Great Britain: The Lost Leader

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After Christine failed to appear as a witness last March in the trial of a jealous Negro lover who had tried to shoot her, questions were finally raised in Parliament. Macmillan asked for action, admittedly hoping for a statement from Profumo that would quell further rumors in the press through fear of libel. When the House adjourned after midnight, Profumo was awakened, and at 1:30 a.m. came to Chief Tory Whip Martin Redmayne's Commons office with his solicitor. He was confronted by Redmayne, Tory Chairman Iain Macleod, Minister without Portfolio William Deedes, Attorney General Sir John Hobson and Solicitor General Sir Peter Rawlinson. Two of Profumo's interrogators had been at Harrow with him.

The Letter. Under friendly questioning until 5 a.m., Profumo denied misconduct with Christine. He agreed to make a sacrosanct "personal statement," assuring the House that he had committed "no impropriety whatsoever" with Miss Keeler. His fellow ministers suggested that he admit at least to being "on friendly terms with her," although it "sounded so awful," as Profumo put it. "We insisted that it must be included," explained Macleod fatuously last week, "because it was part of the truth." Against himself and the four other ministers, Macleod added, "two possible charges can be brought. First, that we were conspiring knaves, and secondly, that we were gullible fools."

They were indeed gullible—but obviously they wanted to be. Even the most cursory checking would have disclosed that while Christine may have had joie de vivre, she had little discretion. Profumo's interrogators knew by then about a letter he had written to Christine in 1961 beginning "Darling . . ." Profumo explained, as Macmillan put it, that in his circles "it was a term of no great significance. I believe that this might be accepted. I do not live among young people fairly widely." But if it was acceptable to Macmillan, at 69 a little remote from reality, it should not have fooled the others. "We were a bunch of ninnies," admits one of the five privately, and adds with extraordinary logic: "We recalled that earlier case,* in which 'My dear Vassall' proved to be harmless, so we were bound to feel that 'Darling' might well be similarly harmless."

The Exit. The last phase of the case began after Profumo proclaimed his purity to the House, was warmly patted on the back by the Prime Minister, and with his wife, Actress Valerie Hobson, went off to the races with the Queen Mother, and later attended a Tory ball at Quaglino's, a West End nightclub.