Maxwell, The Outsider
Page 13
By then, Maxwell had also capitalised upon his close personal relationship with the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. No other western publisher had invested the time and energy in repeated journeys to Moscow to cultivate the Russians. In the midst of the Cold War, few would have dared and the remainder would have seen little purpose. Maxwell, who grew up physically closer to the Soviet Union than most publishers in the west, was pragmatic and understanding about the Communist system. He understood the Russian way of life and could speak the language both literally and metaphorically. Among the first to meet Maxwell in 1954 was Yuri Leonov, a general director at Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, the Soviet state publishing organisation. Leonov recalls the young and handsome Maxwell with a 'clever approach to publishers'. Negotiating in English, because his Russian was not perfect, Maxwell explained that since Russia was not a signatory to the international copyright convention, he could fake any scientific books and journals he wanted and republish them in the west without paying any royalties. In fact, he had been doing that for some time. But he was now prepared, explained Maxwell, to pay the authors a royalty direct. Leonov was certainly impressed with his 'countryman's' approach, partly because of his charm and also because in their political discussions, Maxwell 'expressed sympathy towards the Soviet Union'.
At Maxwell's request, Leonov approached his superiors and especially Yuri Gradov, the legal advisor of Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, to negotiate an exclusive deal for Pergamon. Gradov felt immediate sympathy towards the man whom he met on the windy street outside the foreign ministry building: 'There were no precedents for the agreement but my orders were to do a deal with Maxwell.' In fact, Gradov was ordered to conclude a deal at any price. ‘I was told to forget about making money.
Maxwell was to have the rights to the journals for ideological purposes. My superiors wanted a source of propaganda in the west to prove that the Russians were not idiotic bears. So Maxwell was to get anything he wanted at no cost.'
Before starting the negotiations, Gradov checked with the KGB: 'They told me that Maxwell was all right. Otherwise they wouldn't have let him into the country.' The KGB's assurance confirmed Gradov's impression of Maxwell's special status. The publisher had been allocated a Communist shrine in the then exclusive National Hotel situated opposite the Kremlin. Room 107, where Maxwell stayed, was the room used by Lenin in 1917 after his arrival from St Petersburg and before he moved into the Kremlin: 'It seemed that only an important person would get that hallowed room,' concludes Gradov.
While Maxwell sat, legs up on a huge table drinking tea and smoking cigarettes in an enormous conference room in the foreign ministry, Gradov drafted their agreement. At the end of four days, the publisher had secured an advantageous contract which was endorsed by Academician Topchiev, the General Secretary of the Soviet Academy of Science. Gradov had taken Maxwell to meet Topchiev and could not fail to be impressed by the Academician's sentiment towards the publisher: 'Take anything you want. Translate it and don't bother about the royalties.' On Topchiev's recommendation that Maxwell was solid, Russia's scientists, anxious to be published in the west and to receive some hard currency, offered the publisher their work. Although Maxwell would have been tempted to take Topchiev's offer literally, his agreement with Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga stipulated payments of about 20 per cent royalties for the publication rights.
With the agreement signed, Maxwell sought a representative in Moscow. He was introduced to Victor Louis, an English-speaking journalist who used his own apartment as the Pergamon office. Louis, who became famous in Britain during that era for his supply of scoops about Russian politics to the London Evening News, could only have worked for Maxwell and the British press with the agreement of the KGB. Although the precise nature of Maxwell's relationship with the KGB in that period remains unclear, it is certain that he was sponsored by the Soviet security service. Maxwell returned to Britain with the foundations to create his first millions. Under his agreement with Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga (the Soviet publishing organisation), Pergamon enjoyed the exclusive rights to a wide range of journals which had not hitherto been seen in the west. After translation in Fitzroy Square by 'two Poles and two Cossacks', they were sold in a variety of packages, but demand remained limited until the unexpected launch of the Sputnik in 1957. Overnight, western scientists, prompted by worried politicians, sought every source of information about Soviet science and it was Pergamon which owned the monopoly. As interest increased and Pergamon's profits multiplied, Maxwell restlessly travelled through eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary and East Germany, obtaining similar concessions for their scientific journals and winning their goodwill by placing orders to print Pergamon publications because they were cheaper than British tenders. By 1962, Maxwell's declared annual profit from his trade with Russia amounted to £50,000 and was increasing. With the assistance of the publishers of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, he had obtained the rights to edit and publish Information USSR which was automatically purchased by most libraries throughout the west. Proudly, he announced that he was the only British publisher to have a stand at the British trade fair in Moscow and claimed to have personally persuaded Khrushchev to soften the strict Soviet attitudes towards western copyrights, although nothing in fact transpired. Maxwell's relationship with the Communists blossomed. He would become a uniquely trusted westerner who was received in the Kremlin by successive Soviet leaders and would publish their autobiographies in translated versions throughout the west. Each volume in the autobiography series was accompanied by an interview with Maxwell, although the questions were often nearly the same length as the answers. But, curiously, many of those Soviet-bloc journals were offered for sale not directly by Pergamon, but through the Pergamon Institute in New York which was described as a 'Non-profit-making foundation under the Presidency of Sir Robert Robinson OM FRS'. In Britain, however, there was barely any suggestion that Pergamon was not enjoying the profits of its monopoly.
