Alan was openlik oor Paul se stryd teen alkoholisme en het daaroor gepraat in sy boek ALANATOMY’

An investigative journalist has claimed that doomed media tycoon Robert Maxwell didn’t have any loyalties in an eye-opening new documentary, which delves into the last few years of his life at the helm of his financially struggling publishing empire.

Die eerste episode van BBC‘s House of Maxwell, which airs on BBC2 tomorrow at 9pm, reveals that Robert Maxwell had ties to Russia’s KGB and MI6, even wanting Britain’s intelligence agency to fund his publishing company.

Ondersoekende joernalis, Tim Bower, who was prevented from distributing a book about the media tycoon, claimed Maxwell wanted everyone to know that he was a ‘decorated war hero’ but was reluctant to share his ‘shady’ verby.

Hy het gesê: ‘He was working for both British intelligence and Russian intelligence. No loyalties other than to himself.’

Intussen, in a previously unseen clip filmed in 1992, former KGB Chief Leonid Shebarshin explained: ‘Maxwell was a special person, he was received as he is. Our alliance was golden, useful, efficient relation.

‘A foreigner can be useful to us as a person with access to some information, who would willingly or unwillingly share it with us.’

Tim, who delved into Maxwell’s life to write the ‘truth’ in his book, detailed how the media tycoon had practiced building connections.

Het Tim gesê: ‘His life in post-war Berlin is where things got very shady. He runs a very lucrative black market operation buying and selling cigarettes, nylon and all chewing gum, kos, alles.

‘He is the heart of taking goods from zone to zone and putting the cash in his pockets.’

Hy gaan voort: ‘Maxwell was someone who wants power, invloed, wealth and to change the world.

‘He goes across to Russia, declares himself, and gets along very well with them and establishes good connections. He becomes a KGB agent.’

Tim revealed that Maxwell had presented himself to MI6 around the same time, while claiming to have made ‘amazing connections’ with scientists all around the world.

Skokkend, he wanted the British intelligence agency to finance the start of his publishing company.

Desmond Bristow, MI6 officer explained: ‘It was obvious that he had been doing odd things for MI6 from Germany already and he suggested that we should subside him to buy a book business.

‘I don’t know if any other case, I was certainly never involved with MI6 buying a business for anybody.’

Tim added: ‘He was working for both British intelligence and Russian intelligence.

‘ No loyalties other than to himself. After all this digging it was finally time to start writing my book.

‘Of course Maxwell knew exactly what I was doing and he did two things – first of all he hired several private investigators, who not only followed me, but extraordinarily set up secretly some sort of electronic device at the bottom of my garden at my home in North London.

‘To be able to read what I was writing at I was typing up.

‘Tweedens, he commissioned his own book the flattering hagiography.

‘I had no doubt as I got towards the end of the book that Maxwell would prevent it from being published and so I persuaded the publishers without much trouble that we should print it outside of England and import it in as a gardening book.’

Archived footage shows Robert Maxwell admitting that he had consistently refused to release a biography, before describing Tim’s book as a ‘hatchet job’.

The publisher then went on to say he would sue for liable anyone who handled the book, insluitend, die skrywer, book shops and distributors.

Tim explained: ‘Like a pack of cards they all collapsed.

‘The establishment was on Maxwell’s side.

‘He used terrorist’s tactics to suppress the truth and the book. He won.’

The documentary also revealed many of Robert Maxwell’s senior staff at the Mirror Newspaper Group were afraid of him and felt unable to make decisions, including what colour to paint the women’s bathroom, without first consulting with him.

It is claimed he had his own camera crew follow him because he was ‘obsessed’ with his image, while running the ‘biggest one man business you could imagine’.

Egter, as his media empire grew he brought his children to work alongside him with Ian and Kevin as joint managing directors, while Ghislaine would ‘float in and out’ of the business.

David Adler, who was Maxwell’s Communication Executive, claimed he liked the idea of ‘owning New York’, and bought the Daily Newspaper while competing with Rupert Murdoch, who was also operating in the city.

‘He was his best PR guy and he didn’t trust anyone else really,’ Het David gesê.

‘He was an expert in something called soft power.

‘Soft power is a way of building trust, when you meet somebody face to face you build trust.

‘It’s the idea that when people connect you have the right conversations with them, you’re breaking bread with them and toasting properly. You’re connecting with people.

‘People care about the soft power and emotional stuff, more than they care about the other stuff.’

David said that Maxwell was a ‘master’ of using emotion to manipulate people.

Christopher Mason added that his former friend Ghislaine, was a ‘superb networker’ who helped Maxwell to navigate the power structures in New York, while her rise was also happening.

The media tycoon continued to purchase publications around the world amid recession.

Former Mirror Group secretary Carol Bragoli said Maxwell had become ‘suspicious’ and ‘paranoid’ in the period before his death.

His empire was found to have a £2billion debt when he fell from his yacht in the Canary Islands in 1991.

Robert Maxwell’s publishing empire began to collapse after banks loaning him huge sums were calling in for their money back.

House of Maxwell starts Monday on BBC Two at 9pm.