Over in Spain, Keeler wasn’t as incognito as she’d hoped. After travelling to Madrid, Keeler was recognised from her picture as the missing model and decided to attend a local police station voluntarily. Keeler then agreed to talk to the Daily Express, whose journalists were keen to know more about Profumo and were happy to get her home safely, without any details leaking to rival titles. But as Keeler soon found out, scandalous stories often just get bigger and bigger.2

And it wasn’t just the tabloid-reading public that was wondering how a missing model was connected to a married MP. Others began to ask why exactly the model went missing, and who it served to have arranged that. Certainly, Keeler’s disappearance had led to rumours that Profumo had engineered her trip away from the headlines. If Keeler didn’t take the stand during the Edgecombe trial, there could be no chance she might mention her affair with the minister. Davenport-Hines says Hobson even asked the war minister if such reports were true, despite it being more likely that tabloid cash might have had a hand in her Spanish trip and the gossip surrounding it.3

With all this speculation, it was prime time for Dudley MP George Wigg, who had been smarting since his tussle in the army debate, to expose the war minister and his failings. Wigg chose the upcoming debate due on 21 March, that was to centre on the imprisoning of the two journalists caught up in the Vassall case. He planned to drop his ‘bombshell’4 and would be supported by Barbara Castle, the MP for Blackburn, who referred to Keeler as a ‘tart’. At first, it looked as if Ben Parkin, Labour MP for Paddington North, might deliver the blow, as he played on the word ‘model’ during a speech on the London sewage system. But this was just a teaser. At 11.00 pm, while the House debated the Consolidated Fund Bill, Wigg stood, and his conversation turned to the matter of rumours. Within a speech lasting just five minutes, he laid down his challenge and asked the Home Secretary to deny those rumours connected to Keeler and Rice-Davies. Although he did not mention Profumo by name, he used Parliamentary Privilege to ensure he was immune from any libel charges.

Forty minutes later, Castle entered the debate, asking if the case of the missing model was of public interest. She asked if it was a question of the ‘perversion of justice’ that was the real issue.5

Later, others wondered if Ward had had something to do with Keeler’s disappearance. He had, after all, once suggested to Paul Mann that Christine should get out of London, and maybe bring forward her plans to visit America. And it was Paul Mann who seemed to encourage Keeler to flee to Europe.6 The negotiations for Keeler to renege on her Pictorial contract, which Ward was party to, may also have included the need for her to disappear from public view. Keeler’s high-profile disappearance would also have played into the hands of Lewis and Wigg as they strove to bring attention to their cause.

During his investigation, Denning commissioned some forensic accounting to check if the bank accounts of Mann, Ward or Astor showed payments in or out that might reveal their involvement in Keeler’s timely trip. Nothing was found, but Knightley and Kennedy do mention that Astor left for an American trip on 27 February, and payments from an American account to a Spanish account would have gone unnoticed.7

Chapter 11

The Denial in the House

The debate in the House that Wigg had hijacked for his Profumo attack went on until 1.22 am, after which five ministers held an impromptu meeting and decided an official denial must be issued ahead of the weekend papers being printed. Speed was of the essence.

Profumo, who, according to his son, had that night taken a sleeping pill,1 was summoned from his home to Martin Redmayne’s room. There, along with the Chief Whip, he found gathered there Attorney-General Sir John Hobson, Solicitor-General and Epsom MP Peter Rawlinson, Iain Macleod, the Leader of the Commons and Conservative Party Chairman, and William Deedes, the Cabinet’s PR advisor at the time. Clogg, Profumo’s solicitor, also came.

During this meeting, Profumo stuck to his story, saying he had not slept with Keeler and had nothing to do with her sudden disappearance ahead of the Edgecombe trial and had at no time risked national security.

Knightley and Kennedy say there are two versions of what happened in this meeting. In the first, official description, everyone was convinced that Profumo’s denials were true. The law officers were there to draft the statement, the Chief Whip because of his earlier involvement in the case, the Leader of the House as he is involved when a statement is given and Deedes because he could give a first-hand account of the debate that had just passed. The meeting was split in two so that all the legal representatives could draft the statement together, while Profumo, Deedes, Redmayne and Macleod waited to approve, type, read and for Profumo to sign it.

