On his return to the UK, Profumo — wealthy in
his own right and a rising star in Tory politics who was
married to the successful actress Valerie Hobson —
visited Cliveden, the country home of David Astor, owner
and editor of The Observer, apparently to discuss with his
friend the possibility of the newspaper starting an anti-Franco
campaign. But for that visit he might not have met Keeler
and would not have sparked a tale of sleazy sex and upper-class
orgies that titillated newspaper and television audiences
across the globe for months on end.
As the two strolled through the grounds
on that fateful summer evening they reached the swimming
pool where a naked 18-yearold was swimming. She was Christine
Keeler and two years later she was to become the notorious
star of a scandal which almost brought down the government
of Harold Macmillan.
At the time, Keeler was the guest at Cliveden
of Stephen Ward, a society osteopath who had the use of
one of Astor’s cottages in exchange for treating the
editor’s back problems. Ward had playfully hidden
Keeler’s bathing costume and, once she was suitably
wrapped in a towel, introduced her to Profumo and Astor.
The 46-year-old Cabinet Minister was “immediately
smitten by her charms”, according to later tabloid
reports. Astor invited the two to join his own house party
and later that night the fascinated Profumo took Keeler
— who at that stage was working as a topless dancer
in a Soho nightclub — on a tour of the manor which,
reportedly, “degenerated into a chase through the
bedrooms.” It was the start of a Cold War scandal
involving prostitutes, government secrets and a Russian
spy, for next morning another guest arrived. He was Col.
Yevgeny Ivanov the Russian Naval Attache in London and a
diplomat who was already under surveillance by British Intelligence.
Later Ward claimed that he had been recruited
by MI 5 to use Keeler as a “honeypot” sex bait
to trap the Russian whom the British spymasters wanted to
“turn” as a double agent. The very weekend that
he met her at Cliveden, Ivanov became Keeler’s lover. The
problem was that soon afterwards the smitten Profumo also
became her lover, beginning an affair that was to last for
several months and end, according to Keeler, only when she
refused Profumo’s wish to set her up in a “discrete
pied a terre” which the two would use as a permanent
“love nest”. Profumo may have thought himself
in love, but Keeler certainly was not, and she later told
the News of the World that sex with the Minister “had
no more meaning than a handshake, or a look across a crowded
room.”
Ivanov, on the other hand, was an ideal
lover, she said. Profumo had no idea that
he and the Russian were both sharing Keeler’s favours
— until MI5 intervened, apparently fearing that Profumo
might interfere with their own “honeytrap” operation.
Through the Cabinet secretary, Sir Norman Brook, the spymasters
discreetly warned Profumo not to continue the affair but
he ignored the warnings.
When he did finally break with Keeler
she became involved with two other dubious characters who
fought over her and one of whom eventually tried to shoot
her. She took her story to a journalist who passed it on
to a Labour MP… and the sordid details began to trickle
out as rumours and innuendo in the popular press. In
the imbroglio which ensued Ward was charged with living
off the earnings of prostitution, Keeler skipped the country
and Profumo lied to Parliament about their relationship.
That was his undoing.
Harold Macmillan was later to write: “Profumo
had behaved very foolishly, but not wickedly… But
Profumo does not seem to have realized that we have —
in public life — to observe different standards from
those prevalent today in many circles.”
When Ward, trying to save himself from
criminal charges, wrote to the Home Secretary to denounce
Profumo as a liar, the whole sorry tale came out.After the
publication of a love letter he wrote to Keeler, the Minister
resigned on June 5, 1963, for having lied to Parliament.
Soon afterwards, Ward committed suicide.
Profumo, spent more than 40 years redeeming
himself with charity work for London’s poor, winning
widespread respect and an honour from the Queen, who promoted
him to Commander of the Order of British Empire in 1975. In
an official report on the affair, Lord Denning concluded
that security had not been breached. But added that Ivanov
and Profumo “did no doubt narrowly miss one another
on occasions,” something that afforded Keeler “much
amusement.”
In 1961, Ivanov told Stephen Ward, in
whose apartment Profumo and Keeler frequently met, that
the Soviets knew the United States was about to supply atomic
weapons to West Germany, Denning said. The Soviet agent
asked Ward to find out through his friends when that decision
was to be implemented. But Denning said
he believed Ward’s denials that Keeler had been asked
to get this information from Profumo.
“Mr. Profumo was also clear that
she never asked him and I am quite sure that he would not
have told her if she had asked him,” Denning concluded. How
different the tale would have been if Profumo had not gone
to Cliveden that weekend.
