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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.