Part II: The Drama Unfolds

Chapter 8

Profumo and Keeler Date

Chapter 9

Love Rivals Bring Keeler to the Fore

Chapter 10

Keeler, the Missing Model

Chapter 11

The Denial in the House

Chapter 12

The Confession and Resignation

Chapter 13

Ward is Arrested and Put on Trial

Part III: The Plot Thickens

Chapter 14

Resignation Fallout

Chapter 15

A Time of Spies

Chapter 16

The Role of the Press

Chapter 17

Security Concerns Are Raised

Part IV: The Curtain Falls

Chapter 18

The Denning Report – Profumo’s Fault but It’s Ward that’s Wicked

Chapter 19

Did Profumo Fell Supermac and the Conservatives?

Chapter 20

A Pardon for Ward

Chapter 21

A Pardon for Keeler

Chapter 22

More Lying than Spying?

Conclusion

Timeline of Events

Notes

Introduction

If people told the truth, this book simply wouldn’t exist. If those gathered at Cliveden on the weekend that started 8 July 1961 had been honest about what occurred there and thereafter, there would be no Profumo Affair and nothing to write about. Lives and governments could have been saved, friendships maintained and diplomatic relations preserved. But everybody lies, from the grandest in the land, to those from the humblest of backgrounds. Lords and ladies, politicians, the police, the media, colleagues, friends, enemies and lovers. They lie to each other, they lie about each other and they lie to themselves. They lie for money, for their job, to save face, to impress people, to protect people, sometimes they lie because they no longer know what the truth really is.

But a cast of liars also makes it difficult to tell a story. There is no one version to relay, no definitive answer for what really went on behind closed doors and when lights went out. And so, sixty years on from the trial that was to be the culmination of the Profumo Affair, we unravel the ‘he said/she said’ narrative to explore what really went on when John Profumo met Christine Keeler. This book is split into four sections to highlight the main areas of interest within the story: the people involved, what they did, what happened next and the long-term repercussions of their actions.

First, in Part I we meet the main players caught up in the scandal. This includes the ‘respectable’ politician, John Profumo, who lied about his infidelity and caused his aristocratic moniker to be forever associated with one of the most high-profile British scandals of the twentieth century. A rising star of the Tory Party, his affair ended his political career. Then there is Christine Keeler, a young girl treated as an object because of her beauty, misled and misguided by those she trusted time and time again. Keeler inadvertently became the poster girl for ‘fallen women’ when what she desired was to be truly seen. We meet too ‘Eugene’ Ivanov, a Russian spy cunningly using his role as a diplomat to satisfy his masters and yet failing to pull off his greatest long con when an explosive secret came to light, and he was sent scuttling home instead. Then there is Stephen Ward, in turns a saviour, social climber and Svengali. A promiscuous bon viveur whom the establishment used as a sacrificial lamb when the hangover from the party lifestyle they enjoyed proved too much to bear. We meet Mandy Rice-Davies, a savvy businesswoman trapped in a man’s world and wrapped in such a cute package that no one suspected her talent for self-preservation. And there’s Bill Astor, born with a silver spoon but given little motherly love, it seems. He latched onto Ward for the fun times but ran and hid when the hard times followed. Finally, we examine Harold Macmillan, a transformative Prime Minister and a stabilising statesman, brought low by his determination to believe in the honour of a fellow Tory above all else.

With our cast assembled, in Part II we turn to how our characters interact. We see the middle-aged lothario pursue a chaotic girl who was looking for a good time in the wrong places. It’s a fun love affair that suits them both, for a while. Then Profumo is warned off, because of the company they are keeping. The Russian spy has been burrowing deeper into high society, nobly helped by Ward, who hates the establishment but enjoys its gossipy gatherings. Our heroine stumbles on, dreaming of a career in modelling, but instead meeting more men, each one less suitable than the former. But the party keeps going; Keeler, Rice-Davies, Ward, Astor, Ivanov and Profumo all hope they can have their cake and eat it, consequences be damned. But with the lie discovered, there must be a confession and a resignation. What forced these events to happen?

Now the secret is out, heads must roll. Part III examines how Profumo and Keeler’s affair, his denial of it and the eventual outing of those involved impacted personal, professional and even public lives. This section also asks how the affair was discovered and why it became so significant. We see how the role played by an aggrieved press, the political opposition and the inducement of money compromised truth and justice. With the leadership at stake, the public needed a scapegoat. Profumo’s untameable desire for Keeler led to two criminal trials but he was never called as a witness in either of them. And the possibly toxic friendship between Ward and Keeler was shattered forever.

Finally, in Part IV we turn to the events that happened later in our timeline. We see what was called a government whitewash written by an outdated moral crusader with a ready-made agenda. Then we discuss the damage the Profumo Affair wreaked on Macmillan and the Conservative government, finally ending its thirteen years in power. The book also covers the unfinished business from the scandal’s fallout. Active campaigns exist calling for a pardon for both Ward, convicted of crimes under the Sexual Offences Act as he lay dying in a hospital bed, and for Keeler, who was very likely manipulated into giving one version, that suited many people, of being assaulted by her stalker. Here we also look at how the lies that were told cost everyone dearly.

The conclusion asks why a short-lived romance had such an impact, and if the same thing could happen today. It also examines what could have been done better to save a suicide, and to protect the reputations and livelihoods it ruined? The conclusion explains why the story isn’t over.

The sequence of events to the Profumo Affair is complex. A timeline at the back of the book will help you understand how the story unfolds, although the those involved were often unaware of what was going on around them. This is drawn from the investigative work of Keeler’s son Seymour Platt, and from files held at the National Archives in Kew.

Preface

The Not-So-Swinging 60s

Timing, as they say, is everything. And an understanding of the backdrop to the Profumo scandal is essential to see how and why a short-lived relationship between a minister and a model led to a disgraced politician and aristocrat, the fall of a government and a death by suicide.

While the 1960s are often thought of as a new, more modern decade, the lived experience of women had barely changed since that of their mothers. The pill, when it became available in 1961, was reserved for married women only, and it was uncommon to see a young woman out at night alone. Husbands still endorsed their wives’ signatures, including any that would allow them to take out a loan, and signed medical consent on behalf of their spouses.

When the Sexual Offences Act was created in 1956, and it sailed through both Houses, those involved in its making were exclusively male, since women had only been allowed access to the Lords in 1958. Stephen Ward was accused under Section 23 of the Act for the ‘procuration of a girl under twenty-one’. The Act criminalised anyone who introduced a female aged under 21 but over 16 to a male, if the two later had consensual sex.