Despite the illusion that Pergamon was totally based in London, America was in fact the financial centre of its operations. In about 1951, Maxwell had established a family trust in Liechtenstein which in turn owned a series of private companies in New York. There were significant tax and legal advantages in dividing the business between London, New York and Liechtenstein and the structure satisfied Maxwell's most fundamental principle of compartmentalisation, whereby employees knew only about their own function and Maxwell alone personally understood the overall operation. The most important private company trading on his behalf in New York was Pergamon Press Inc. (PPI), which was founded in 1952. PPI was based at the British Book Center in East 55th Street under Detlev Raymond, a German whom Orton and Maxwell had recruited in Berlin. In parallel with Pergamon in Britain, Raymond, helped by Maria Sachs, established contacts with American scientists, fostered relationships to create new American editorial boards and bought established journals such as Acta Metallurgica which enjoyed large circulations.
During his frequent flights to America, he was often accompanied by his secretary, Anne Dove. Unlike Britain, America could not offer Maxwell the commercial and political opportunities he sought because there were thousands of similar hustling entrepreneurs in this nation of immigrants. Dove could see the true Maxwell at the centre of his family and she was surprised. During their first years travelling together, Dove had often asked her employer whether he was Jewish. 'He never gave a direct answer,' says Dove. 'He would jokingly reply, "Can a Jew read the Sunday lesson?" referring to his attendance at the local church in Esher.' But in New York, Dove met his family and notably his cousin, Irving Schlomovitch, who worked for Maxwell. 'One Friday, Irving said to me that Maxwell was going to celebrate Shabbat with him and I said, "But is Mr Maxwell Jewish?" I got an odd stare.' Understandably, Maxwell had decided that unlike in New York, in Britain there was no premium on being Jewish.
America was also a country where the respected British publisher could still trade without fear of embarrassment. Anne Dove was equipp
ed with a facsimile set of the stamp collection of King George V, bound in sheepskin, and she criss-crossed America to sell the collection to American philatelists. It was a great success,' she recalls, 'especially in Dallas where Maxwell had notified the British consul to arrange a conference. Hundreds turned up.'
In the smaller, more compact quarters of Fitzroy Square, it was much easier for the staff to observe how Maxwell operated. The hall outside his office was usually filled with people waiting for a long-delayed appointment and often anxious to attract Maxwell into a prospective deal. Those who managed to get inside met a man whose self-confidence had never been greater. He exuded a mixture of generosity and affection for those whom he saw as both talented and loyal, and utter contempt for those who were deemed dispensable. Often the talented and loyal were the same individuals who were deemed to be dispensable. Few observed Maxwell closer than Gunther Heyden, who besides selling Springer's stock was also on a commission to sell Encyclopaedia Britannica on behalf of Maxwell's company, International Encyclopaedias Ltd, which owned the agency for sales in Belgium, France, Germany and South Africa. Heyden was challenged by Maxwell to sell one thousand sets with the promise of a £1,000 bonus. 'Maxwell believed that in business you can't be democratic. He would want to see how far he could push people and then they would be dismissed. When the person was on the floor, he would start weeping.'
Like all of Maxwell's employees, Heyden could not fathom the complexity of his employer's emotions, and he gained no further insight when Maxwell was taken critically ill to University College Hospital. Maxwell was suffering from suspected cancer of the lung and was awaiting an operation for the removal of a lobe. He had been warned that he might not recover from the surgery. Among his visitors was Anne Dove, who found Maxwell in his room interviewing a Christian Science leader, 'trying to find an acceptable truth about life'. The visitor was one in a succession of Jewish, Catholic and Church of England ministers who failed to provide an acceptable answer to his question. After his recovery, the fact that he might have died had not apparently changed his attitudes towards mortals or eternity.
His life remained a series of hectic travel schedules and new ventures. In 1952, he had established Harmony Films, whose directors included the producer Paul Czinner, his wife the actress Elizabeth Bergner and the impoverished Sir George Franckenstein. In 1954, Czinner directed the filming of Mozart's Don Giovanni from the live performance at the Salzburg Festival and used the same techniques three years later for the visit of the Bolshoi ballet to London. Maxwell arranged with Buckingham Palace that the premiere should be a Royal Gala Charity performance to which the Duchess of Kent was invited. It was a glittering occasion, which he barely had time to enjoy before flying to China on business.
The Palace was not the only casualty of Maxwell's unremitting pace, and the consequences were costly. On 15 December 1958, Tonjes Lange wrote that Springer wanted to terminate all its connections with Maxwell. After explaining that Springer would always be 'grateful' for his help in the post-war period, Lange explained that too many customers were 'dissatisfied' with the service from London to continue any further relationship. The verdict was a body-blow and Maxwell's reaction reflected his confusion.
