Tea at Trianon: Robert Maxwell & the KGB

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Robert Maxwell & the KGB

An old article, but interesting in light of all that has happened. From Espionage History Archive:

We’ll note that Maxwell has been christened one of the greatest spies of the Cold War. His record, however, isn’t limited to work for Moscow. The main intelligence service in his life was Israel’s Mossad. Itzhak Shamir himself, the future Prime Minister of Israel, enrolled Jan Ludvik Hoch into the Zionist underground organization Irgun at the beginning of World War II. There he received the agent call sign “Little Czech,” under which he worked his entire life. The French Resistance and British Army became the first phases of the Little Czech’s service in Zionist intelligence, well before the founding of the State of Israel and Mossad.

Further on fate took its own turn, and Maxwell left the British Army in 1947, entering the publishing business. Moreover, after the war Captain Maxwell had been the head of the British Foreign Office’s press bureau in occupied Germany, where he made the needed connections. The capital for his scientific publishing house Pergamon Press made up all of 100 pounds sterling.[1]

Having foreseen its importance in the modern world, the enterprising Maxwell made his bet on scientific information. This sphere became fertile ground for the intelligence services as well. After all, scientists and academics aspired to publish their works in his journals and release books under his label. The Little Czech’s masters could find much of interest there. Maxwell published, for example, the Soviet physicist Lev Landau.

Soon the publishing house became a leader in scientific-technical literature as well history, politics and memoirs. This was also done with an intelligence objective. At once the spy took under his control the publication of the UK Mirror Group’s six newspapers, plus the US publisher Macmillan’s magazines, books and newspapers. These were so-called publications for everyday people. (Read more.)