Prince Philip and the showgirls: How a secret file contains the truth about the Duke and the Profumo affair - and why the Government refuses to let anyone see it
Even now, after more than 60 years and when it seemed every secret had been unearthed and every sordid detail pored over, the Profumo affair remains as murky and intriguing as ever.
The Mail on Sunday last weekend revealed that Prince Philip was named in FBI documents about this most enduring of British political sex scandals.
In a cable sent to the US Embassy in London in 1963, the bureau's autocratic director J. Edgar Hoover suggested that Philip may have been 'involved' with the two women at the heart of the affair, models Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.
Speculation about the Prince's supposed connection has been the subject of drawing-room gossip for decades and it was a scurrilous plotline in an episode of season two of The Crown, the controversial Netflix series about the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
But the revelation that his name appears in an official lengthy memorandum about the saga will cause discomfort on both sides of the Atlantic.
Christine Keeler, then just 19, was frolicking naked in the swimming pool at Cliveden, the magnificent Thames-side mansion of Tory grandee Viscount Astor
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover suggested that Prince Philip, pictured with the Queen in 1962, may have been 'involved' with models Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies
Hoover's interest was hardly surprising. A notorious meddler and feared figure who for years orchestrated often illegal campaigns against suspected subversives and political foes, he had always been fascinated by sexual impropriety involving famous names.
All the same, the possibility of the Duke of Edinburgh, who died aged 99 in 2021, featuring in the FBI chief's scheming - albeit indirectly - would have caused severe damage to UK-US relations at a time when the Cold War was at its height.
But the Profumo affair was not just a tawdry British scandal, but one with international consequences and that contributed to the fall of the Conservative government in 1964.
Remarkably, after an Old Bailey trial, parliamentary questions and an official inquiry, books and even a Hollywood film, successive governments have continued to protect certain people's involvement in the sexual shenanigans from exposure by keeping one file about the case under lock and key.
Even though all the central players in the story are now dead it will be another 22 years before that file sees the light of day. But more of that later.
While many of the details have been contested over the decades, there is no dispute about the cast of characters.
John Profumo was the 48-year old married Secretary of State for War - and tipped as a future Foreign Secretary – when the episode's pivotal figure, society osteopath Stephen Ward introduced him to the lissom showgirl Christine Keeler and he was soon bedding her.
It all began in the summer of 1961 when Profumo was visiting Cliveden, the magnificent Thames-side mansion of Tory grandee Viscount Astor, and saw Keeler, then just 19, frolicking naked in the swimming pool. Her costume had been playfully snatched off by Ward.
Keeler was staying with Ward, who had the use of a cottage on the estate where he held wild parties and among whose guests was the Soviet defence attaché Yevgeny Ivanov. Commander Ivanov also slept with Keeler but probably only once.
The Russian later gave a graphic description of their encounter. 'That devil of a girl could seduce anybody. We devoured each other like animals . . . she had both the firm, lithe body of a slender woman and a provocative ripeness. She behaved like a cat . . . beholden to no one.'
Rumours that she had slept with both men were soon sweeping London and the fear at a time of heightened East-West tensions was that careless pillow talk by the War Minister about nuclear secrets could have been passed by Keeler to the affable Ivanov.
The alluring Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's playmate, was told in court that Lord Astor denied ever sleeping with her. 'He would, wouldn't he,' she said
Minister of War John Profumo returns home in June 1963 after admitting an affair with Christine Keeler
During the hearing, Keeler said she had procured young women for Stephen Ward and his rich friends
Profumo, a fierce patriot, was shocked when he learned from the Cabinet Secretary that Ivanov was a suspected spy and distanced himself from the louche Cliveden set, ending his relationship with Keeler.
It was too late. Some 18 months later, in 1963, he was questioned in the House of Commons about his liaison with the dark-haired beauty. Profumo responded with a brazen lie saying there had been 'no impropriety whatsoever'.
The denial only brought him the briefest respite. He took his wife, the screen star Valerie Hobson, to Venice and confessed the whole seedy affair. Memorably, she stood by him but insisted he face the music.
Returning to London, he resigned both as minister and MP. But while his career was over, the story was not. Scotland Yard was focusing on the extracurricular activities of Ward, placing him and his patients under surveillance.
He was charged with living off immoral earnings. A high-profile trial followed, enthralling the country. It also gave birth to a catchphrase when the alluring Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's playmate, was told in court that Lord Astor denied ever sleeping with her. 'He would, wouldn't he,' she said.
During the hearing, Keeler said she had procured young women for Ward and his rich friends. Other salacious details were revealed about Ward's West End flat with a two-way mirror where risqué assignations took place.
