John Profumo was trying to lie his way out of trouble, but the net was closing around him too fast. On 22 March 1963, in front of a packed house of commons, he stepped beyond any hope of redemption.
A debate took place in the House of Commons on the evening of 21 March 1963, concerning two reporters who had gone to prison for refusing to reveal their sources during the enquiry into William Vassall. Vassall was the homosexual Admiralty clerk who had been jailed for 18 years for spying for the Soviet Union. This lucky combination of issues – national security and press reporting – gave George Wigg the opportunity to speak on a related, but entirely different, matter.
Forcing the issue
Just before midnight, Wigg addressed the Commons: ‘There is not an honorable member in the House, nor a journalist in the Press gallery,’ he said, ‘who, in the past few days, has not heard rumour upon rumour involving a member of Government Front Bench. The press has got as near as it could – it has shown itself willing to wound, but afraid to strike…That being the case, I rightly use the privilege of the House of Commons – that is what it is given me for – to ask the Home Secretary…to go to the dispatch box – he knows that the rumour to which I refer related to a Miss Christine Keeler, and Miss Davies, and a shooting by a West Indian – and, on behalf of the Government, categorically deny the truth of these rumours…’
Pandemonium broke out behind the scenes. Chief Whip, Martin Redmayne, woke the Prime Minster up after 1 am to tell him that it was vital for Profumo to give a personal statement to the House before the newspapers ran Wigg’s speech all over their front pages. Profumo’s phone was off the hook, so an official car had to be sent to collect him. The Minster for War had taken a sleeping tablet, and was still in a stupor as the car sped back through the night to Westminster.
Crisis Meeting Profumo found himself before five men who formed the backbone of the British Establishment. There were Sir John Hobson, the Attorney General, and William Deedes, Minister without Portfolio. Both were old Harrovians, like Profumo. There too were Chief Whip Redmayne; Solicitor-General Sir Peter Rawlinson; and Leader of the House Iain Macleod. The Home Secretary, the man responsible for police and security matters, was conspicuous by his absence.
Profumo reasserted his innocence. But there were those in the room that evening who thought it likely that he was lying. As a fellow Conservative was to say, Profumo ‘was not a man ever likely to tell the absolute truth in a tight corner.’ However, by 4.30 am, a statement had been concocted. Profumo went home, to a house still besieged by reporters.
Shortly after 11.00 am, flanked by Harold Macmillan, Profumo rose to tell the historic lie that would not be forgiven: ‘My wife and I first met Miss Keeler at a house party in July 1961, at Cliveden. Among a number of people there was Dr Stephen Ward, whom we already knew slightly, and a Mr. Ivanov, who was an Attaché at the Russian Embassy. Between July and December 1961 I met Miss Keeler on about half a dozen occasions at Dr Ward’s flat when I called to seem him and his friends. Miss Keeler and I were on friendly terms. There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintance with Miss Keeler…I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside the House.’
Profumo left to the cheers of the Conservative faithful and the Prime Minister walked with him, his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. The same afternoon, Profumo found time to go to the races, at Sandown Park, with the Queen Mother. He allowed himself to be photographed with her. That night he went to a dance at Quaglino’s with his wife.
George Wigg left the Common’s with black rage in my heart because I knew what the facts were.’ He would not rest until he had forced the Government to face the truth. In the background were other men, all dedicated to the exposure of Profumo, or Ward, or both. There was Ward’s deadly foe, John Lewis, solicitor Michael Eddowes, and the chief of MI5, scheming to mask their own involvement.
Wigg then appeared on BBC television and spoke of a continuing security issue. One of the viewers was Stephen Ward. Stung by the implication that he had endangered national security, Ward saw Wigg the next day. He provided a briefing that Wigg recorded on paper. It was, Harold Wilson was to say later, ‘a nauseating document, taking the lid off a corner of the London underworld of vice…blackmail and counter blackmail…together with references to Mr. Profumo and the Soviet Attaché…’
On 29 March, Michael Eddowes called Scotland Yard to say he had important information. He gave a special Branch officer an aide-memoir, based on the information Keeler had given him after the Edgecombe shooting, alleging that it was Ivanov – not Ward as all other accounts have it – who had asked Keeler to pump Profumo for information about the delivery of nuclear warheads to Germany. The Special Branch man, according to Eddowes, said that the information would be put in front of the Prime Minster.
MI5 Cover-up On the same day, the head of MI5, Roger Hollis, was called in by Home Secretary Henry Brooke. Although MI5 already knew about the Keeler affair and that Profumo had lied to the House of Commons. Hollis did not share his knowledge with the Home Secretary. To do so would have revealed MI5’s use of Ward in their scheme to entrap Eugene Ivanov.
Instead, the head of MI5 threw Ward to the wolves. He told Brooke that Ward had asked Keeler to get information from Profumo on nuclear warheads. The Home Secretary wanted to know if there was a case for prosecuting Ward under the Official Secrets Act. Hollis evasively replied that the evidence was shaky. But he had planted the idea that buck should be passed, not to the Minister of War, but to the ‘provider of popsies’ Stepehen Ward.
Brooke now turned the guns of the Establishment on Ward. Was there, he asked the Police Commissioner, Sir Joseph Simpson, a police interest in Ward? Simpson said there might be some basis for prosecuting him in connection with his girls, but the evidence would be hard to get. There now began a vice investigation out of all proportion to Ward’s alleged offences.
