1963 – What an Affair!
I wonder if Donald Trump has dealt the final blow to public interest in politicians and sex scandals. There was a time when any story about parliamentarians’ marital infidelities, or worse, could capture a nation, with the possible exception of France where such activities were, and are, seen as normal and, well, quite frankly, boring. To remind you what used to ensure fascination and generate volumes of gossip, we could go back to nearly 60 years ago, and the Profumo scandal. Sex and spies, politicians and minor aristocrats, this was a magnificent melodrama, keeping a credulous public engrossed for weeks. Truly, those were the days!
It might help to start with a brief overview of the cast of characters, and to help you visualize them, I have added some actor alternatives from that time. There are three key figures, apart from several others who got in on the action. The first was John Profumo, 46 years old when our story begins: I see him as Tom Courtenay, who had played Billy Liar in the film version of that story just four years earlier. Profumo had an extensive parliamentary career. He was elected the Conservative MP for Kettering in 1940, just 25 year old, and served both as an MP while also serving as a soldier, in the Northhamtonshire Yeomanry (yup, ‘yeomanry’!). He lost his seat to Labour in 1945, but successfully ran for Stratford-on-Avon in 1950. At this point his career took off, and by 1960 he was a minister in the Macmillan Government, Secretary of State for War. To add to his distinction, he had married Valerie Hobson in 1954, then a leading film actress.
Next up, Stephen Ward, an osteopath: I think you might like to see him as a darker figure, Machiavellian, with a complex sexual persona, a real life version of a Dirk Bogarde character. With a practice in Cavendish Square, a ritzy part of London, Ward had several distinguished patients. Through them, and his personal charm, he was a figure in the London social scene. His hobby was portrait sketches, and in 1960 he was commissioned by the Illustrated London News to produce a series of portraits of national and international figures. With members of the Royal Family covered, he visited the USSR to draw portraits of Russian leaders, and later met Captain Yevgeny Ivanov at the Russian Embassy (a minor role, perhaps Patrick McGee, who was to make a suitable unsettling De Sade). Ward and Ivanov became firm friends. However, MI5 knew Ivanov was an intelligence officer, and sought Ward’s help in encouraging him to defect.
Finally, the woman in the story was Christine Keeler. Harder to visualise who best to represent her. Julie Christie? No, it might be more helpful to imagine her played by Diana Rigg. Keeler left school at 15, drifted through various jobs, and was working as a topless showgirl at Murray’s Cabaret Club. She met a client there in 1959, Stephen Ward, moved into his flat, only to become the mistress of a property dealer, and next shared a flat with Mandy Rice-Davies, a young dancer at Murray’s cabaret. Despite various short-term boyfriends, she regularly returned to Ward, and met many of Ward’s friends, including Lord Astor, a political ally of John Profumo. She often spent weekends at the riverside cottage that Ward rented on Astor’s country estate.
The first stage in this saga establishes the relationships between our three main characters. Over the weekend of 8–9 July 1961, Keeler was one of Ward’s guests at his riverside cottage. Also there were John Profumo and his wife, staying in the Astor’s house,. On the Saturday evening, the Ward’s and Astor’s groups met at the Cliveden swimming pool. Christine Keeler, who had been swimming naked, was introduced to Profumo while trying to cover herself with a skimpy towel (yes, definitely Diana Rigg, who had a phobia about appearing naked)! It was obvious Profumo was attracted to Keeler, and promised to be in touch. Christine Keeler may have returned to London with Ivanov, while Ward told MI5 that Profumo had met and was interested in Keeler. Profumo’s interest in Keeler was a complication, as MI5 was putting together a plan to use her in a ‘honey trap’, to compromise Ivanov, and thereby help secure his defection.
Events moved on. A few days after their first meeting, Profumo contacted Keeler. Seeing that partially clad body had led to an affair, but, rather like Billy Liar’s, it was one among many, and it might not have lasted long. Christine Keeler later reported it as an unromantic relationship without expectations, a “screw of convenience”, although she also claimed he had offered to set her up in a flat. [i] Neither had much good to say about each other, and Profumo’s son reported his father described Keeler as someone who “seem[ed] to like sexual intercourse”, but who was “completely uneducated”, with no conversation beyond make-up, hair, and pop music. [ii]
There’s the sex, but where’s the spy? Keeler and Profumo usually met at Ward’s flat when he was away, and Profumo gave her occasional a small presents. Now, the manipulative figure of Ward (definitely Dirk Bogarde) appears on the scene, asking Keeler to spy on Profumo, and find out about the UK’s nuclear weapons. Like any decent melodrama, we don’t know what really happened, as both Keeler and Profumo denied they had ever discussed anything to do with his work. What we do know is that Profumo was warned about the dangers of mixing with Ward and his friends. Did he also get told to drop Keeler? Was he advised of the plan to trap Ivanov? On the day he was advised on the danger of associating with Ward, Profumo wrote to Christine Keeler cancelling their plan to meet the following day, in what was later called the ‘Darling’ letter. Despite this, if Christine Keeler is to be believed, their affair continued for a while.
