Profumo witnesses

reference to the witnesses brought before trial over the Profumo exposé which concerned John Dennis Profumo (1915-), British secretary of state for war from 1960 until 5 June 1963 and Stephen Thomas Ward (1913-1963), British osteopath and society portraitist. Ward had introduced a Christine Keeler to Profumo in the early 1960s. In March 1963, Profumo lied to Parliament about an affair he had with Christine Keeler, who at the same time had been seeing Captain Yevgeni Ivanov, a Soviet attaché in London. The moral and security aspects of the scandal fed newspaper headlines for weeks. Ward, who was on trial for living off the earnings of prostitutes, disclosed the fact that Profumo had lied to Cabinet members earlier that year. Keeler herself was the principal witness at Ward's trial held during the summer, although in 1962 she had been convicted of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice with regards to two other affairs she had been involved in. Profumo resigned from office after confessing that he had lied.