Before the scandal broke, he was recalled to Moscow. He was targeted by MI5, who wanted to persuade him to become a double agent. Russian naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov regularly met up with Keeler at the same time as she was seeing Profumo. During Ward’s trial, when Astor denied a liaison with Mandy Rice-Davies, she famously quipped: “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Yevgeny Ivanov It was at Lord ‘Bill’ Astor’s family estate, Cliveden, that Profumo and Keeler first met. In 2013, along with two of Britain’s most senior lawyers, Rice-Davies called for the guilty verdict of Stephen Ward to be overturned. She never met John Profumo, but was called as a witness at Ward’s trial. Keeler introduced her to Ward and Ward introduced her to his friends. Solihull-raised Rice-Davies was just 16 when she met Keeler at Murray’s Cabaret Club. After her release in 1964, she bought a house in Marylebone with money she received from the now-defunct News of the Worldnewspaper.
Just months after Profumo’s resignation, Keeler was jailed for lying under oath at the trial of Lucky Gordon. Her relationships with a Tory minister and a Soviet diplomat made her a household name. In her teens she moved to London where she was ‘discovered’ by Stephen Ward. Keeler grew up in a converted railway carriage in Berkshire. The security services MI5 and MI6 used Ward to supply information on his society contacts and he knew of their attempt to persuade Russian naval attaché Yevgeny Ivanov to become a double agent. Ward’s successful osteopathy practice and sideline as a portrait artist made him many important friends, including Lord Astor, Yevgeny Ivanov and John Profumo. He continued as a volunteer at Toynbee Hall until his death, aged 91, in 2006. His reputation redeemed in the eyes of many, he was awarded the CBE in 1975 and sat next to the Queen at Margaret Thatcher’s 70th birthday party. Later, he served with the charity’s council, then eventually president.
He began by washing dishes, helping with the playgroup and collecting rents. He subsequently devoted himself to Toynbee Hall, a charitable organisation in the East End of London that supports communities in poverty. The Secretary of State for War at the time of the scandal that took his name, John Profumo resigned from the cabinet in June 1963. Who’s who in the Profumo scandal John ‘Jack’ Profumo Ward knew everyone and where the action could be found. Soon she was living with him and – revealing an unseemly delight for setting up liaisons between ‘alley cats’ and ‘aristos’ – Ward introduced her to his party-loving chums. Ward had ‘discovered’ her two years earlier, working as a showgirl in Murray’s Cabaret Club in Soho. In an upstairs flat at 17 Wimpole Mews in Marylebone, Stephen Ward is with his latest protégée – 19-year-old Christine Keeler. Creative types and chancers are descending on the capital, post-war migration from the Commonwealth is lighting up popular culture, and the ‘in crowd’ is an eclectic blend of the well-heeled and working-class movers and shakers. London is a hub for happening people, and glamour, quick wits and sheer pluck can get you far. The British are finally stepping out of the shadow of World War II – life is for living, opportunities are there for the taking and things are on the up. It’s 1961 and National Service has been abolished, John F Kennedy has been sworn in as the youngest-ever elected president of the United States, betting shops are legal, and Elvis and the Everly Brothers top the charts.