Later in 1961 Keeler moved out from Ward’s apartment once again, and began to live in her own place, conducting several affairs. The story might have ended there, but in July 1962 the first rumours of a possible Profumo-Keeler-Ivanov triangle began to emerge. At the same time, Keeler’s affairs were a source of other dramas, especially her liaison with Johnny Edgecombe (perfect name for a dubious minor character). That affair collapsed, and in December 1962 Keeler and Rice-Davies were together at Wards apartment, 17 Wimpole Mews, when Edgecombe arrived, firing several shots at the front door. As the press started exploring the underlying story, Keeler was described as “a free-lance model” and ‘Miss Marilyn Davies’ as “an actress”. Now in the public eye, Christine Keeler began to offer indiscreet revelations about Ward, Profumo, Ivanov and the Edgecombe shooting.
Naturally, things got complicated. At the beginning of 1963, the Soviet government recalled Ivanov. To satisfy public interest, and to make money, Keeler attempted to sell her story about Ward, Profumo and Ivanov to selected national newspapers. With concerns about potential libels suits and parliamentary issues, any interest quickly fizzled out, and she changed tack, giving an account of her affair with Profumo to the police, who failed to pass this on to MI5. Perfect, every scandal has to include police bungles! By now, several MPs were aware of Profumo’s affair, as well as the infamous ‘Darling’ letter, but no action was taken. Even then, it could have blown over, where it not for the fact that Christine Keeler slipped off to Spain, rather than appearing as a witness into Edgecombe’s trial. The press, aware of the rumours linking Keeler with Profumo, could only hint, by front-page juxtapositions of stories and photographs, that Profumo might be connected to Keeler’s disappearance. It was left to Private Eye, that wonderful, witty, salacious and quite outrageous magazine to print a ‘summary’ of the rumours, with the main characters lightly disguised: “Mr. James Montesi”, “Miss Gaye Funloving”, “Dr Spook” and “Vladimir Bolokhov”. [iii] Every reader could see more was about to be revealed.
Like Billy Liar, Profumo tried to wiggle out of his problems. Speaking in Parliament, he denied the affair and any links with Ward and Ivanov. Ward appeared on television to support Profumo’s story. It did little good, and the police started to investigate, with their focus on Ward. They interviewed his colleagues, friends and even his patients, started 24 hour surveillance, and even tapped his telephone. If Profumo kept quiet, Christine Keeler couldn’t be stopped. She admitted her affair with Profumo, contradicting her previous accounts, and offering plenty of evidence to support her ‘true story’. Now the process had its own momentum.
Ward’s practice began to fall apart as the police investigation continued. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was drawn into the events, and asked for an investigation into possible security breaches. In a wonderful cinematic interlude, Profumo and his wife flew to Venice for a short Whitsun holiday. While there, Profumo was contacted and asked to return as soon as possible. Believing he was about to be exposed, Profumo told his wife the truth. Back in London, he confirmed he had lied, and promptly resigned from the government and from Parliament. While The Times called Profumo’s lies “a great tragedy for the probity of public life in Britain”, as if the issue was now over, it was The Daily Mirror, not much more than a scandal sheet, which suggested there was more to be revealed, with “skeletons in many cupboards”.
Actions have consequences, and this was made all too clear in the next few weeks. Ward was arrested, and no longer under the threat of a libel case from Profumo, the News of the World, as much a muckraker as the Daily Mirror, published “The Confessions of Christine”, depicting Ward as a sexual predator, and hinting he was working for Russia. Far more fateful, the Sunday Mirror printed that famous ‘Darling’ letter from Profumo to Keeler. With that public, Nigel Birch stood up in the House of Commons during the debate on Profumo’s resignation, stating, “I myself feel that the time will come very soon when my right hon. friend [the prime minister] ought to make way for a much younger colleague. I feel that that ought to happen.”
