Christine Keeler

[Lee Forman]

An odd one. I was curious about the strange lyrics of the song 'Killer Queen' by the group Queen. After a bit of searching, I hit upon one individual who stated firmly on a blog, that the song was in reference to Christine Keeler.

This is very intriguing account, since it has multiple parallels to Cold War related events, and possibly in some manner, some of what was transpiring on both sides of the pond.

Handled by an 'osteopath' named Stephen Ward, in 1963, Keeler went on to have an affair with John Profumo, Conservative Party Secretary of State for War, and Eugene Ivanov, a naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, who was believed to have been an undercover KGB agent. Ward intially rejected the accusations when the affair was revealed, and then resigned. Ivanov went on to write a book, called 'The Naked Spy.'

Source: http://www.aboutsudan.com/dossiers/british...hilip_reich.htm

Allegedly Stephen Ward was a member of 'The Thursday Club', later renamed the 'Monday Club' . Dr. Stephen Ward was reportedly the pimp for a ring of call-girls that operated out of Ward's cottage on the Clivedon estate of Lord Astor. Ward befriended Christeen Keeler.

In 1963, Secretary of War John Profumo was compromised by his affair with Keeler. It seems that she had also been sleeping with a top Soviet KGB agent in London, Capt. Yevgeny Ivanov.

In his 1992 book 'The Naked Spy', Ivanov claimed he had turned over photographs and other evidence of extramarital gymnastics by top people to his KGB bosses. ``I had compromising material of each of them [the royals].''

The movie 'Scandal' is about the Keeler story. I remember the film being released, but never saw it. Keller went on to write a book, called "The Truth at Last.' She is still living.

http://www.reminiscethis.co.uk/profumo.htm

Shortly after this, the Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, resigned, his ill health exacerbated by the scandal. Keeler has since written her autobiography, 'The Truth At Last', where she alleged she was used as a cover for an Anglo-Soviet spy ring. She claimed Ward was a spy for the Soviet Union and asked her to get information from Profumo about the placing of nuclear warheads in West Germany. She also claimed Ward asked her to drop off letters at the Soviet Embassy, and at one point tried to kill her while she was water-skiing because he feared she would blow the whistle on him. She also claimed that Ward and herself were used as a smokescreen by the establishment, who wanted the media to focus on the racier aspects of the story in order to cover up a serious breach of British security. Keeler was later found guilty on unrelated perjury charges - for not attending as a witness for the trial of a man who was shot at her home - and sentenced to nine months in Holloway Prison. A photograph of Keeler, naked across a chair has become an iconic image of the swinging sixties era.

Lyrics to the song:

She keeps her Moet et Chandon

In A pretty cabinet

'Let them eat cake' she says

Just like Marie Antoinette

Buildin' a remedy

For Kruschev and Kennedy

At anytime an invitation

You can't decline

Caviar and cigarettes

Well versed in etiquette

Extraordinarily nice

Chorus

She's a Killer Queen

Gunpowder, guillatine

Dynamite with a laser beam

Guaranteed to blow your mind

Anytime

Recommended at the price

Insatiable in appetite

Wanna try?

To avoid complications

She never kept the same address

In conversation

She spoke just like a baroness

Met a man from China

Went down to Geisha Minor

Then again incidentally

If you're that way inclined

Perfume came naturally from Paris

For cars, she couldn't care less

Fastidious and precise

Chorus

Drop of a hat she's as willing as

Playful as a pussy cat

Then momentarily out of action

Temporarily out of gas

SHE'LL absolutely drive you wild, wild

She's out to get you

Chorus

Recommended at the price

Insatiable in appetite

Wanna try?

You wanna try

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/Profumo.html

In Toronto, Michael Eddowes "knocked on the door of an apartment owned by one of Clay Shaw's boyfriends: it was opened by a fellow named Robin Drury. Drury, a homosexual, had been the 'agent'of Christine Keeler during the time of the British sex scandal known as the Profumo Affair."

Clay Shaw's name had been linked to the Kennedy assassination.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/profumo.shtml

The relationship between Conservative Secretary of State for War John Profumo, and Christine Keeler shocked the nation in the early 1960s. The public queued up to scorn the morality of the upper classes, as the newspapers dished the dirt on what was undoubtedly the biggest political sleaze story of the decade.

A photograph of Keeler, naked across a chair, has even become an iconic image of the swinging sixties era. The scandal seemed to mark the end of the straight-laced fifties and usher in a new era of sexual liberation.

