Sex, spies, scandal and Tories—the Profumo affair

Christine Keeler, who had an affair Tory MP John Profumo, in June 1988

The Tory minister for war John Profumo resigned on 5 June 1963. He wrote to prime minister Harold Macmillan, “I said that there had been no impropriety. To my very deep regret I have to admit that this was not true.” 

A scandal involving sex and spies showed how the establishment pulls together to protect itself. But it was also a blow to those at the top as it gave a glimpse of the corruption festering behind the pompous facades of the elite. 

The 46-year-old Profumo was having an affair with Christine Keeler. They met at a champagne-drenched summer party at Cliveden, the country home of former Tory MP Lord Astor. Keeler was 19 and naked in the viscount’s outdoor swimming pool. Yevgeny Ivanov, assistant navy attache and spy at the Soviet embassy, was another party guest. Keeler had a relationship with both men. 

Stephen Ward introduced Keeler to Profumo. Ward was an osteopath to the rich and famous. He ingratiated his way into the heart of political and aristocratic life as a fixer where women of “lower rank” were picked up, swapped and traded between posh men. He groomed women for characters such as gangster slum landlord Peter Rachman. 

Profumo’s affairs were well known to the press, his colleagues and the spooks. The Russian angle let the press escalate the story. Spy organisation MI5 had hoped to turn Ward into an agent, so he would be able to use Keeler to get information on Ivanov. 

The other spy agency MI6 was aware of the relationship. And so were some of the royal family—prince Philip was in a secret men’s club with Ward for sharing women called the Thursday club. Initial attempts at cover-up failed. The objections to Profumo’s behaviour at the time concerned security, not abuse of power by rich men. 

Profumo ended up resigning. And the scandal contributed to the fall of Macmillan and the Tories losing the 1964 election. A section of the ruling class wanted a scapegoat and they chose Ward. Home secretary Sir Henry Brooke summoned the head of the MI5 and the Met police commissioner to a meeting, and told them to find a way of “fixing Ward”. 

The police manufactured evidence, and Ward was charged with living off the “immoral earnings” of Christine Keeler and her friend Mandy Rice-Davies. It was a fit-up. There is no evidence that Ward was guilty. But his establishment friends deserted him. Ward took his own life in August 1963 before the trial judge could obey the clear instructions to get Ward found guilty and sentenced. 

When Rice-Davies was in the witness box at the trial, and she was told that Lord Astor had denied having an affair with her, she replied, “He would, wouldn’t he?” In the wake of the scandal, Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls, was commissioned to assess the security risk. Denning had a long career of impartial covering up for the British establishment.

This report would be no exception. It was salacious enough to look like a revelation but hid more than it exposed. For example, on 9 July 1963, Ann Bailey turned up at Denning’s office. She told how she was regularly paid by Ernest Marples, privy counsellor and minister for transport. She said that “whipping was the least sickening of the minister’s demands”. The woman stenographer was asked to leave.

The civil servant who was left in the room said Bailey then described in detail “requirements that were very difficult and she had needed an assistant as the minister’s requests got worse”. Denning conspired with Macmillan to cover it up. The files on the evidence are still sealed. Marples later fled the country just as he was about to be arrested for tax fraud. 

Keeler served six months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. She was vilified in the press and lived a life of poverty. Profumo continued with his affairs. He was awarded an OBE in 1975 and had dinner with Margaret Thatcher to celebrate.