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The Shadow Dossier — The Minister, the Model, and the Scandal That Shook a Government · The Shadow Dossier

• 0:00
  The Shadow Dossier. Act I, a summer weekend at
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  Cliveden. In July 1961, at Cliveden, a grand
• 0:13
  country house on the River Thames owned by Lord
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  Astor, a group of guests gathered for a weekend.
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  Among them was John Profumo, the Secretary of
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  State for War in Harold McMillan's conservative
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  government, and his wife, the actress Valerie
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  Hobson. In a cottage on the estate lived Stephen
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  Ward, a fashionable osteopath with a wide circle
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  of friends in high society and the arts. That
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  weekend, Ward's guests included a 19 -year -old
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  woman named Christine Keeler. At the swimming
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  pool, Profumo met Keeler, and a brief affair
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  followed. the Soviet connection. What turned
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  a private affair into a matter of national security
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  was another man in Ward's circle, Captain Yevgeny
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  Ivanov, officially an assistant naval attaché
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  at the Soviet embassy in London, and in fact
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  an officer of the GRU, Soviet military intelligence.
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  Ivanov was a friend of Ward's, and he too was
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  said to have had a relationship with Kehler,
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  during the same period. Britain's security service,
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  MI5, was aware of Ward's friendship with Ivanov
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  and had even hoped Ward might help them persuade
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  the Russian to defect. Through the cabinet secretary,
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  Profumo was warned to be careful about his association
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  with Ward Circle. The affair with Keillor ended
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  within months. It's important to be precise here.
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  No evidence has ever shown that Profumo passed
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  secrets to anyone, or that Keillor was used to
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  gather them. But the idea that the minister responsible
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  for the British Army had shared a lover with
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  a Soviet intelligence officer was, in the middle
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  of the Cold War, politically explosive. Rumors
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  spread through London in late 1962 and early
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  1963 after an unrelated shooting incident brought
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  Keillor into the news. On March 22, 1963, Profumo
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  stood up in the House of Commons and made a personal
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  statement. He said there had been no impropriety
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  whatsoever in his acquaintance with Christine
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  Keillor. It wasn't true. As pressure grew over
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  the following weeks, Profumo admitted the truth.
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  On June 5th, 1963, he resigned, both from the
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  government and from Parliament. In his letter,
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  he wrote that he had misled the House, and that
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  he had done so to protect his wife and family.
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  In British political culture, lying to the House
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  of Commons was, and remains, among the most serious
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  offenses a minister can commit. The affair itself
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  might have been survivable. The lie was not.
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  The consequences spread quickly. Stephen Ward
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  was prosecuted on charges of living on immoral
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  earnings. Many historians now regard the trial
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  as deeply unfair. a case in which Ward was made
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  to carry the blame for the scandal. During the
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  trial, another witness, Mandy Rice Davies, was
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  told in court that a prominent man had denied
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  knowing her. She replied, Well, he would, wouldn't
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  he? And the line has been quoted ever since.
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  Before the jury returned its verdict, Ward took
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  an overdose. He died on August 3rd, 1963. A judicial
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  inquiry led by Lord Denning examined whether
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  national security had been damaged. His report,
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  published in September 1963, concluded that it
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  had not, while criticizing the government's handling
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  of the affair. It became an unlikely bestseller.
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  The damage to the government was real. In October
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  1963, Harold McMillan resigned as Prime Minister.
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  citing ill health. The following year, the Conservatives
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  lost the general election. Historians still debate
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  how much the scandal contributed, but it came
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  to symbolize a sense that the old establishment
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  had lost its authority. John Perfumo spent the
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  rest of his life quietly working as a volunteer
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  at Toynbee Hall, a charity in London's East End.
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  starting by cleaning and washing up and eventually
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  helping to raise funds for it. In 1975, he was
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  made a commander of the Order of the British
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  Empire for his charity work, which many saw as
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  a sign of public rehabilitation. He died in 2006.
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  Christine Keeler lived for decades with the notoriety
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  the scandal brought her and died in 2017. The
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  Perfumo affair is remembered as a sex scandal,
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  but at its center, it was a Cold War security
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  story. A government minister was connected through
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  one social circle to a Soviet intelligence officer,
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  and it was the minister's lie to Parliament,
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  not any proven breach of secrets, that ended
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  his career. This concludes declassified file
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  number 0048 of the Shadow Dossier. The minister,
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  the model, and the scandal that shook a government.
• 6:22
  What dangerous secrets await in our next file?
• 6:28
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• 6:33
  and YouTube so you never miss an official declassification.
• 6:40
  This is the shadow dossier. Thank you for listening.