Two days before the Brooke meeting, the Criminal Investigation Department began receiving anonymous mail. It alleged that ‘Ward was living off immoral earning of girls.’ Significantly, the public was never allowed to see the letters. There is only one serious candidate for the poison-pen writer – John Lewis.
The first statements taken in the police investigation of Ward came from Christine Keeler. The contained details of her relationship with Profumo which - as Lord Dennign later admitted in his laborious prose – ‘one would think…not likely to have been invented.’ The police now knew, if they had not known already, that Profumo had lied in Parliament – but that was not the issue. Their job was to get Ward.
‘I became aware that the police had started asking questions,’ Ward wrote. ‘It only came home to me most gradually that these questions were directed against me…now the full horror of the situation came home to me, and I started to feel hunted.’ Ward flailed around for help. On 7 May, he met the Prime Minister’s secretary, Timonthy Bligh, with an MI5 man sitting in.
‘You see,’ said Ward hopefully, ‘the facts as presented in Parliament were not strictly speaking just like that…I made a considerable sacrifice for Mr. Profumo…I feel I should tell you the truth of what really happened. I know myself here that there is a great deal of potentially extremely explosive material in what I’ve told you.’
Ward’s Desperation
Ward was becoming increasingly desperate about the scale of the investigation. ‘The Marylebone police are questioning my patients and friends in a line which is extremely damaging to me both professionally and socially…Over the past weeks I have done what I could to shield Mr. Profumo from his indiscretion about which I complained to the Security Services at the time.’
Hi assertion that he had told MI5 about Profumo’s affair with Keeler while it was still gain on was simply denied. ‘There is no truth.’ MI5’s Director General Hollis had long since reported to the Prime Minister’s office, ‘in the story that the Security services was informed of Mr. Profumo’s alleged visits to Ward or to Miss Keeler.’ It was a lie, of course, as several former MI5 officers would same-facedly confirm nearly two decades later.
In the meantime, ‘The People’ newspaper was preparing to step into the gap left by the ‘Sunday Pictorial’’s decision to drop the Profumo story. Editor Sam Campbell intended to expose Profumo as a liar. He told the Police Commissioner, and the Commissioner warned the Government.
On Friday, 31 May, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, told Profumo he would interview him in a week’s time. The minister responded by going to Venice with his wife – on holiday. Before the weekend was over, a telegram from Dilhorne destroyed any illusion that his lie would hold up: would he please return to London? Profumo talked through the night with his wife, then decided to go home and tell the truth.
Time for the Truth
Profumo told Timothy Bligh that he had indeed slept with Keeler. His resignation letter, written at once, read, in part:
‘Dear Prime Minister
I said that there had been no impropriety in this association. To my very deep regret I have to admit that this was not true…I have come to realize that, by this deception, I have been guilty of a grave misdemeanor…I cannot remain a member of your administration, nor of the House of Commons…I cannot tell you of my deep remorse…’
Harold Macmillian wrote back:
‘This is a great tragedy for you, your family and your friends. Nevertheless, I have no alternative but to advise the Queen to accept your resignation.’
John and Valerie Profumo successfully went into hiding for several days. Astonishingly quickly, as one observer noted, ‘Profumo was far from the stage, heading back fast toward obscurity.’ Ward was at Bryanston Mews when the resignation news came through, with the press at his door. He was now at his wits’ end, harried by reporters and abandoned by his rich friends. When a former patient offered Ward sanctuary at his home in Watford, Ward gratefully accepted.
He emerged blinking into the light and squeezed into his Jaguar, only to find the street blocked by press cars. Frantic, Ward drove straight into one of the vehicles, bulldozing himself an escape route. The man with the unflappable charm was finally snapping.
On 8 June, Ward was arrested at Watford by two policemen. He was taken to Marylebone Police Station and charged: ‘That he, being a man, did on divers dates between January 1961 and 8 June 1963, knowingly live wholly or in part on the earning of prostitution at 17 Wimpole Mews, contrary to section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956.’ Other charges were to follow.
Profumo had lost his career, but much worse was to befall Stephen Ward. He had become the scapegoat for the Government’s embarrassment and of a security service ruthlessly determined to cover its tracks. While Profumo had been allowed to disappear from circulation, Ward was forced to remain in full glare of publicity, hounded by the press, exposed to the moral disapproval of the public and deserted by the people he thought were his friends.
Deception and Disgrace
Profumo found himself before five men who formed the backbone of the British Establishment. There were Sir John Hobson, the Attorney General, and William Deedes, Minister without Portfolio. Both were old Harrovians, like Profumo. There too were Chief Whip Redmayne; Solicitor-General Sir Peter Rawlinson; and Leader of the House Iain Macleod. The Home Secretary, the man responsible for police and security matters, was conspicuous by his absence.
On the same day, the head of MI5, Roger Hollis, was called in by Home Secretary Henry Brooke. Although MI5 already knew about the Keeler affair and that Profumo had lied to the House of Commons. Hollis did not share his knowledge with the Home Secretary. To do so would have revealed MI5’s use of Ward in their scheme to entrap Eugene Ivanov.