A non-official version might wonder if there something of a discussion about the truth of the rumours took place; after all, these five men weren’t stupid or unworldly. How were they so convinced that Profumo hadn’t had an affair? One suspects it wasn’t an entirely unlikely scenario.2 The biographer of one of the attendees, Iain Macleod, did record that he had asked Profumo if he’d had sex with Keeler and that his reply hadn’t exactly been a firm denial.3

Just before 5.00 am, Profumo returned home, having approved the wording on a statement drafted in which he admitted only to having been ‘friendly’ with Keeler.

Some criticism has been levelled at the rush with which Profumo was encouraged to respond to the allegations. Rab Butler, who was Macmillan’s first Secretary of State, was quoted as having complained that a Friday morning was an inappropriate time to have to issue a denial.4 Others have suggested that if Profumo hadn’t been drowsy from sleeping pills, he might have used his clearer head to accept it was time to admit to his relationship with Keeler. An alternative to rushing into giving a false personal statement would have been for Profumo to withdraw from his post and answer to an enquiry. While it wouldn’t have exonerated him from his affair, it would have prevented him from lying to the House and utterly ruining his reputation.

The next morning, on 22 March 1963, Profumo made a personal statement to the House to deny any threat to national security had occurred or that he was in any way involved with the disappearance of a key witness in a criminal case (the Edgecombe trial). He also stated that ‘there had been no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler’.

Profumo said he had met Keeler at the Cliveden house party and about ‘half a dozen times’ when he visited Ward. He stated that he was not responsible for her non-attendance at the Old Bailey and that he had not seen Keeler since December 1961 and had no idea where she was now. Concerning Ivanov, he explained that he was also at the Cliveden weekend, and that he had only seen him again at the Soviet Embassy reception for Gagarin. Profumo also threatened legal actions if ‘scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside of the House’.

Under parliamentary rules, a personal statement in the House is a device that allows for no further cross-questioning or debate. After all, the integrity of MPs is assured.

With his wife watching from the Speaker’s Gallery, Profumo was then said to sit down next the Prime Minister to receive a clap on the shoulder from Macmillan. Afterwards, Profumo headed off to accompany the Queen Mother to the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown Park, while in the evening he attended a dinner-dance with his wife held by the Hatch End Conservative Association5 at Quaglino’s, a popular spot for London society. His seemingly comfortable socialising was reported in the papers the next day.

Had he got away with it?

During the day, Ward appeared on TV to support Profumo’s statement,6 while Keeler, now located in Madrid, spoke to the Daily Express for a £2,000 fee arranged by Paul Mann.7 After this, the Express flew Keeler back at its cost. The following Sunday, she also spoke to the News of the World too, explaining her friendship with Profumo was one that ‘no one can criticise’. Cynics later observed that Keeler’s disappearance may have been an orchestrated event, designed to raise her profile and make her story valuable to the press. If this was the case, Mann could have seen the opportunity and proposed or encouraged and facilitated it. A quarter of her Express fee went to Mann.

But, on 25 March 1963, three days after Profumo’s denial was issued at the Commons, Wigg spoke on Panorama. He focused on the potential security issues of the Profumo Affair and said he wanted to know more about Ivanov, a junior naval officer who drove a sports car and wore expensive suits.

After this TV appearance, Ward got in touch with Wigg to defend Ivanov and the two arranged to meet at the House of Commons the next day (26 March). During their three-hour meeting, Ward outlined his, perhaps exaggerated, role as intermediary between the Soviets and the British Intelligence service, explaining that MI5 knew about Keeler and her relationship with Profumo because he had told them. Ivanov would have been under MI5 surveillance so there could be no danger that security would be risked, and Profumo would never put himself in that position anyway, Ward reasoned. Ward also said he’d already written to Wilson with the details.

The meeting was enough for Wigg to establish that Profumo had had an affair with Keeler, that compromising letters existed proving it and that Profumo had lied to the House. Wigg relayed the information to Harold Wilson, who was in the States. Wilson re-read Ward’s letter and asked Wigg to write a report on his findings. This was shown to Sir Frank Soskice, the Shadow Home Secretary, who was shocked at the information Wigg had provided about the circles Profumo was moving in. On Wilson’s return, the document was edited to remove some of the more scandalous parts and sent on to Macmillan and a selected senior advisor.

