II, he lost his parents and four siblings in Auschwitz; he escaped by joining the French underground. He had only three years of schooling but was a genius with languages -- he could speak eight by the time he was grown -- and figures. He joined the British forces and in two years transformed himself from a Czech ruffian into a British army officer who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in charging a German machine-gun position in a Dutch village in January 1945.

Maxwell was put in charge of allocating paper and printing supplies in the British zone of Berlin. He soon went to London to found Pergamon Press, a publisher of scientific journals. His business and reputation grew rapidly; by 1964 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Labor M.P. But in 1971 the Department of Trade and Industry concluded that he was guilty of misrepresenting his company's financial position. He came close to losing Pergamon. Questions were raised about mysterious family trusts held in Liechtenstein.

Characteristically, Maxwell still shrugs off the questions and says with exaggerated humility, "My dream in life was to own a cow." Now he owns a whole herd of cash-cows to sustain an increasing debt necessary to finance his global expansion. With his military training, he does best with a clear enemy, and currently that is Rupert Murdoch. In their Hertz-Avis relationship, Murdoch is several long steps ahead. His News Group Newspapers, Ltd., is worth $13 billion, with a $6 billion debt, whereas Maxwell Communication Corp. runs at around $5 billion, with roughly $2 billion in debt. Murdoch's tabloid, the Sun, sells 4.2 million copies a day to 3.2 million for Maxwell's Daily Mirror. "What Murdoch has achieved is stupendous," concedes Maxwell, but he jabs at his foe for becoming a U.S. citizen so he could acquire American TV stations. "I chose Britain for better or for ill," says Maxwell. "I love the British. They kept Hitler at bay."

Whether the Brits love Maxwell back is debatable, but certainly a favorite English sport is watching the "bouncing Czech." The business community is both appalled by Maxwell's publicity-mad megalomania and envious of his fiscal ingenuity. Just about everybody is curious about him. Moments after being introduced to Maxwell, Prince Charles turned to one of the publisher's staffers and asked, "But what is he like to work for?"

Above all, working for Maxwell is an exercise in survival. His eight-member personal staff, plus two pilots and two chauffeurs, operates like a team of air-traffic controllers. All carry beepers and many have walkie-talkies and cellular phones to track the "Black Hurricane," as some call him. "He plays the fox and rabbit with people," says an employee. "If he smells a rabbit, he goes for it." Not that Maxwell spares himself. The tenets of Maxwellian management call for living over the shop, working 24 hours a day, hiring and firing often, trusting only family members and centralizing all power.

Hidden staircases connect his London offices to an opulent penthouse overhead. The official entry is a peach marble vestibule decorated with backlighted Grecian columns that open into a large rotunda of tawny-veined marble that casts a rose glow. But the stage setting vanishes into reasonably sized living quarters, exquisitely decorated by Elizabeth Maxwell, his wife of 44 years and the mother of his seven children. She also presides over their country home, Headington Hall, a Gatsbyesque mansion in Oxford that serves as headquarters for Pergamon Press.

Maxwell commutes between London and the Continent aboard a French twin- engine Ecureuil helicopter adorned with a roaring lion half-circled by MGN (Mirror Group Newspapers), a logo playfully designed to be confused with MGM's. From Heathrow Airport, his Gulfstream zips him to Paris, New York, Moscow.

Maxwell averages three interviews a week, dispensing a litany of packaged aphorisms like a vending machine: "My wife is the better half." "For exercise, I wind my watch." "Maxwell's Law: Murphy was an optimist." "Happiness can only be had through hard work." Tough fiscal questions produce slippery answers. If the press gets nasty, Maxwell fights back legally.

The Mirror has given Maxwell the voice he lost in the House of Commons when he was defeated in the 1970 election. No matter where he is, the tabloid's editorials are faxed to him for approval. "Without Mrs. Thatcher, I couldn't have done what I've done," he admits. "But I don't agree with her vision. I'm a capitalist with a socialist conscience." But not too confining a conscience. Since buying the Mirror, he has cut its staff by nearly half and brought the unions to heel. But he has energized the paper's layouts by adding color and increased its profits enormously.

Maxwell does not collect art or attend concerts and rarely reads a book or sees a movie. Despite his willpower in most areas, he is a compulsive eater. He sleeps only four hours a night. More than 30 years ago, he had one lung removed because of a mistaken diagnosis. "But we in Britain, unlike you in the U.S., don't sue," crows London's most litigious citizen. Though his wealth could mean a life of ease, he values working. "Most rich people just shop," he says with disdain. He has no personal friends: "I don't have the kind of time one needs to give to friendship."

- Just as he drives his staff, he drives his children. He says he will not leave them his fortune because "money that you haven't earned is not good for you. Ian and Kevin will only take over the company if they are capable." Late one Friday night, flying home from Paris, a keyed-up Maxwell glanced over at his son Ian, stretched out on the lounge, exhausted. "This generation, they flake out," he said with a sigh. "Hey, Pops," protested Ian, "I've put in a 14-hour day." Maxwell frowned and said, "That's what I mean."