His first reply on 2 January was a straightforward acknowledgement that while he was 'naturally sad and disappointed' there would be 'a great many points to settle' which he hoped would be done in a 'friendly, efficient and fair way'. The following day, however, he sent another letter which was markedly different. 'Your letter', he wrote, 'caused me a great deal of anguish and surprise. Anguish because it means official notice to sever our special relations which have existed over a decade and which have been so dear to my heart. Everything I know, everything that I have built up, everything that I have learned and acquired spring in one way or another from the joint fountain of Dr Ferdinand Springer and yourself and the splendid House of Springer Verlag.' The letter continued with the statement that he would be returning to Springer 'in accordance with our distribution agreement' books worth DM 300,000 and journals worth DM 200,000. Maxwell asked, 'Do you propose to raise any difficulty about their return and credit?'
Lange certainly did raise difficulties. The correspondence, which lasted one year, was inaugurated in twelve detailed pages in which Lange denied that their latest agreement signed on 13 November 1956 supported Maxwell's claim to the money or his proposed return of the old journals. Lange realised that Maxwell was irritated about losing Springer's lucrative trade especially since his warehouse was still full of old, unsaleable stock. But Lange took particular exception to Maxwell's reference to their 'strictly confidential' post-war agreements which was code that Springer's false Customs declarations after 1950 had weakened their ability to make demands. It could have been the beginning of an ugly divorce except that Maxwell was emotionally attached to Lange and did not want a break with his surrogate father. 'Please, my dear uncle Lange,' he wrote on 23 December 1959, 'let's agree to break the Gordian knot in the new year in a friendly and generous fashion.' They compromised, but barely met again before Lange's death in 1960. It was the end of an era but it caused only a slight hiccup in Pergamon's profits.
By 1959, Pergamon's two hundred employees had already outgrown numbers 4 and 5 Fitzroy Square and, following the expiry of the lease of the warehouse in Elephant and Castle, Maxwell decided to move to Oxford for both cheaper accommodation and prestige. In May he rented Headington Hill Hall, on the outskirts of the old town, for £2,000 a year. The mansion, which was formerly the home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, would also serve as the Maxwell family home. The previous tenants, the Red Cross, had built four single-storey office buildings in the grounds and they were ideal for Pergamon's staff. The move was completed during 1960 but Fitzroy Square was kept to house I.R. Maxwell & Co. who were described as 'international university and industrial booksellers'. The compartmentalisation between the two businesses, selling and publishing, was physically complete.
Oxford was an ideal location to launch Pergamon's expansion in the 1960s, the decade of a boom in education. With the prospect of the Robbins report and the consequent building of a range of new universities, there were endless opportunities for huge profits to supply new schools and universities. In anticipation, Pergamon embarked on new ventures such as a one-thousand-volume library of original works on science, technology and engineering which was sold in paperback supported by a prestigious team of editorial advisers, principally Sir Robert Robinson, Sir John Cockcroft and Sir Edward Appleton. Called 'The Commonwealth and International Library of Science, Technology, Engineering and Literature', it aimed to provide books for African and Asian students in competition with Communist-supplied books which Maxwell believed to be politically slanted. 'I want to help the man in the factory,' he explained, 'who is anxious to educate himself.' Executives at the competing Oxford University Press were surprised by Maxwell's promotion since their own one-thousand-volume 'Commonwealth Library' had been offering similar courses for many years. On that occasion, executives decided to take no action, but in 1977 they did issue an injunction to prevent the sale of another Maxwell publication, Pergamon's Oxford Dictionary, which they complained had plagiarised their own standard work. Maxwell quickly retreated but inside the publishing world, where memories of the Simpkins crash were still fresh, the latest juggle added to a new wave of criticisms against a man widely viewed as an arriviste.
The major complaint concerned Pergamon's pricing and publication policy. Editorials published in the Lancet, the medical journal, in Nature and in the Archives of Internal Medicine complained that Pergamon's monopoly and its high prices, which were often three times greater than those of other publishers, were draining libraries of scarce funds. Philip Wade, in a letter to the Lancet, complained that as a librarian he was paying for Pergamon journals three or four times as much as individuals were being charged. Wade further complained that, having paid an inflated subscription for the journal Biochemical Pharmacology, he expected to receive as prom
ised an abstract of the proceedings of an international conference in Stockholm because Pergamon was publishing all the papers in a nine-volume set to which he had also subscribed. Instead, he found that the journal was filled out with the papers of the conference and, more irritatingly, a brand new journal to which the library had also subscribed, the International Journal of Neopharmacology, contained in its first issue exactly the same papers. 'I may stupidly have missed some warning of that [first] duplication’ wrote Wade, 'but I see little justification for a new journal if its first issue must be padded with papers from a congress held eighteen months before a journal began ... It is wrong that libraries should be so burdened; and they should be spared buying the same material twice over.’ Maxwell replied that instructions had been issued to prevent duplication in the future.
Some authors were also complaining of minimal fees, and, in an unusual and prominent announcement in the Author magazine, readers were warned about signing contracts with Pergamon. 'The printed form of contract', the announcement in the Spring 1963 issue stated, 'was in many . . . respects unsatisfactory . . . The advantages to such an author, from the point of view of academic prestige, of having a published book to his credit may well tempt him to sign a contract which he will subsequently regret. Authors who have been offered contracts by this firm are strongly advised to consult the Society before committing themselves.'