PROFUMO

In the Swinging Sixties, a sex espionage spy scandal took place called the Profumo Affair. Unfortunately, two of its players were amateurs and did not know the rules of the spy game. One was sacrificed as a scapegoat, and the other, Christine Keeler, lived her life under a long, dark cloud until she died all because they were enlisted by MI5 to take part in a Russian honey trap for Queen and country, which went dramatically wrong. Dr Stephen Ward, a brilliant osteopath and gifted portrait artist, was demonised and double crossed to the point where he took his own life with an overdose of sleeping tablets the poisoned chalice. Baron Profumo, who was the cause of it all, retired in disgrace, cleaning toilets and working for a charity, where he was eventually awarded an OBE to pin next to the MBE and Bronze Star he had won as a military hero in the war. A wax statue of Stephen Ward still stands in the House of Horrors at Madame Tussauds a terribly cruel homage, suggesting that he was only doing what the British secret services asked, or no doubt ordered him to do. The scandal also brought an Iron Curtain crashing down on the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.