The Profumo affair was a sex scandal involving the British Secretary of State for War John Profumo and his mistress, the 19-year-old topless showgirl and model Christine Keeler, which led to Profumo's resignation and, in the long term, the resignation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the Conservative Party's electoral defeat in 1964.
History[]
In the summer of 1961, at a party hosted by Lord Astor, the osteopath Stephen Ward introduced the 19-year-old topless showgirl and model Christine Keeler to the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. The two of them had a brief sexual affair, but, around the same time, Keeler also had an affair with the Soviet naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov. Her simultaneous involvement with the two men - a Soviet communist and a high-ranking Conservative Party politician - would later be seen as a national security risk.
In December 1962, another one of Keeler's former lovers fired five shots at her home, drawing attention to Keeler and her love life. Soon, her concurrent relationships with Profumo and Ivanov were discovered, leading to a scandal. In March 1963, Profumo told the House of Commons that his relationship with Keeler was not improper, but, just a few weeks later, he admitted the truth, and his lying to the House of Commons forced his resignation from all of his offices. Ward was charged with a number of immorality overdoses and, feeling that he was a scapegoat, Ward committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.
The scandal had wider, more political, effects as well. Prime Minister Macmillan, who was already the laughing stock of the British people due to his weak personality, who had to deal with his wife's lack of support for him and her infidelities, and with declining health, now had to face increasing unpopularity due to his faith in Profumo during the initial stages of the scandal. Using a (benign) tumor as an excuse, Macmillan resigned on health grounds in October 1963, ignoring Queen Elizabeth II's request for him to restore stability to the government. The Conservative Party was marked by the scandal, contributing to Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home's electoral loss to the Labour Party in the 1964 election.