On 26 March, while Ward was busying himself with Wigg, the Attorney-General wrote the following to Profumo: ‘I hope the thing is now dead … If anyone tried to play the “Ivanov” bit, you ought to say with complete truth and accuracy that you ceased to see her and Ward from the moment you discovered that she was getting on friendly terms with him.’

But Wigg’s aim of finally bringing down Profumo was being made easier and easier, and not just because he’d let Wilson know about the concerns about national security and given his boss something to challenge Macmillan within the House.

Ward’s visit to Wigg hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Tory Party and concerns were raised. Was Ward a loose cannon? Did he know something that could be used against the government and was he sharing it with the Opposition? It was time to look more closely at how the Conservative Party could distance itself, and its war minister, from the company he’d been keeping. It was time to shut Ward up.

The Home Secretary, Henry Brooke, decided to act. On 27 March, Brooke summoned the head of MI5 Roger Hollis, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Joseph Simpson and Sir Charles Cunningham, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office. First, he discussed the rumours he’d heard that MI5 had sent anonymous letters to Mrs Profumo. Hollis denied this and said that once Ivanov left the country, MI5 had decided any security risk was over and the minister’s private life was of no interest. Satisfied by this, it seems the meeting turned somehow to Ward and the allegation he had asked Keeler to find out information about the nuclear warheads. But, explained Hollis, this would be hard to prove, since the witnesses to this were completely unreliable.

But then the meeting seems to have taken a dark turn and it’s after the next conversation that it is said the police investigation into Ward over sexual offences that would lead to his eventual death became an objective. While Hollis and Simpson were initially pessimistic about charging Ward with anything that would stick, they seemingly left that meeting with the instruction to find something that would.

Alongside the machinations of government and those caught up in Profumo’s lie, Keeler continued with her busy social life. It appears that on 18 April, she and Paula Hamilton-Marshall, who she was then living with in Devonshire Street, went out with two West Indian male friends. But never one to miss an opportunity to harass Keeler, Lucky Gordon was waiting outside the flat and immediately attacked her. The two men pulled him off while Hamilton-Marshall called the police and Keeler struggled back inside. When the police arrived, the two males hid, wanting to avoid any police involvement. Keeler and Hamilton-Marshall gave details of what had happened but didn’t mention the other witnesses. It would be a move Keeler would come to regret. Gordon was arrested and finally charged with Actual Bodily Harm. But lying about the presence of the two men meant that Keeler was forced to continue with her version of the event on the witness stand.

Of course, to make the charges stick, Keeler went through another long round of police questioning; now many of the questions centred around Ward and the police also asked about her taking a package to Ivanov, which a boyfriend had told the police he’d seen when he’d driven her there. The police also now knew the gun Edgecombe had used had belonged to Keeler. Was this the information the police were able to use to manipulate Keeler with? Did they encourage her into providing details of the men she had slept with, including Profumo, if they had given her money and if she ever gave money to Ward?

A narrative was being formed. But how much of it was true? And how much of the information given to the authorities was being twisted to fit?

Chapter 12

The Confession and Resignation

On 4 June 1963, Profumo resigned via a letter to Harold Macmillan. He had recently returned from a trip to Italy with his wife, where he had confessed to her that he had indeed slept with Keeler.

He wrote:

In my statement I said that there had been no impropriety in this association. To my very deep regret I have to admit this was not true, and that I misled you, and my colleagues and the House. I ask you to understand that I did this to protect, as I thought, my wife and family, who were equally misled, as were my professional advisors. I have come to realise that, by this deception, I have been guilty of a grave misdemeanour.

The resignation was accepted.

Why did Profumo eventually come clean? Was it a sudden attack of conscience?

