A tour de force account of seduction, power, and betrayal in the biggest political sex scandal of its age
The Profumo Affair rocked the British establishment like no scandal before or since. The Tory war minister, John Profumo, had taken up with a teenager named Christine Keeler, who was also sleeping with a Soviet intelligence agent. The ensuing inquiry revealed a hidden underworld in which men of the ruling classes and politicians cavorted with prostitutes at orgies. The revelations shook the British government and sent shock waves all the way to the Kennedy White House. The man at the center of the storm was Dr. Stephen Ward.
Ward was a successful doctor to the rich and powerful, a talented artist who drew portraits of many of his famous patients and fixed up prominent men with young women. He was also a pawn, ruthlessly exploited by the intelligence agencies. When the Profumo Affair threatened the government, Ward became a scapegoat, hounded to death-and perhaps murdered.
For the first time, The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward reveals the names that could not be exposed and the truths that could not be told until now.
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Anthony Summers is the bestselling author of eight works of nonfiction. His investigative books include Not in Your Lifetime, the critically acclaimed account of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover; Goddess, a biography of Marilyn Monroe; and most recently The Eleventh Day, on the 9/11 attacks-a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Stephen Dorril is the author of MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations and other authoritative books on intelligence.
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