The Scandal that Changed British politics entirely 4/4/24
Labour politician Richard Crossman reflected "There's a legal world , the doctors world , artistic , dramatic , the political world etc. . Each is a discrete segment of British society but all converged in the Profumo Affair of 1963
1 Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan born in 1894 ad was Prime Minister from 1957 when Antony Edan resigned till 1963. The family had originated from the Scottish Island of Arran. His war experiences proved his courage but shattered his nerves, he was wounded 5 times. He was a bomb officer on the western front. Macmillan admired Lloyd George as a PM. He and Asquith were the best read 20C Prime Ministers. His wife was Lady Dorothy Cavendish. Dorothy was having an affair with a Conservative MP Robert Boothby. Macmillan refused to give her a divorce. Because he loved her and promised suicide if she deserted him, and a divorced man could not stand for higher office.
1969 till these Divorce Reforms one of the marriage partners had to be judged guilty of adulatory or marital cruelty before a divorce could be granted. Dorothy's infidelity till she died in 1966 made Macmillan reluctant to speak to Profumo directly about his affairs with Keeler
1959 Margaret Thatcher was selected for Finchley because a woman seemed less objectionable than her rival who was Jewish. 1959 Conservative won as they were more as a party of liberty and progress.
1960 Richard Wood was the only minister who supported decriminalizing homosexualism.
A public schools boys were taught that you can't rule unless you learn to obey. Tory party members were kept by the party whips obedient to the party leadership. Macmillan claimed that the achievement of full employment with the highest standard of living was due to British brain power. Between Macmillan seizing the leadership in 1957 till the banking crises in 2008 was an exceptional period of a time of abundance.
Macmillan was a superb speaker, he said the Empire was" not Breaking up but Growing up." He said "you have never had it so good" meaning "it is too good to last"
1963 Traits of homophobia erupted during the summer of 1963 the Profumo resignation and the Denning Report.
1963 Macmillan cabinet was of the youngest average age of the century.
2 War Minister
In 1954 John Profumo married actress Valarie Hobson.
BBCs first television service was opened in 1936 and Independent TV started in 1956. The Profumo's were a legal and mercantile family from Sardinia and the third baron settled in England and was naturalized in 1877 and founded the Provident Life Association.
People sent their boys to Public Schools like Harrow to learn good manners but they were only good for people who had the same kind of schooling. Of 3000 Harrovians who served in the great war 20% died on the battlefield. The rituals of soldieryness and conformity was embedded in their timetables.
The English of 1951 had a fear of their neighbors and what people would say if the did something different from the rest. This stifles originality and invention and prevents the English from enjoying themselves. Profumo belief that he could bluff senior of his denial of the affair with Christene Keeler was learned in the stupid humbug of Harrow.
Profumo fought in WW2 and was a decorated war hero both from the British and Americans.
It took till the season of 1956 to revive full smart London and started enjoying themselves. Profumo used the late nigh ministry sittings as an alibi for his amourous adventures. Not intellectual assertive women but rather painted and fun loving amateur females. Other minister had extramarital adventures which was alright as long as they didn't get caught.
When Antony Eden's health suffered as a result of Suez he recuperated in Jamaica at Ian Flemings home.
Attlee and Macmillan were the only PMs in 3 centuries seriously wounded in war. In the fifties children were aware of war wounded amputees or one eyed and disfigured fathers of their friends. Public men had to show that they had a good war. In the 1950s much was considered different "Before the War" You could see the damaged bombed out building everywhere. There were spinsters and widows who were so lonely and miserable.
1947 All 18 year old men were conscripted to the army for 18 month and this was extended to 2 years with the outbreak of the Korean War and were on reserve for a further 4 years. Conscription ended in 1960.
3 Lord
William Waldorf Astor a NY plutocrat settled in England in 1890 and the bought Cliveden he wanted to become part of English aristocratic society. His son and heir Waldorf 's wife Nancy became the first woman MP in 1919.
Nancy seemed to undermine her 4 sons wives and they married a total of 11 times as a result.
1956 The Astor MP in the Tory party objected to Edan's joining the French in the Suez crises as they were supporter of the Anglo American Atlantic Alliance. The Suez crises from Eastern Europe where Russia marched into Hungary. The Astor's were amongst the 8 Tory MPs to bring down Eden. Bill went to help escaping refugees crossing the border out of Hungary. This Suez crises ended Bills parliamentary career as well as his marriage with Philippa Hunloke.
