Robert Maxwell

:This article is about the publisher. There was also a songwriter named Robert Maxwell.

Death

On November 5, 1991, at the age of 68, Maxwell disappeared from his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislane, which was cruising off the Canary Islands, and his body was later found floating in the ocean. He was buried in Jerusalem. The official verdict was accidental drowning, though some commentators have surmised that he may have committed suicide, and others that he was murdered. His daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell, publicly rubbished the notion of an accidental death on television.

Related Topics:
Canary Islands - Jerusalem

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Shortly before he died, a self-proclaimed former Mossad officer named Ari Ben-Menashe approached a number of news organizations in Britain and America with the allegation that Maxwell and the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nick Davies, were both long-time agents for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. Ben-Menashe also claimed that, in 1986, Maxwell had tipped off the Israeli Embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear capability to the Sunday Times, then to the Daily Mirror. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V93I1P57-1.htm (Vanunu was subsequently lured from London, where the Sunday Times had him in hiding, to Rome, from where he was kidnapped and returned to Israel, convicted of treason, and imprisoned for 18 years.)

Related Topics:
Ari Ben-Menashe - Nick Davies - Israel - Mossad - 1986 - London - Mordechai Vanunu - Sunday Times - Daily Mirror - Rome - Treason

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No news organization would publish Ben-Menashe's story at first, because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness, but eventually New York Times journalist Seymour Hersh repeated some of the allegations during a press conference in London held to publicize The Sampson Option, Hersch's book about Israel's nuclear weapons. A British MP asked a question about Hersch's claims in the House of Commons, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention," but he sacked Nick Davies, and just days later, was found dead. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,465666,00.html

Related Topics:
New York Times - Seymour Hersh - MP - House of Commons

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The close proximity of his death to these allegations, for which Ben-Menashe had offered no evidence, served to heighten interest in Maxwell's relationship with Israel, and the Daily Mirror has since published claims, again without evidence, that he was killed by the Mossad because he had tried to blackmail them. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12419168&method=full&siteid=50143

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A 2005 broadcast on the Discovery Channel (in the program Conspiracies on Trial) claimed that even if Maxwell had suffered a heart attack, it is unlikely that he would have fallen overboard without help. The broadcast concluded that the most likely cause of death was the injection of air into his bloodstream to cause a heart attack, after which he was allegedly dropped into the sea.

Related Topics:
2005 - Discovery Channel - Conspiracies on Trial

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Regardless of the controversy surrounding his death, Maxwell was given a funeral in Israel that would have befitted a head of state. As described by author Gordon Thomas:

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"...On November 10, 1991, Maxwell?s funeral took place on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the resting place for the nation?s most revered heroes. It had all the trappings of a state occasion, attended by the country?s government and opposition leaders. No fewer than six serving and former heads of the Israeli intelligence community listened as Prime Minister Shamir eulogized: "He has done more for Israel than can today be said." (Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad 1999) http://www.freedomwriter.com/issue18/art_lit.htm

Related Topics:
November 10 - 1991 - Mount of Olives - Jerusalem - Shamir

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