Maxwell, The Outsider

by Tom Bower

  Foot was sympathetic. By the Wednesday, the newspaper reports suggested that the flotation was endangered and Foot feared that if Maxwell did not secure the Mirror, it might fall into the hands of the Conservatives. 'Maxwell had been a Labour MP and a long-serving member of the party,' recalls Foot. 'He promised that the papers would continue to support the party and I felt that we could trust him. The Mirror would be in safe hands.' Maxwell left satisfied and communicated Foot's approval to others.

  On Thursday morning, 12 July, Jarratt was painfully facing his dilemma. Infuriatingly Maxwell had interfered in the flotation and his public negotiations with Reed through the media had irritated the former civil servant. One could not deny Maxwell's financial astuteness - his success at Odhams had been awesome, and with hindsight Jarratt realised that they had sold it far too cheaply. He feared the man. Would the country thank Reed for allowing Maxwell to become a press baron who might one day even bid for Reed itself? By the end of the morning, closeted with Carpenter and Higgs, Jarratt accepted that he owed a higher duty to his shareholders. Maxwell's offer was too good to reject.

  One mile away in Holborn, the Mirror journalists were waking up to the possibility of Reed's capitulation. Hitherto, they had been remarkably docile, relying on information about their fate from newspaper coverage which repeated Reed's assurances. Some wags would later carp that the alcohol level was so high in their favourite hostelry, the Wig and Pen, that those who heard the rumours were too drunk to understand. The truth was nevertheless harsh. The Mirror's own management had lost its way and could offer no leadership. Miles and Long had allowed the newspaper to go down-market to compete with the Sun, and every night their staff nervously anticipated what new angle the Sun would invent on the same regurgitated stories. The group's managers lacked innovative vision and their disagreements with Thornton did not suggest that the flotation would greatly improve the company's management.

  On the Thursday morning, however, rumours were flying around the Mirror building and the fourth floor became the location of a continuous meeting. No Action writer could ever conjure up a more pitiful image. Dozens of highly paid men and women who prided themselves on their ability to embarrass the powerful and to fashion the views of millions were flapping to find an answer to a plight which they had so often witnessed others suffering. Initially, their feelings about Maxwell were evenly divided. Many felt that he might give the paper a new sense of direction, even self-respect, especially since tabloids seemed to flourish better under the shadow of a giant than under that of an anonymous conglomerate. Among those supporting Maxwell were Bob Edwards, editor of the Sunday Mirror, and Terence Lancaster, the Mirror's political editor.

  But the mood changed markedly once Joe Haines, the Mirror's esteemed columnist, began speaking. Haines, a small, spiky figure born in Rotherhithe, south-east London, had been Harold Wilson's press secretary between 1969 and 1976 and knew both the Labour Party and its leading luminaries intimately. Inside 10 Downing Street, Haines had been renowned for what some of Wilson's kitchen cabinet called the 'Bermondsey Dockers' Syndrome' - an antagonism towards the elite, especially the educated, the wealthy and the City. Firmly etched in the memory of those close to Wilson was Haines's advice to the Prime Minister whenever Maxwell's name surfaced: 'Don't touch that man with a bargepole.' Most of the Mirror staff had come to share Wilson's appreciation for Haines's flair with words.

  At the meeting on the fourth floor, Haines rose to a pitch of eloquence well suited to the heated occasion. Standing next to Haines as he spoke was Geoffrey Goodman, the Mirror's respected industrial editor. He and others heard Haines say, using the most graphic words, that Maxwell could not be trusted and should be opposed. Most of his audience, who knew very little about the details of Maxwell's past, were impressed with Haines's vehement denunciation of Maxwell's character and personality. The meeting voted in favour of a motion condemning Maxwell and urging Reed to stand by its assurances. For professional cynics, especially self-proclaimed critics of capitalism, they were surprisingly trusting that Reed would place its honour above profits.

