Scandal: Remembering the UK's Profumo Affair

Congress voting to release all of the Epstein reminded me of a scandal that rocked Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's government in 1963.

John Profumo served as the Secretary of State for War in the government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the years 1960-63. Profumo’s lack of discipline with a 19-year-old model named Christine Keeler—who was also having an intimate liaison with Yevgeny Ivanov, senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy in London—resulted in the collapse of the Macmillan government and was a major blow to the Conservative Party.

John Profumo as War Secretary

Christine Keeler

Wikipedia provides a good summary of the scandal:

In July 1961, at a party at Cliveden, home of Viscount Astor, John Profumo met Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old model with whom he began a sexual relationship. The exact length of the affair between Profumo and Keeler is disputed, ending either in August 1961 . . . or continuing with decreasing fervour until December 1961. Since Keeler had also had sexual relations with Yevgeny Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, the matter took on a national-security dimension.

In December 1962, a shooting incident in London involving two other men who were involved with Keeler led the press to investigate her, and reporters soon learned of her affairs with Profumo and Ivanov. But the British tradition of respecting the private lives of British politicians, for fear of libel actions, was maintained until March 1963, when the Labour MP George Wigg, claiming to be motivated by the national-security aspects of the case, and taking advantage of Parliamentary privilege, which gave him immunity from any possible legal action, referred in the House of Commons to the rumours linking Profumo with Keeler. Profumo then made a personal statement in which he admitted he knew Keeler but denied there was any “impropriety” in their relationship and threatened to sue if newspapers asserted otherwise.

Profumo’s statement did not prevent newspapers publishing stories about Keeler, and it soon became apparent to Macmillan that Profumo’s position was untenable. On 5 June 1963, Profumo was forced to admit that he had lied to the House in March when he denied an affair with Keeler, which at that time was an unforgivable offence in British politics. Profumo resigned from office and from the Privy Council, and applied for and was appointed to the role of steward of the Chiltern Hundreds to give up his Commons seat. Before making his public confession, Profumo confessed the affair to his wife, who stood by him. It was never shown that his relationship with Keeler had led to any breach of national security. The scandal rocked the Conservative government, and was generally held to have been among the causes of its defeat by Labour at the 1964 election. Macmillan had already gone by then, having resigned in October 1963 on health grounds to be succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home.

Following the scandal, Profumo withdrew from politics and spent the rest of his life working as a volunteer for an East End charitable institution for ameliorating poverty called Toynbee Hall. Profumo became its chief fundraiser and succeeded in bringing in large sums of money to the institution.

Although Profumo yielded to the temptation to have an affair with the pretty young girl, and he initially tried to conceal it, he later made an effort to repent for his transgressions.

I hope that Epstein files will be released and that it will—at the very least—result in the resignation and retirement of much of America’s ruling class, whose lives of extreme privilege and freedom from moral standards and scrutiny have resulted in profligacy and indifference to the wellbeing of the Republic.