Profumo Affair

In the early 1960s Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government and was married to actress Valerie Hobson. In 1961 Profumo met Christine Keeler, a London showgirl, at a house party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Many years later he would claim, in discussion with his son, David, that he had met Keeler previously at a night club in London called Murray's and "probably had a drink with her."[1] Also present at the Cliveden party were Profumo's wife and the fashionable osteopath, Dr Stephen Ward, a long-standing acquaintance of Keeler. The relationship with Keeler lasted only a few weeks before Profumo ended it. However, rumours about the affair became public in 1962, as did the allegation that Keeler had also had a relationship with Yevgeny "Eugene" Ivanov, a senior naval attach at the Soviet embassy in London. Given Profumo's position in the government and with the Cold War in full swing at the time, the potential ramifications in terms of national security were grave, and this, along with the adulterous nature of Profumo's relationship with Keeler, quickly elevated the affair into a public scandal. In March 1963, Profumo stated to the House of Commons that there was "no impropriety whatever" in his relationship with Keeler and that he would issue writs for libel and slander if the allegations were repeated outside the House.[3] (Within the House, such allegations are protected by parliamentary privilege.) However, in June, Profumo confessed that he had misled the House and lied in his testimony and on June 5, he resigned his cabinet position, as well as his Privy Council and parliamentary membership. There was never proof of actual espionage activity involving Keeler, the Soviet Naval Attache Ivanov, and Profumo, but there was ground for suspicion. Peter Wright, in his autobiography 'Spycatcher', relates that he was working at the British Counterintelligence Agency MI5 at the time and was assigned to question Keeler on security matters. He conducted a fairly lengthy interview and found Keeler to be poorly educated and not well informed on current events, very much the 'party girl' described in the press at the time. However, in the course of questioning her, the subject of nuclear missiles came up, and Keeler, on her own, used the term 'nuclear payload' in relation to the missiles. This set off alarm bells in Wright's head. According to Wright, in the very early 60s in Britain, the term 'nuclear payload' was not in general use by the public, and even among those who kept up with such things the term was not commonly heard. For a young girl with such limited knowledge to casually use the term was more than suspicious. In fact Wright came away convinced that at the very least there had been an attempt by the Soviet Attache (perhaps through Stephen Ward) to use Keeler to get classified information from Profumo. Lord Denning released the government's official report on September 25, 1963, and one month later, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan resigned on the grounds of ill health, which had apparently been exacerbated by the scandal. He was replaced by the foreign secretary, the Earl of Home, who renounced his title to become Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Stephen Ward was prosecuted for living on the immoral earnings of prostitution and he committed suicide in August. He was defended by James Burge QC (who was later the basis for John Mortimer's character Rumpole of the Bailey. Keeler was found guilty on unrelated perjury charges and she was sentenced to nine months in prison. Profumo died on March 9, 2006.