1956 Bill offered Spring Cottage on his property to Stephen Ward. The Beaverbrook staff had a continuous vendetta against the Astors which ended with the Profumo Affair.
Cliveden entertained the leading people of British society including Isiah Berlin, generals artists writers.
1960 he married Bronwyn Pugh. Daphne du Maurier in her novel Rebecca describes Mandelay of the second wife who arrives and finds no role amongst the servants. Bronwyn was taken by Bill to meet Dr. Stephen Ward on the estate but when the Profumo scandal broke out and Ward committed suicide it would bring irredeemable sorrow to their marriage.95
4 Doctor
Churchill son Randolph hurt his back and could not get relief from doctors and medications. He went to the Osteopath Stephen Ward and got relief in 10 minutes. The General Medical Council acted like the Boilermakers Union, a closed shop keeping illnesses in their own hands. Osteology started in 1870 by Andrew Stills. Through manipulation of the joints you got the body to cure itself. Osteology was rejected in 1935 in England and they could not get jobs in hospital under the NHS. So the practitioners depended on fee paying patients.
1912 Ward born in Lemsford Hertfordshire he went to study in Kirksville Missouri. During the war he was a army medic even though they refused to recognize him as a doctor.1947 he set up a practice in Cavandish Square and lived in Orme Road, Bayswater. His girl chasing was so showy that several acquaintances suspected that his Casanova complex hid latent homosexuality or impotency. In 1949 Bill Astor consulted him with an injured back.
1956 as Astor's 2nd marriage to Phillipa was unravelling he used Ward as a intermediary for an attempt at reconciliation. Bill now allowed Ward to occupy Spring Cottage on the property. The Observer described Ward as a compulsive exhibitionist who required and audience to provide stimulus and confidence. He sought glamour and influence and not money.
1948 The National Health Service was established this caused patients to demand more from doctors and the became disrespectful to them. So doctors demanded higher payment. The British Medical Association considered that sex without the possibility of pregnancy was improper. Male homosexuality deserved public hostility as it was repulsive. This type of attitude resulted in 1963 in Ward being victimized by politicians, framed by the police, reviled by lawyers and osteology falling to the level of quackery.
1961 The Daily Telegraph commissioned him to draw ink sketches at the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem. He did many in sketches of prominent people and royalty, they only needed to sit about 20 minutes for him.
5 Good Time Girls
Women at the time of Profumo Affair were subjugated by domestic constraints, sexual assumptions and judicial oppression. It was this milieu that Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis emerged.
1956 Sexual Offences Act passed without committee or debate. This criminated activities that many though inoffensive. The legislators in the House of Lords were elderly males and women were excluded till 1958. It was assumed that a woman or pair of women out at night without a man were prostitutes. Marriage was seen as a social institution rather than a loving partnership for the good of the society rather than individual happiness.
Dorothy Macmillan refused to be a downtrodden wife and determined not to be a doormat of live in a gilded cage.
Improved condoms came out in the mid 50s changed sexual attitudes. Women wanted to work to gain independence even if the cost of paying a baby minder used the extra money.
1960 Peeping Tom was the first feature movie with a nude. Pamela Green earned so much from this she had no objection to her body being exposed.
1955 John Bloom in the started selling discounted Bloom washing machines so by 1966 ,60% of households owned washing machines. Christene Holdfords husband killed her because she told him he was little boy" and their son was not his. Holford was sentenced for manslaughter and only for 3 years.
1948 Social Behavior in the human male and in 1953 Social behavior in the human female by Alfred Kinsey. These books caused a furor in the home office. By 1956 the press and magazine became obsessed with models If they got jobs as strippers had to remain static. At Murrays night club Christine met Ward.
Christene was attracted to black men from the American airbase and in the 1960 that was condemned. By contrast Mandy was attracted to Jewish men like Peter Rachman.
6 Landlords
Lewis Silken won a maths scholarship to Wooster Collage, Oxford but the headmaster of his school decided that the son of East End Jews was unsuitable for university and kyboshed his chance.
There was the social exclusion of Jewish East Londoner and Frederick Raphael said; We tried being patriotic , we tried being philanthropic, we tried doing everything and it didn't do us any good, if they want to kill us they'll , kill us.
