Media mogul asked ex-UK PM Thatcher for $20bn to save USSR
Labour MP and media mogul, late Robert Maxwell, had attempted to secure a $20 billion loan in 1990 from the then British PM Margaret Thatcher to save the collapsing Soviet Union, documents have revealed. Maxwell, who claimed to be acting on behalf of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's closest advisers, had offered coal, chemicals, and jets to the UK in return.