The scandal was too much for Ward, the son of a respectable country parson, who anticipating a guilty verdict took an overdose of barbiturates the night before the jury brought in their verdict. He died three days later.
Ward's funeral at Mortlake Cemetery in South-West London attracted only six mourners. At the grave lay a wreath signed by the outspoken critic Kenneth Tynan: 'To Stephen Ward, victim of hypocrisy.'
In recent years his trial has been denounced as a gross miscarriage of justice. Geoffrey Robertson, the distinguished KC who wrote a book Stephen Ward Was Innocent, OK, said he was the victim of a 'massive stitch-up' with the Government determined to get a scapegoat for the embarrassment of Profumo's resignation.
Of the Prince Philip connection, Robertson is equally dismissive. 'It is pure gossip, scuttlebutt nothing more,' he says.
So how did the Queen's handsome husband, then a good-looking 42, come to be mentioned by J. Edgar Hoover and what is the truth of it?
The FBI document obtained by our sister paper after a freedom of information request, contains a claim by one Thomas Corbally, an American adventurer and part-time spy, who was friends with Stephen Ward.
Corbally had been passing information about Ward, who he described as a 'beatnik' and what he had learned of Profumo and Ivanov, Keeler and Rice-Davies to the Americans. In the cable, which is partly redacted, Hoover wrote: 'Corbally also stated there was rumour Prince Philip may have been involved with these two girls.'
Just 16 words with no context or anything else to substantiate such a rumour.
Corbally was a gregarious figure mixing with the rich and famous. He lived in a Park Lane apartment yet with no visible sign of income. He told the FBI he had seen Keeler and Rice-Davies swim naked in Lord Astor's pool and claimed he had been asked by the US ambassador to uncover the truth behind the Profumo rumours.
He is not thought to have known Philip. And over the years both Mandy and Christine have also firmly and repeatedly denied knowing the Prince.
Ward, on the other hand, was an acquaintance of the Duke. Whether Philip went to see him after suffering a polo injury for treatment to his back, as was suggested in The Crown, is not known. But he was a celebrity figure whose clients included Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner.
But the osteopath was also an enthusiastic amateur artist – as was Philip – and sketched the Prince several times.
Ward knew several members of the Royal Family, including Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon, who liked racy company, and he also did drawings of the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Gloucester.
How well Philip and Ward knew one another is not clear. (It has been suggested that they knew each other through the Thursday Club, the raffish men-only eating and drinking club where Philip would go to let his hair down in his early years in the Royal Family.) But there is no evidence it was deep.
They did have a close mutual friend, however. This was Philip's first cousin and close confidant, the high-living David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven.
Mountbatten, who was Philip's best man when he married Princess Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey in 1947, was a prominent figure on the London social scene during the 1950s and 1960s, a regular at parties and sometimes in the company of Stephen Ward with whom he shared an interest in pornography.
His closeness to Philip caused unease at the Palace. The twice-married Milford-Haven, like Philip a wartime naval officer, was known to host parties for discreet chums at his flat in Grosvenor Square at which the evening would begin with cards, followed by the arrival of women.
Society osteopath Stephen Ward took an overdose of barbiturates the night before the jury brought in their verdict at his trial
Ward was often among the guests and sometimes brought some of the women. Milford-Haven died of a heart attack in 1970 – he was just 50.
During his lifetime Philip was often linked to other women, which he would airily dismissing by pointing out that, as he had police bodyguards wherever he went, any liaisons would be practically impossible. 'How the hell could I get away with anything like that,' he said tartly on one occasion.
This, naturally, was another mischievous theme avidly taken up in The Crown. One storyline has Anthony Blunt, later unmasked as Soviet spy, warning the Duke he will expose him over his relationship with Ward in response to Philip threatening to expose Blunt's treachery. There is no evidence that any such encounter between the two men took place.
But earlier this year it was claimed that Blunt, who was the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was involved in buying every sketch of members of the Royal Family produced by Ward when they went on show at a London gallery.
In the past, when Philip's name has come up with reference to Profumo, royal aides and friends have labelled such allegations as wicked.
Which brings us back to the secret file, the only one held in the National Archives which is not open to public inspection. A decade ago the file was described by a government minister as containing sensitive information related to people still living.
Well, it is hard to imagine that is the case today. All the same, the file will not be opened until 2046. It is not a random date but was chosen because it marks more than 100 years since the birth of the youngest person in the Profumo affair, Mandy Rice-Davies, who died almost ten years ago.
Ending the speculation about Philip may be the best possible argument for the file to be opened to see who is being protected. But until it is, the rumours – thanks to the FBI – are unlikely to go away.