  At about 10 a.m. on Friday, Roy Hattersley, the Labour Party's deputy leader, received a call at his home from his friend Charles Williams. 'Don't let anyone know I've phoned you,' said Maxwell's banker, 'but Bob will be buying the Mirror today. Jarratt cannot afford to keep his promise.' Hattersley, despite rumours to the contrary, had little affection for Maxwell, but as a shrewd political animal he understood the implications for the party. Immediately after Williams's call, Maxwell had also phoned and asked Hattersley to tell Kinnock. Thirty minutes later, Hattersley walked into Kinnock's office in the House of Commons to find the leader drafting a public statement supporting the flotation and criticising any proposal which allowed Maxwell or a single proprietor to take control.

  'He's going to buy the Mirror whatever you write,' said Hattersley.

  'What do you think about that?' asked Kinnock.

  'In my opinion, any man who can afford to buy a newspaper should not be allowed to own one. But there's nothing we can do.'

  Kinnock's proposed statement, advised Hattersley, would be injudicious, since Reed's decision would not be influenced by the party's attitude, and if Maxwell won, the relationship between the party and the newspaper would be imperilled: 'It's a risk we cannot afford.' Unlike his predecessors as leader, Kinnock was neither cosmopolitan nor impressed by self-made businessmen.

  Maxwell had provided the party with a lot of financial support which would probably increase in the future. He therefore accepted Hattersley's warning that an outright condemnation would be folly. A mild statement would be issued instead.

  By lunchtime in Piccadilly, no one dared look out across the street to the Ritz in case they glimpsed Maxwell standing by the window staring back. Carpenter had finished outlining his final opinion to Jarratt. The advice about the flotation upon which they had relied, he said, was flawed. Reed might raise no more than £45 million, perhaps even less, and that was indefensible to the shareholders. Thornton had been the Mirror executives' own choice and they would have to bear the consequences of their error. Maxwell's offer was too good to refuse. When the board arrived at 2 p.m., they would recommend acceptance. Jarratt's conscience was overridden by his legal duty to the shareholders. By 4 p.m., the board had agreed that Carpenter should negotiate and return with an outline of Maxwell's best offer. The meeting was adjourned while Carpenter walked across the street to meet Maxwell in his suite. Tea and cucumber sandwiches were already prepared. Maxwell could not hide his excitement as the cups were filled.

  Carpenter had one goal - if there was a deal, Maxwell would not be given an opportunity to haggle. Maxwell's style was always to make an agreement and then start wearing everyone down by renegotiating everything. That was why the Odhams sale had been so painful. To avoid a repetition, Warburgs, before allowing Carpenter to cross the street, had extracted an agreement that Maxwell not only would pay cash, but would pay every penny the same day. It was a very unusual demand. Maxwell was to be held to his word that his £100 million offer was unconditional and he would pay on the spot.

  The £100 million, however, contained provision for £23 million which Reed owed to the Mirror Group. Therefore, when Carpenter arrived, Maxwell's offer stood at £77 million. Carpenter believed that Maxwell was buying blind since they had forbidden him sight of the Mirror accounts but he nevertheless insisted that the Reed board wanted more. After some discussion, Maxwell slowly raised his offer to £84 million - 'That's it, my final offer.' Compared with the £45 million which the float would raise, Carpenter had every reason to feel pleased, but instead he said, 'I want ninety.' 'No,' said Maxwell.

  Carpenter rose and walked towards the door: 'It's ninety or nothing.'

  'I just don't have that last £6 million,' Maxwell said.

  Carpenter pondered: 'I'll lend it to you for six months at the bank's rate of interest.'

  Maxwell sighed and agreed. 'It's a deal.'

  At 5.3
0, they shook hands. Carpenter felt elated. He had extracted blood from a stone. The board would approve. Maxwell was doubly pleased. On his sixth attempt, he was on the verge of becoming a press baron, and the price was low. Fortunately, he thought, Reed had been unwise. The value of the Mirror building had been underestimated and they had not realised that there was a surplus in the pension fund. Probably neither knew that the Reuters shares would become even more valuable. But both sides accepted there was a premium on Maxwell's inimitable style with the unions. His threats would carry conviction. 'The assets', Maxwell later boasted, 'are equal to what I paid. The newspapers are in for free.' His grandfather, Yaacov Schlomovitch, would have been proud of his strategy.