With interest in Profumo offering a path to attack the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan (imagine him played by Anthony Hopkins) found himself in a tricky position. Was he ignorant of what had been going on? Macmillan responded that he should not be held culpable for believing a colleague who had repeatedly asserted his innocence. His response was ignored. As MPs enjoy the freedom to say whatever they like, (under the rules of parliamentary privilege), some critics saw the opportunity to harm Macmillan, through branding Christine Keeler as a “professional prostitute”, a “Tart” and a “Poor little slut”, and Ward as a Soviet agent.
The public gobbled up every comment, but it seemed Macmillan might survive and get through the scandal. However, the British press was on the warpath and was not to be denied. Over the next few days sensational stories appeared, hinting at widespread immorality within Britain’s governing class. Christine Keeler’s friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, gave an account of a naked masked man who acted as a waiter at sex parties; rumours suggested that he was a cabinet minister, or even a member of the Royal Family! One well know critic claimed the UK was witnessing “The Slow, Sure Death of the Upper Classes”, but no-one held their breath! [iv] A classic from that time has to have been an article in the Daily Mirror on 24 June: under a banner heading “Prince Philip and the Profumo Scandal”, the paper dismissed what it termed the “foul rumour”” that the prince had been involved in the affair. There was nothing to explain the rumour or its source: a slander-sheet lesson in how to win, twice over!!
A month later, Stephen Wards trial began. He was charged with living off the earnings of Keeler, Rice-Davies and two other prostitutes, and with procuring women under 21 to have sex with other persons. With the benefit of hindsight, the case had many flaws, although he was clearly guilty of some charges. However, both the prosecution and the judge were extremely hostile, ignoring inconvenient pieces of evidence. After listening to the summing-up, Ward overdosed on sleeping tablets and was taken to hospital. The next day he was found guilty in relation to the charges over Keeler and Rice-Davies, but not on the other counts. Sentencing was postponed until he was fit to appear, but he died without regaining consciousness.
In any good scandal, we often forget to read the postscript to discover what happened to all the characters? With Ward dead, that left Profumo and Keeler, as well as Rice-Davies and Macmillan. An enquiry into the Profumo Affair had found there’d been no security leaks, and no links to anyone in government. Macmillan felt exonerated, and announced his intention to stay on. However, at the Conservative Party’s annual conference later that year he fell ill; convinced he had cancer, he resigned. Succeeded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the Conservative Party was narrowly defeated in the 1964 General Election. The Profumo affair had damaged the party. Profumo disappeared from public view, and buried himself in a charity supporting deprived Londoners. Later his charitable activities were recognised when he was appointed a CBE in 1975. His marriage survived the scandal, and Valerie Hobson died in1998, aged 81; Profumo died, aged 91, in 2006.
Christine Keeler slid downhill. After two brief marriages, she lived alone from the mid-1990s until her death aged 75 in 2017. Her income from newspaper stories was lost in legal fees; her credibility undermined as she published inconsistent accounts of her life. She described Ward as a gentleman, her truest love, a Soviet spy and a traitor! Her portrait, by Stephen Ward, was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. Mandy Rice-Davies had a modest but successful career as a nightclub owner, businesswoman, actress and novelist. Married three times, she described her life as a “slow descent into respectability”, and died in 2014, aged 70. As for Ivanov, he was invisible for many years, but Christine Keeler reported meeting Ivanov in Moscow in 1993. He died there the following year. One final twist: in a 2015 history of Soviet intelligence activities, Jonathan Haslam suggested the relationship between Ivanov and Profumo was closer than the latter had admitted, and Ivanov had visited Profumo’s home, where he was able to photograph sensitive documents in the minister’s study. My goodness, what an affair!
[i] Quoted in Summers, Anthony and Dorril, Stephen, Honeytrap. London: Coronet Books, 1989
[ii] Profumo, David, Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir. London: John Murray, 2006
[iii] The details are in Wikipedia’s account of the Profumo Affair, from which this blog has drawn many details. The Private Eye story is described in Wayland Young’s contemporary book, The Profumo Affair, Penguin, 1963
[iv] This was the inimitable Malcolm Muggeridge, writing in the Sunday Mirror on 23 June 1963: “The Upper Classes have always been given to lying, fornication, corrupt practices and, doubtless as a result of the public school system, sodomy”. Ever the critic, he saw no sense wasting a good opportunity!
