“There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintance with Miss Keeler,” said John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, of the showgirl Christine Keeler. Mere months later, however, he was forced to admit to the affair he had lied about to Parliament, inflaming the almighty Cold War scandal that would bring the British Establishment to its knees in 1963.
Profumo first set eyes on a topless Keeler on a sultry July evening in 1961.
Accompanied by his wife, the actress Valerie Hobson, it was the politician’s first visit to Cliveden, the sumptuous Buckinghamshire home of Viscount William Astor. In the blue and gold panelled dining room that had once graced a Parisian château, a lavish dinner was being held in honour of the President of Pakistan.
After the meal,…