  As he recrossed Piccadilly, Carpenter's private telephone was ringing. It was Thornton to report that all the union leaders who had rushed to his office that morning had now agreed to a no-strike deal. A secretary took a note of the details. 'Has anything happened with Maxwell?' he asked. 'No, nothing,' was the reply. 'The board is still meeting.'

  Carpenter was reporting to the board the £90 million cash offer. By 6.30 p.m., they were agreed. The sale should proceed. Outside, the telephone was ringing again. It was Thornton. Carpenter took the call.

  'Has there been a deal?' asked Thornton.

  'No,' replied Carpenter, which was technically still correct.

  'You know about the unions' undertaking?'

  'Yes.'

  'Does Jarratt's pledge still stand?'

  'Yes,' said Carpenter.

  As he spoke, dark-suited lawyers and bankers began filing into the board room to complete the mammoth legal transaction. Dozens of thick documents whose contents had been unofficially discussed over the previous days appeared from briefcases and were passed around. An exuberant Maxwell arrived at 7 p.m., and was greeted with polite resignation by Jarratt and Carpenter. 'I haven't sold the Mirror to Maxwell,' mused Jarratt as he watched the huge man lumber around his board room. 'He's bought it off me.' Around the polished table, their experts were scrutinising phrases and figures, and feeding an endless stream of amendments into a battery of word processors to produce a contract which would transfer Northcliffe's former empire to the son of a peasant.

  Maxwell and Carpenter began talking about why Reed had sold the papers. 'Our share price will substantially improve,' said Carpenter.

  'I doubt it,' said Maxwell.

  'A £10 bet?'

  'Done,' said Maxwell. Carpenter would win the bet.

  Outside, Carpenter's phone was again ringing. It was Thornton again. He was told that the board was still meeting. There was no news.

  Inside, as the rewriting and signings continued, Higgs asked Leslie Goodman of Hill Samuel whether he had the money. Goodman showed the banker a document which guaranteed that Hill Samuel would pay the entire £90 million if Maxwell's cheque did not arrive the following day. Higgs, who feared anarchy at the Mirror when the news finally leaked out, folded it carefully.

  There were no celebrations as the signing ended at midnight. Higgs turned to Maxwell: 'Are you going home now?'

  'Yes, off to bed,' he replied.

  Carpenter intervened: 'Bob, do me a favour. Don't go to the Mirror tonight. Let's be tactful and break it in the morning, or else you'll have a stoppage/

  'Yes, you're quite right,' said Maxwell.

  Maxwell walked out into Piccadilly and got into his Rolls. 'To the Mirror building,' he told Les Williams, his long-suffering chauffeur.

  The journey from Piccadilly to Holborn lasted just five minutes. As the Rolls raced towards his latest acquisition, Maxwell was preoccupied, an informed guess suggests, by his image as the new Beaverbrook. He would become a great newspaper tycoon, leading from the front, inspiring great feats of reportage. The Mirror would once again become a great newspaper with unbridled influence. He, Robert Maxwell, would be the modern colossus, bestriding Fleet Street, Westminster and the City. Like the 'Beaver', his counsel would be sought by politicians, financiers and even trade unionists. All would seek his advice and help, and eagerly await his judicious opinions on solving Britain's major problems. Daily, his newspapers would disseminate his views to the world in what he would publicly describe as 'a small contribution'. Then, preferably sooner rather than later, as his influence increased, governments would entrust him, as the Beaver had been entrusted, with the tasks which only the recognised talents of a tycoon could accomplish; and then the honours would follow. As the limousine silently drew up outside the grotesque glass tower, a monument to modern philistinism, there might, as he stepped out, have been a subconscious, transient flash: 'The Daily Maxwell.

