Tom Mangold's inside story of the scandal that rocked Britain, showing what it was really like to live with Stephen Ward as he became the scapegoat for the Profumo affair.
In Summer 1961, at a party held on the Cliveden estate of Lord Astor, Minister for War John Profumo met, and subsequently had a brief affair with, a call-girl by the name of Christine Keeler, who had also been seeing a Soviet diplomat. The rumours circulated throughout the following year, but the Fourth Estate was less inclined in those days to disturb the privacy of those at the top of the tree. Eventually, the story made the papers, and Profumo made a statement to the Commons, denying impropriety over his relationship with Keeler. Three months later he was back, confessing that he had misled the House, and he resigned as an MP. But that was only the start of it.
Stephen Thomas Ward was an English osteopath and artist who was one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, a British political scandal which brought about the resignation of John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, and contributed to the defeat of the Conservative government a year later.
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