From the archive: Profumiana

1963: A sleazy sex scandal blights the government

Photo by Ron Case/ Keystone/Hulton Archive/ Getty Images

In 1963 the revelation that John Profumo, Harold Macmillan’s minister of war, was sexually involved with the model Christine Keeler – who was in turn involved with a Soviet naval attaché – sparked a national scandal. The Profumo affair, however, came to be more meaningful as a tale of moral and social decay than one of espionage. At the end of the year, the satirist and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reviewed two new books on the affair for the New Statesman.

Stuffing Thrale’s precious hothouse peaches in his mouth with both hands under their owner’s anguished eyes, Dr Johnson remarked that he could never have enough of wall fruit. I feel the same about the Profumo case. It would be more seemly to feel, as some say they do, that the whole Affair has now become a bore. Actually, I find myself still reading about it with unabated interest.

Of the above two volumes of Profumiana, Wayland Young’s offering is far and away the weightier and the more perceptive. The narrative part is clear, and sometimes diverting; the comment shrewd and sharp, the quotations well chosen. I like particularly the observation by Nigel Birch about Sir William Haley, that “he is a man about whom it could have been predicted from his early youth that he was bound to end up sooner or later on the staff of one of the Astor papers”. How true, how very true! I should have added myself: “after doing a stint in Cross Street, Manchester”. Mr Birch, incidentally, is one of the very few who come out of the Profumo Affair with his reputation, not only unimpaired, but actually enhanced.

The difficulty with The Profumo Affair is to know just what Mr Young is getting at. It has, for sub-title, “Aspects of Conservatism”, which is fair enough. But what particular aspects of Conservatism Mr Young has in mind I have no idea. Is it that a rich mediocrity like Profumo can thrive in the Conservative Party? That, surely, has been apparent for many a year. Or that the Right, when involved in a scandal, has much greater cohesive power than the Left. That, too, can scarcely be regarded as a novel conclusion. One often runs into the same difficulty when reading Mr Young’s articles, particularly on defence. They are packed with interesting information and comment, but the conclusion reached, if any, is elusive.

Warwick Charlton’s offering is far more journalistic and “popular”, an epithet which has come to mean smutty. The cover is decorated with a picture of Keeler clad only in a towel, and alleged details are given of the kind of sexual orgies to which Ward was addicted, down to hunt-the-slipper and hide-and-seek frolics at Cliveden. Mr Charlton’s revelations could, it is clear, go much further if he dared. How near the scandal washed to the Royal Family is suggested by the intimacy between the Duke of Edinburgh’s friend, the photographer Baron, and Ward. A picture with the caption, ‘Ward’s friend Baron pops over to Le Touquet’s Casanova Club — a fashionable night spot — with his then assistant, Antony Armstrong-Jones’, speaks for itself.

The aspect of the Profumo Affair which I find most fascinating now is the adroit and accomplished manner in which it has been terminated. The English are, rightly, considered pre-eminent in this particular field. Our skill in winding up a scandal is the envy of other peoples, who try in vain to emulate our capacity for first self-righteously lifting up a stone to display what is underneath it, and then as self-righteously dropping the stone back in place with a heavy, contented thud.

The trick lies in always having around judges and other distinguished figures of the kind, who by instinct, inclination, upbringing and training are the custodians of the established social order. Thus, for instance, it was decided that The Times, after the stormy Northcliffe days, should never again fall into biased, turbulent or lunatic hands. How to ensure that it would henceforth and for ever be impartial, measured and sane; a very parfait newspaper? Why, set up a Trust, of course, consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chief Justice, the Chairman of the Stock Exchange, and other such worthies. Then everybody will know that bias is inconceivable.

The same sort of technique can be used to dispose of scandals like the Profumo Affair. Here judges are invaluable: impartiality, after all, is their speciality, if not their occupation. They can exonerate with dignity and conviction, reserving their blame, if any, for the dead. Realising this, Ward conveniently died. It was his last genuflexion to his betters, whom he had served so faithfully with girls and other fringe benefits.

[Further reading: The Mandelson affair: inside the scandal of a century]