Banbury drapers, ironmongers and grocers had money for expansion but not the urge, they were sure of their social position. Whereas the developers were proud of being danger men, not public school boys trained by the number of buttons that should be fastened on blazers, or venerate spurious traditions.
Charles Chlore , Jack Cotton
Peter Rachman was a holocaust survivor whose name inspired the hostile epithet Rachmanism. He started off by renting flats in his own name and subletting to prostitutes', and brothels. Flats were rented controlled at prices from 1939, this no longer applied if tenants were dislodged. This was done by moving blacks into the area, these were people who could not find accommodation, he was their savior. . Rachman felt the same disclination and they had a lot of respect for him and liked him. The Landlords profited by this racial tension and it caused the Notting Hill riots in 1958. Rachman had been invited to Wards cottage on Cliveden and met Christine there. He died in 1962 of a heart attack.
7 Hacks
The Profumo Affair occurred when the press saw falling circulation, and were aggressively persuading stories.
1955 ITV started commercial TV causing a sharp drop in paper sales especially for the Sunday press. By 1960 72% of the population had access to the 2 TV channels. This was undermining the old puritanism. TV started showing criminals , prostitutes', the sexually or socially marginalized interviews full face and it was abolishing shame. Editors long knew that sex stories sold papers. Some papers used this Affair to promote their support of the Labour party. A successful paper had to be provocative and confident in its own importance. Reporters were not people who had been at Public Schools, so pilloried nepotism and the old school tie.
8 Spies
Espionage cases continuously disrupted Macmillan's exercise of power. Sex class and official secrecy were taboos.
1951 The disappearance of Burgess and McClean both public school boys. Defection confirmed in 1956. " For years there has been in the Foreign Office a clique of perverted men, homosexuals that indulge in unnatural love for one another and are known to be bad security risks.
1956 Harold Wilson had visited the Soviet Union 3 time while in charge of the Board of Trade and dealt with importing timber from there. He refused to sign the petition condemning the Soviet for the Hungarian invasion.
1960 the American U2 spy plane
1962 the John Vasall and William Marshal case. This was a prelude to the Profumo Affair. While a junior worker in the British Moscow embassy was passing on naval information to the Russians. He was a homosexual and was being blackmailed. Sentenced to 18 years in prison. It was claimed that Lord Carrington the first lord of the admiralty knew there was a spy 18 months before Vassal was arrested. later in 1963 Crane brought out an article " How to Spot a Homo". Macmillan started blaming the press for his troubles and reporter Brenden Mulholland and Reg Forster were arrested, antagonizing the press which was not good for him.
1962 the Cuban Crises. Ward was introducing Ivanov the Russian diplomat to the whole circle of his acquaintances.
Christine Keeler had sold her story to the Sunday Pictorial for £1000 and received £200. Ward was worried if her story was publish both he and Profumo would be compromised. Keelers solicitors were demanding £5000 to stop the publication. Ward contacted the Sunday Pictorial and told them there were inaccuracies in her story and they will be charged for liable. So they held up publication.
1963 Kim Philby defected to Moscow.
Lord Astor who nearly collapsed, was told by the police, he could be charged for keeping a brothel on his property run by Ward.
Boys at boarding school became aware of words like " intercourse"and "prostitutes". The writer describes that at his school library the newspaper had articles cut out and so he wrote home to ask what the story was about. His father sent him a letter of what the Profumo story was about which the school matron conviscated.
The upper classes have always been given to lying, fornication, corrupts practices and as a result of the public school system sodomy. Their reputation and the class system fell into disrepute.
The Profumo affair did Macmillan more harm than anything in his entire administration. Had Ward lived the case against him would probably be overturned on appeal. When Macmillan was about to have a prostate opp. he signed a document of resignation in Alex Douglas-Hume favour. Macmillan recovered and did not have cancer. Meanwhile Hume went directly to the Party Convention in Blackpool, showed the document and took over.
Till 1963 the press protected adulterous politicians, or those caught in the bushes with guardsmen. Now the press no longer showed respect for them.
Surveys showed that a minority of older people condemned Profumo's action , younger people were not despite the press reporting that the public was shocked by the moral issue. What shocked grandfather 50 years ago is accepted.
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