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The Profumo Affair rocked the nation
in 1962 and was a precursor to later political scandals such as those
highlighting the exploits of Jeremy
Thorpe, Jeffrey Archer, John Stonehouse and David Blunkett. The
affair resulted in the suicide of one of the protagonists and incarceration and a shattered reputation and life for another, but not
for John Profumo. He was given a CBE in 1975 for his good works.
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| John
Profumo, Christine Keeler and Stephen Ward |
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Christine Keeler was the young lady at the centre of the Profumo
scandal in the 1960s which shocked the nation. John 'Jack' Profumo was
war minister in Harold McMillan's Conservative government. Happily
married and with a promising career ahead of him. Beautiful and
vivacious Christine met him at a party and pursued an affair with him
at the same time as maintaining illicit liaisons with a Soviet
'diplomat', known to the British secret service as a spy. In the days
of the Cold War, when the West had missiles aimed directly at Moscow
and the Soviet Union had theirs aimed at Washington and London and
were very much prepared to press the button, this enthralled the
nation with its cocktail of sex, spies and scandal and upset the
establishment. The United States had attempted to invade Cuba the
year before and the Russians had installed missiles there, just a
stone's throw from the US mainland. This had resulted in the Cuban
missile crisis where both superpowers were embroiled in a deadly game
of brinkmanship. In this context, the idea that the leading war
minister of America's main ally was sleeping with a lady who regularly
had 'meetings' with a Soviet spy was dynamite.
The resultant furore forced Profumo to
resign (after repeatedly lying about his involvement) and this in turn resulted in
the fall of the government. It also resulted in the suicide of
Dr. Stephen Ward - either a fun-loving though misguided and talkative
friend of Christine's, or a calculating and manipulative traitor
depending on whose account you believe, who first introduced her
to Profumo. It also resulted in imprisonment for Christine for perjury as
well as plaguing her for the rest of her life. Lewis Morley's classic
image of a naked Christine straddling a back-to-front chair is a
classic sixties icon. Christine had an abortion at sixteen, was held
captive and raped twice by an infatuated madman, shot at by a jealous
lover and was imprisoned and as a consequence of all this was
disowned by her mother and one of her sons.
For the rest of her life
she had to endure the stigma that resulted in society shunning her as
a tart and a traitor although she always maintained neither was the
case. In her 2001 autobiography (The Truth At Last) she claims that she became pregnant by
Profumo and that Stephen Ward was a Russian spy who tried to kill her.
Her most damning verdict, though, is on Lord Denning, appointed to
investigate the scandal, whom she claims ignored her evidence as part
of an official cover-up operation that damned her as a prostitute and
the affair as a sex issue rather than a security issue. The official
papers will remain locked up until 2046 and then, perhaps, we will at
last discover the truth.
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| That iconic
Morley image of Christine Keeler
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The Profumo Affair and Christine Keeler.
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