After all, Profumo had stood firmly by his statement in the House until then. He had already initiated proceedings in France against Paris Match magazine for a piece that suggested he was connected to Keeler’s disappearance and issued a writ against the UK distributors of Il Tempo for a similar story.1

And Profumo was still enjoying high society. On 22 April he attended a ball to celebrate the wedding of Angus Olgilvy and Princess Alexandra and dined with the Queen Mother. Two days later, he was at the top table of the Rose Ball held at Grosvenor House, and by the weekend he was at Chequers.2

According to Keeler, Profumo’s change of heart was because, by 4 April, aware of the police investigation into him, Ward was threatening to expose Profumo.3 On 7 May, Ward made an appointment to see Timothy Bligh, Macmillan’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, who he told he was unhappy to continue lying to cover for Profumo.4 Ward complained the investigation was hurting his professional reputation. Ahead of their meeting, Bligh had informed Redmayne and Macmillan of Ward’s request, and spoken to Simpson, who told Bligh that the investigation into Ward was ongoing with an arrest possible, although the case was weak.5

During the meeting, which was also attended by MI5 Officer Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Cumming, who secretly taped the proceedings, Ward said that Profumo’s personal statement to the Commons was a lie, and that the police harassment of him was politically motivated. During the recording, Ward explained that the material, which he had a lot of, was dangerous for the government, which was viewed as an attempt to blackmail the politicians into bringing an end to the criminal investigation he was under.6 Bligh reported what Ward had said to Macmillan as a blackmail threat, Macmillan asked for Profumo to be questioned again, but he still stuck to his story that he had not had an affair.

Knightley and Kennedy, however, also think that during his conversation with Bligh, Ward may have thought the police were unaware that he was (in his mind) working for MI5, and that if those at the top were reminded and told the police this, the investigation would be called off.7

Ward’s next move was to write a formal letter to Henry Brooke at the Home Office on 19 May saying that the investigation was damaging, had clearly been instigated by the Home Office and Profumo had lied because he had been involved with Keeler, just as Ward had informed the security services at the time. Brooke asked his office to reply by letter the next day, explaining that the police did not act under his direction.

Ward also sent details of the letter’s contents to the Press Association and other news agencies. He wrote to his own local MP, Wavell Wakefield, about the matter too, outlining that he thought the Home Office was behind the police pursuit of him. Wakefield passed the letter onto the Chief Whip, unsure of how he should respond.

Keeler says Ward also wrote to Harold Wilson with what he knew about Profumo’s relationship with her. Wilson passed a copy of the letter to Macmillan, meeting him and the Chief Whips Redmayne and Herbert Bowden on 27 May to discuss. Wilson made it clear to the PM he would continue to ask questions in the House until appropriate inquiries were made into the matter, focusing on the security risks involved and asking why Ward was allowed to mix so easily with ministers. Diary entries show Macmillan still believed Ward to be more pimp than spy, but that he realised something needed to be done to limit damage to the Conservative Party.8

Fearing that Wilson and his party would keep up the pressure, on 29 May, Macmillan instructed Lord (Reggie) Dilhorne, the Lord Chancellor, to investigate the security risk claims only.9 The investigation, starting the next day, was duly announced and Profumo was warned he would be questioned as part of the proceedings. Since Parliament was about to go on Recess for the Whitsun holiday, Macmillan headed to Inverness by train for a break, feeling he had done enough to satisfy Wilson.

On 31 May, the Profumos left for a holiday in Venice. Over a bellini10 on the first night of the break, Profumo, realising that as soon as he returned to face the investigation, he’d have to come clean, told his wife the truth about his affair with Keeler. Knightley and Kennedy also suspect Profumo had been told about the existence of the taped interviews Keeler had given Robin Drury. These tapes gave a full account of her affair with Profumo including the fact that it had gone on for far longer than people realised. The police knew of these tapes and daily reports were being fed back to those such as Henry Brooke at the Home Office.11

By 4 June, Profumo was back and ready to hand in his resignation letter. Macmillan was said to have been read the letter in Argyll, where he was staying, and reportedly made a comment that he was glad that the affair had at least been with a woman,12 presumably in reference to the previous sex spy scandals involving homosexuality that had rocked his party. In turn, a statement and a copy of Profumo’s resignation went out to the press on 5 June. The Profumo family headed to the country before the announcement that evening. It was the same day that Lucky Gordon appeared in court, charged with assaulting Keeler.