ACCORDING to the tabloid press, Robert Maxwell spent his final few weeks as a reckless, hopeless gambler, squandering up to E1.5 million a night playing three casino tables simultaneously.
Though he never became the Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, the crisis of his world-wide business empire, followed by his pecular and suspicious demise off the Canary Isalands could yet break some of the meter banks are there houses.
Like his fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Maxwell was battling to save his ramshackle empire of publishing and printing interests against the ravages of a mountain of debts, variously estimated at £2.2 -The complex web of interconnoct. ing loans had become impossibly tangled, and as bankers and inves. tors lost confidence, the value of shares in MCC, the key company. was falling fast. Among the casualties could be thousands employees and pensioners from Mirror Group Newspapers, whose pension fund was hacked by Maxwell as a handy source of cash, and is now dependent on MCC share values.
Maxwell's disappearance from the scene, leaving his two sons to KWELL DAILY No. 12 sort out the mess, seems to have escalated the crisis. MCC Shares have fallen another 60 per cent in value, and the race is now on to sell off sufficient assets to placate the banks before their notional value falls too w.
Meanwhile theories multiply on what actually happened on Maxwell's 15-foot yacht prior to the tycoon's unexpected final swim.
Everything has been suggested, from a dull plate of clams leading to him leaning too far over the side of the boat through to murder most foul or suicide.
As in Murder on the Orient Express, there is an almost infinite ist of potential suspects, any or all of whom might have wanted Maxwel rubbed out.
New evidence even questions whether the bloated corpse winched out of the sea was Maxwell at all Perhaps, some argue, he has staged a Reginald Perrin-style 'death' to cover a disappearance to some remote moeaway (possibly shared with Elvis and Shergar). Incredibly, the first medical reports on the body described it as of athletic buik!" - hardly the obese Maxwell we all hair was described as chestnut. No dental check was allowed to positively identify the acht trageu Israel and hastity buried before more questions could be asked.
Other evidence suggests a puncture mark-possibly from a hypodermic needle - and large discrepancies between the state of the body and the time Maxwell alegedy spent in the sea.
So was t the fat capitalist, or a lookalike? Was he pushed, did he jump, or could it really have been an accident or natural causes? As with the Kennedy assassination now running yet again) there is ample matterial here for endless films and recreations.
Among the candidates for potential assassins, the Zionist intelagence agency Mossad is the most frequently mentioned: Maxwell had been embroiled in a scandal invoting finks with Mossad in the wooks before his death.
However Mossad must surely fear that in trying to bail out the disintegrating commercial empire Maxwell buit, his sons might unwittingly uncover highly sensive and embar. rassing information.
One thing is clear: the resources needed to carry out the kiling in secrecy would have been well outaide the scope of any of Maxwe's main opponents in Britain - the thousands of print workers whose jobs he axed, and the 23 joumalists he sacked at Pergamon Press 30 months ago for staging an official 24-hour strike.
Unlike Murdoch, Maxwell carried out his attacks on jobs and conditions by manipulating the trade union leaders. In this respect it was an advantage to him to hang on to a notional affiliation to the Labour Party.
Over many years Maxwel was easily able to buy the support of Labour's right wing through occasional ostentatious donations and the patronage of his newspapers.
Neil Kinnock and his team, tearful that they might lose the backing of Maxwells Daily Mirror, would have been the most ardent mourners of the dead capitalist - sending Gerald Kaufmann to Israel for the funeral.
At the end, as the bankers lost confidence and even the casinos got worned, perhaps the Labour leaders were the only real supporters Robert Maxwell had. Here, surely is a motive
tour South African socialist on International News