  Daydreams are normal. Actually realising them is a joy denied to most, even to the rich. Aged sixty-one years, this was a new climax to his career and who would deny any man the pleasure at that joyous moment as he walked through the glass door and replied to an innocent inquirer about his business in the building: 'I've just bought it. I'm the new proprietor.' But as he travelled up to the ninth floor in the leather-lined executive's lift ('inside Cecil King's wallet' was the old joke), there were no thoughts about telephoning his cronies to come for a celebration as Beaverbrook would have done. Maxwell had no cronies in London to summon at that time, only employees and contacts. That was his lifestyle and it had never troubled him. As he walked into the chairman's empty office, he had fulfilled his dreams to avenge Murdoch, and that was sufficient. But his pride in his self-education had deluded him about the subtle difference between image and substance. His only similarities with

  Beaverbrook were the ownership of newspapers and a burning ambition to influence history. Their major difference was that, unlike Maxwell, Beaverbrook understood both newspapers and history.

  The Beaver had understood that those who desire to make history must also be students of their predecessors. Beaverbrook may have been a tyrant, but he was highly educated and could hold his own in discussion with H.G. Wells and Arnold Bennett. For him, making his millions was a means to an end, and the end was managing newspapers. Finance and industrial management occupied only minutes of his day. He was an intellectual who boorishly injected his prejudice into his daily newspapers but also knew how to cultivate an atmosphere for great stars to develop within his firmament. This, above all, won him recognition, even by his political opponents. To his most distinguished employees like the Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen, the Evening Standard editor Michael Foot and the historian A.J.P. Taylor, he was a great journalist who possessed both that instinctive genius for identifying 'news' and the art of reporting.

  Since Maxwell read few books and had forgotten long ago the art of instinctive learning, the delicate relationship between dictator and creator was elusive. Fixed in his mind was a confused impression of the pre-war newspaper giants and television image of Murdoch supervising the smallest details of his own newspapers just as Arno Scholz had done forty years earlier in Berlin. Maxwell's moment had finally arrived: now he was to perform the same task. Without any self-doubts, he would control everything because he knew best how to defeat Murdoch and rank alongside Beaverbrook. In his view, the quality of a leader depended upon a display of despotism. Exactly twenty years earlier he had entered the Commons because he wanted power; in Richard Grossman's words, 'he wanted to shine'. But those closest to him also say that he wanted to be loved. The paradox of a bulldozer seeking affection is not an unusual one. Ownership of the Mirror would be a passport to all of that and more. Maxwell truly believed that the world revolved around himself. His being was the news and his thoughts would sell newspapers. And if it didn't, so what? The newspapers belonged to him and he was intent on enjoying the rewards of his exceptional struggle. If ever an aspiring Citizen Kane was incarnated in London, it was on 13 July 1984.

  Seated behind the desk in the chairman's office, looking out at the dark and sleeping capital, this was the Mirror's new proprietor. He would seek fulfilment and pleasure but not confrontation. The arguments came naturally as a condition of leadership. During t
hat night, the first article of Lex Maxwelliana was imposed on the fallen citadel: Who works for Maxwell, jumps to his command. 'When Maxwell shouts "jump!"', a long-forgotten employee had explained years earlier, 'my only response is, "How high?'" So, members of the Mirror Group board were woken and told that they were expected to attend an immediate meeting with their new proprietor. The executives emerged from their introductory meeting as daylight broke, nervous but reassured. Maxwell had been firm but charming, and a courtship had been established. Only a few believed that the future was rosy. 'Maxwell's assurances are nice,' someone later told the Daily Mail. 'But I went to bed last night on a long-standing assurance that the paper would never belong to one man.'

  Thornton was not invited to that meeting. He had heard the news finally from Carpenter just after midnight and arrived at his office at 7.30 that morning. ‘I couldn't miss Mr Maxwell because he was sitting behind my desk,' he said as he left the building. ‘I congratulated him and packed my things.'

  The new captain of a faltering ship can choose between two methods of introducing himself to those for whom he is newly responsible. Roy Thomson chose the gentle approach when he bought the Sunday Times in 1959. Walking around the machine room, he was introduced to a printer. 'How do you do,' he said, 'I'm Roy Thomson, the new owner of this paper.' 'You may own it,' replied the man, 'but I run it.' That unrectified truism cost the Thomson family approximately £70 million.