page_title: Profumo affair
section_title: Gordon and Edgecombe
hierarchical_section_title: Profumo affair / Developing scandal / Gordon and Edgecombe
caption_attribution_description: English: Wimpole Mews
context_page_description: The Profumo affair was a British political scandal that originated with a brief sexual relationship in 1961, between John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, and Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old would-be model. In March 1963, Profumo denied any impropriety in a personal statement to the House of Commons, but was forced to admit the truth a few weeks later. He resigned from the government and from Parliament. The repercussions of the affair severely damaged Macmillan's self-confidence, and he resigned as Prime Minister on health grounds in October 1963. The reputation of the Conservative Party was damaged by the scandal, which may have contributed to its defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election.
  When the Profumo–Keeler affair was first revealed, public interest was heightened by reports that Keeler may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, thereby creating a possible security risk. Keeler knew both Profumo and Ivanov through her friendship with Stephen Ward, an osteopath and socialite who had taken her under his wing.
context_section_description: In October 1961 Keeler accompanied Ward to Notting Hill, then a run-down district of London replete with West Indian music clubs and cannabis dealers. At the Rio Café they encountered Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon, a Jamaican jazz singer with a history of violence and petty crime. He and Keeler embarked on an affair which, in her own accounts, was marked by equal measures of violence and tenderness on his part.  Gordon became very possessive towards Keeler, jealous of her other social contacts. He began confronting her friends, and often telephoned her at unsocial hours. In November Keeler left Wimpole Mews and moved to a flat in Dolphin Square, overlooking the Thames at Pimlico, where she entertained friends and perhaps clients. When Gordon continued to harass her he was arrested by the police and charged with assault. Keeler later agreed to drop the charge.
  In July 1962 the first inklings of a possible Profumo-Keeler-Ivanov triangle had been hinted, in coded terms, in the gossip column of the society magazine Queen. Under the heading "Sentences I'd like to hear the end of" appeared the wording: "... called in MI5 because every time the chauffeur-driven Zils drew up at her front door, out of her back door into a chauffeur-driven Humber slipped..." Keeler was then in New York with Rice-Davies, in an abortive attempt to launch their modelling careers there. On her return, to counter Gordon's threats, Keeler formed a relationship with Johnny Edgecombe, an ex-merchant seaman from Antigua, with whom she lived for a while in Brentford, just west of London.  Edgecombe became similarly possessive himself after he and Gordon clashed violently on 27 October 1962, when Edgecombe slashed his rival with a knife. Keeler broke up with Edgecombe shortly afterwards because of his domineering behaviour.
  On 14 December 1962 Keeler and Rice-Davies were together at 17 Wimpole Mews when Edgecombe arrived, demanding to see Keeler. When he was not allowed in, he fired several shots at the front door. Shortly afterwards, Edgecombe was arrested and charged with attempted murder and other offences. In brief press accounts, Keeler was described as "a free-lance model" and "Miss Marilyn Davies" as "an actress".  In the wake of the incident, Keeler began to talk indiscreetly about Ward, Profumo, Ivanov and the Edgecombe shooting. Among those to whom she told her story was John Lewis, a former Labour MP whom she had met by chance in a night club. Lewis, a long-standing enemy of Ward, passed the information to his one-time parliamentary colleague George Wigg, who began his own investigation.
caption: Wimpole Mews. No. 17 is the flat-roofed, brick-faced house, just visible on the right.
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