Profumo affair
When the Profumo affair was revealed, public interest was heightened by reports that Keeler may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, thereby creating a possible national security risk.
Perceiving himself as a scapegoat for the misdeeds of others, Ward took a fatal overdose during the final stages of his trial, which found him guilty of living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies.
[13] Keeler left Ward after a few months to become the mistress of the property dealer Peter Rachman,[14][n 2] and later shared lodgings with Mandy Rice-Davies, a fellow Murray's dancer two and a half years her junior.
To help him, one of his patients, the Daily Telegraph editor Sir Colin Coote, arranged an introduction to Captain Yevgeny Ivanov (anglicised as "Eugene"), listed as a naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy.
[30] That same weekend, at the main house, Profumo and his wife Valerie were among the large gathering from the worlds of politics and the arts which Astor was hosting in honour of Pakistani President Ayub Khan.
[37] On one occasion he borrowed a Bentley from his ministerial colleague John Hare and took Keeler for a drive around London, and another time the couple had a drink with Viscount Ward, the former Secretary of State for Air.
[46][n 3] In October 1961 Keeler accompanied Ward to Notting Hill, then a run-down district of London replete with West Indian music clubs and cannabis dealers.
[61] The Radcliffe tribunal's ongoing inquiry into press behaviour during the Vassall case was making newspapers nervous,[62] and only two showed interest in Keeler's story: the Sunday Pictorial and the News of the World.
[69] Every newspaper knew the rumours linking Keeler with Profumo, but refrained from reporting any direct connection; in the wake of the Radcliffe inquiry they were, in Wigg's later words, "willing to wound but afraid to strike".
[71] Despite Keeler's absence the judge proceeded with the case; Edgecombe was found guilty on a lesser charge of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
[69] A few days after the trial, on 21 March, the satirical magazine Private Eye printed the most detailed summary so far of the rumours, with the main characters lightly disguised: "Mr James Montesi", "Miss Gaye Funloving", "Dr Spook" and "Vladimir Bolokhov".
The newly elected leader of the opposition Labour Party, Harold Wilson, was initially advised by his colleagues to have nothing to do with Wigg's private dossier on the Profumo rumours.
During a House of Commons debate, Wigg used parliamentary privilege to ask the Home Secretary to categorically deny the truth of rumours connecting "a minister" to Keeler, Rice-Davies and the Edgecombe shooting.
He stated: "There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler", and added: "I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside the House.
[85] Among those who gave statements was Keeler, who contradicted her earlier assurances and confirmed her sexual relationship with Profumo, providing corroborative details of the interior of the Chester Terrace house.
[86] The police put pressure on reluctant witnesses; Rice-Davies was remanded to Holloway Prison for a driving licence offence and held there for eight days until she agreed to testify against Ward.
On Tuesday 4 June, Profumo confessed the truth to Bligh, confirming that he had lied, resigned from the government, and applied for the office of steward of the Chiltern Hundreds in order to give up his House of Commons seat.
[95][96][n 6] The Times called Profumo's lies "a great tragedy for the probity of public life in Britain";[97] while the Daily Mirror hinted that not all the truth had been told and referred to "skeletons in many cupboards".
[100] On 9 June, freed from Profumo's libel threats, the News of the World published "The Confessions of Christine", an account which helped to fashion the public image of Ward as a sexual predator and probable tool of the Soviets.
In advance of the House of Commons debate on Profumo's resignation, due 17 June, David Watt in The Spectator defined Macmillan's position as "an intolerable dilemma from which he can only escape by being proved either ludicrously naïve or incompetent or deceitful—or all three".
[109] In the debate, Wilson concentrated almost exclusively on the extent to which Macmillan and his colleagues had been dilatory in not identifying a clear security risk arising from Profumo's association with Ward and his circle.
[111] In the general debate the sexual aspects of the scandal were fully discussed; Nigel Birch, the Conservative MP for West Flintshire, referred to Keeler as a "professional prostitute" and asked rhetorically: "What are whores about?
A story emanating from Rice-Davies concerned a naked masked man, who acted as a waiter at sex parties; rumours suggested that he was a cabinet minister, or possibly a member of the Royal Family.
The People reported that Scotland Yard had begun an inquiry, in parallel with Denning's, into "homosexual practices as well as sexual laxity" among civil servants, military officers and MPs.
[142] On the eve of the Conservative Party's annual conference in October 1963 he fell ill; his condition was less serious than he imagined and his life was not in danger but, convinced he had cancer, he resigned abruptly.
[90] Davenport-Hines posits a longer-term consequence of the affair—the gradual ending of traditional notions of deference: "Authority, however disinterested, well-qualified and experienced, was [after June 1963] increasingly greeted with suspicion rather than trust".
In April 1964 he began working as a volunteer at the Toynbee Hall settlement, a charitable organisation based in Spitalfields which supports the most deprived residents in the East End of London.
[153] Keeler published several inconsistent accounts of her life, in which Ward has been variously represented as a "gentleman", her truest love,[154] a Soviet spy, and a traitor ranking alongside the Cambridge Five.
Scottish folk musician Al Stewart also refers to the scandal in his song "Post World War II Blues" on the album Past Present Future.
On the television show Mad Men, Season 3, Episode 6 "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" which takes place in early July 1963, American office-manager Joan mentions the Prime Minister of England having a thing for prostitutes.
