Hot under the collar during the Cold War

THE PROFUMO affair took place at the height of the Coldwar amid fears that the Soviets had infiltrated the British Establishment.

The political scandal followed a sexual relationship between Secretary of State forwar John Profumo and model Christine Keeler, 19, in the summer of 1961. In early 1963 the affair was exposed and it emerged she has also been sleeping with Soviet Naval attaché Captain Yevgeny (Eugene) Ivanov.

Profumo denied any impropriety in the House of Commons in March that year. He later resigned after admitting lying. The scandal came just months after civil servant Johnvassal admitted passing on naval secrets to the Soviets while in January Kim Philby, a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring, defected. It damaged Prime Minister Harold Macmillan who resigned in October. Labour won the following General Election.

Jailed for perjury in an assault case, Keeler went on to have two children from two brief marriages and died in

December 2017.

Profumo was awarded a CBE for his charity work and died in March 2006. Ivanov died in 1994.

● The Trial Of Christine Keeler, BBC One, tonight, 9pm.