Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1963)

lover was the war minister of Great Britain. That sentiment springs purely and simply from Christine’s attitude toward the male of the race. ‘T cannot bow down to a man just because he has money or position. I've got to like him. And I like Jack as a man!” As men go. Christine now had three — Ward, Ivanov and Profumo. As pictured by Christine. Dr. Ward was a man with an extraordinary sense of humor; he loved to stir up a sensation — and the nude Christine bit at the Cliveden estate swimming pool might well remain as the highpoint of his achievements in this area. But he pulled other stunts that ranked up there, and one of tl ese was to put a dog collar around Christine’s neck and take her along the street on a leash. It was the sort of private joke that would leave any stranger gaping in the street after them. Ivanov often came along on these jaunts, which inevitably led to some pub. They would sit and drink as if nothing unusual was happening, while the patrons nipping their gin would gaze incredulously at the odd triumvirate. There are reports that some inveterate guzzlers left their pastime and took the pledge after encountering this strange group. “Ivanov would roar with laughter about it all,” says Christine. Jack Profumo was quite different than either Ivanov or Ward, says Christine. “Jack was a wonderful lover but not much for doing anything else,” Christine confides. “Occasionally, however, he would take me for a drive in a big, black limousine borrowed from the Minister of Labor. Mr. John Hare. The car had a silver hare on the hood as a mascot." Despite Christine's and Jack’s extreme discretion in their relationship, a day finally came when the cloud they both dreaded descended all at once on them. It was a visit from an MI 5 man — a British Intelligence Service agent. “Who’s Christine Keeler?” He wanted to know from the war minister who Christine Keeler was and what role she was playing in Ivanov’s life, since he was such a steady visitor to the W’impole-mews flat. After that Profumo and Christine kidded about Ivanov, but the war minister never seemed to fully trust the Russian. When the whole sordid epilogue was written on this obloquy which might polish off the Macmillan government, the truth came out that lover-boy Ivanov was after more than Christine’s ample charms. He was trying to get Christine to pump Profumo for the date nuclear warheads were to be supplied to West Germany. This revelation came in a heated debate before a shocked House of Commons as Macmillan stood ashen-faced and dabbing a handkerchief to his eyes, listening to Labor Leader Harold Wilson bare the details of the spy plot and the hanky-panky that suddenly seemed to turn the British Empire into a moral wasteland and London into a Babylon-on-Thames. “A triumphant success for the Soviet espionage authorities,” shouted Wilson. r “This sex and security scandal indicates it is the work of a sordid underworld network. . . . There is something utterly nau 100 seating about a system of society which pays a harlot five times as much as it pays its Prime Minister.” Some observers feel Macmillan brought on his own troubles, for he had had ample opportunity to clean out his own house long before the mess reached its present proportions. That was back in March, when Colonel George Wigg, the Labor Party expert on defense, bolted to his feet and charged there wasn’t one member of the House who had not heard rumors about a member of the cabinet. He did not mention John Profumo by name, but he didn’t have to. House Leader Iain MacLeod at once sent for the war minister, and the next day Profumo went before Commons, stood shakily on his feet, and admitted he had been on ‘friendly terms” with Christine. Yet he professed there had been “no impropriety whatever.” He also denied he had anything to do with Christine’s failure to appear at Old Bailey as the star witness against a West Indian Negro. John Edgecomb. thirty, who was charged with trying to shoot up the diggings at Wimpole-mews in anger at Christine and a girlfriend, Mandy RiceDavies, a tall blonde who. like Christine, euphemistically called herself a “model.” Scarlet women Mandy was now living with Christine and the doctor, who was slowly coming into Scotland Yard’s sights allegedly as a bloke maintaining a stable of scarlet women— and living on the proceeds of prostitution, rather than osteopathy. The shooting occurred last December fourteenth, which ostensibly was sometime after Profumo’s interest in Christine had faded. A newspaper later was told that Profumo had stopped seeing Christine because of her interest in Edgecomb and another West Indian Negro, Aloysius “Lucky” Gordon, thirty-one. But Profumo’s link to Christine did not become public as yet. That didn’t happen until April eighteenth. Then all hell broke loose. This was the day Gordon attacked Christine outside the flat of a girlfriend she was visiting, obviously to silence her as a witness against his buddy, Edgecomb. Gordon was arrested. Scotland Yard then quickened its inquiry. Mandy Rice-Davies had the arm of the law put on her for a traffic offense and was brought in for the grill. Later she revealed that she gave authorities everything they wanted — including a poem she’d written “about the men Christine and I met.” As the probe led to Dr. Ward, he openly accused Profumo of indiscretions with Christine — and the fuse on the powder keg was lighted. The final explosion came when Profumo returned to the House of Commons, and in an unprecedented admission told PHOTOGRAPHERS’ CREDITS Pgs 22-23: Pix; pg 40: Roth-Rapho Guillumette; pgs 42-43: Sorci-PIP; pg 44: Hayden-Globe; Pg 46 (right)-47: PIP; pgs 48-49: Jack Stager; pg 51: Bill Kobrin; pgs 52-53: Gunther-Topix & Winson Muldoon, pgs 54-55: Winson Muldoon; pg 61: Globe Photos; pgs 62-63: Black Star; pgs 64-65: John Hamilton; pgs 70-71 : Barry O’Rourke; pg. 72: Art Palmer. the members he had lied when he denied “impropriety” with Christine. He offered his resignation. Macmillan, who had stood behind Profumo until that terrible moment, then dictated a curt acceptance. John Profumo’s brilliant political career now lay in the junkheap of fallen facades and ruined reputations. Edgecomb got his come-uppance at Old Bailey when the judge slugged him with a seven-year jail term; Gordon drew three years. Captain Yevgeny Ivanov was recalled by his own government to Moscow because, among other things, his usefulness as a spy was at an end. There, at this writing, he is being given “psychiatric treatment” — which in Russian means he’s in jail. As mentioned before, Ward had the arm put on him, too. In addition to all this, hundreds of millions of dollars were lopped from the value of stock market shares because of the blow Macmillan’s government suffered in its severely weakened chances of re-election. And many influential Britons cowered in palpable terror lest their names be exposed in what rapidly became the greatest probe into call-girl activities ever conducted in London. Even as this story went to press, more than two hundred high-society hustlers had been interrogated by Scotland Yard, and a six-hundred-page dossier on the girls’ manager and clients was compiled. Christine’s discovery was also connected in a way with the uncovering of a call-girl ring that had been operating at the United Nations in New York for about eleven years. The notoriety, of course, has made Christine “big business.” She has formed her own corporation : Christine Keeler. Limited. (Wag’s question: “What’s so limited about her?” Answer: “That ‘Limited’ is a perfect example of British understatement!”) Then it was announced that Christine would play the lead in the movie version of her life: “The Christine Keeler Story.” The film was scheduled to begin production in Copenhagen, Denmark, in late June, but Christine was still tied up with the London investigation then, and was unable to leave the country, much as she’d probably like to! If it isn’t one thing. . ■ . Besides, there were rumors that Christine was (unaccountably?) having trouble getting an Equity card, without which she wouldn’t be able to act. There were those, too, who felt that the movie shouldn’t ever be made — but the backers had no intention of calling off the production. The British have no immunity to scandal — why should they not “get what’s coming to them!” And once again, the British — who can run scandals the way no other nation can — must recover from this last blow which follows so many others. First, the loss of the colonies. Then the decline of the Church as an influence in society. And now Christine Keeler. One nude dip in the pool by a woman of easy virtue and — pffft. The whole empire totters. — George Camber