At the height of the Cold War, the fact Keeler had also slept with Eugene Ivanov, a naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, was political dynamite. It was enough to force the resignation of Profumo, who was felt to have compromised British security.

However, there was more to the story than initially met the eye. Keeler has since written her autobiography, 'The Truth At Last', where she alleges she was used as a cover for an Anglo-Soviet spy ring.

Worlds apart

John Profumo was a charming and respected Tory politician who was educated at Harrow and Oxford. As well as being a rising star in Macmillan's Conservative government, he was married to the movie actress Valerie Hobson and moved in sophisticated London circles.

The wild-living Christine Keeler (pictured) had run away from home at the age of 16 and become a showgirl at Murray's cabaret club in Soho where, as she put it, she was employed "to walk around naked" (actually the showgirls wore very elaborate Cleopatra-style costumes with gold and feathers). This was where she befriended another showgirl, Mandy Rice-Davies.

Keeler, a strikingly beautiful young woman, also befriended Stephen Ward, a fashionable London osteopath who enjoyed sketching the rich and famous.

Ward introduced Keeler, a feisty, but impressionable teenager, into a world which she had never before encountered. A world peopled with the rich and famous, aristocratic, charming and powerful men, all eager to meet her and take her out.

Keeler lived the high-life, but her attractiveness to men would ultimately lead her down a dangerous path.

Difficult relations

Keeler cohabited with Ward platonically at his Wimpole Mews flat. The well-connected doctor had a fondness for art and liked to surround himself with beautiful women. He liked to throw sex parties, which were attended by high-ranking and influential members of the establishment.

Keeler had a tempestuous relationship with Ward. She often ran away, but always came back and seems to have placed all her trust in him.

At Ward's trial in 1963, Keeler told the court: "We were like brother and sister. My life really used to revolve around Stephen. He had full control of my mind. I used to do more or less everything that he said. I thought I could never stand on my feet unless he was there and supporting me mentally." Ward courted the prominent and the powerful, and made friends easily. In fact, Roger Hollis, the then head of MI5, was said to be a frequent visitor to his flat.

Ward was also known for introducing women to men and there are lurid stories told of parties held at his home, involving two-way mirrors, sado-masochism and orgies.

The most infamous tale is that of the "man in the mask", a high-ranking member of the establishment. He would serve guests at Ward's dinner parties, naked, except for a mask and eat his dinner from a dog bowl. Despite rumours he was a Cabinet minister, he has never been identified.

Friends and enemies

Keeler and Ward often spent weekends at a cottage belonging to one of Ward's friends, Lord Astor. It was at a party at Lord Astor's Cliveden country residence in Berkshire in 1961 that Keeler and Profumo first met.

According to Keeler, they flirted around the swimming pool and jokingly tried on suits of armour in the rooms of the mansion. The War minister was smitten and the couple subsequently had a passionate affair.

Keeler often visited Profumo's home and his offices, but their affair was only brief. It would probably never have come to light were it not for a few complications in Keeler's love life - namely, that she had also slept with Ivanov, a solemn and patriotic Muscovite who was a spy.

According to Keeler, Ivanov received information and documents stolen by Ward and passed them onto his spy chiefs in Moscow.

Lies in parliament

When the story broke in 1962, Profumo initially tried to deny the affair, but his efforts were futile. Once the whiff of sex, spies and scandal was out, the media hounded him.

In March 1963, he made the crucial mistake of lying in the House of Commons about it, telling the chamber: "Miss Keeler and I were on friendly terms. There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler." However, ten weeks later he appeared before MPs again to say "with deep remorse" that he had misled the House because he wanted to protect his wife and family, and that he would resign.

Meanwhile Keeler, who was also the victim of a vicious stalker called Lucky Gordon, had fled to Spain. A ludicrous car chase ensued, with Keeler at the head of an entourage of reporters pursuing her through Europe. She was on her way back to Britain, after agreeing to sell her story to the Express newspaper.

American investigation

Keeler's relationships with Ivanov, Ward and Profumo, also attracted the attentions of the US. The FBI kept copious dossiers on their relationship under the codename, Bowtie, which have now been made public. During a trip to America, FBI agents followed Keeler and Rice-Davies.

When the Profumo Affair became public, Ward was charged with living on the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies and of effectively running a brothel in his home. This has been strenuously denied by Keeler, who claims Ward used women and sex not for cash, but to gain influence among his peers.

However, she did make a statement saying Profumo gave her money "for her mother", and Rice-Davies admitted having sex for money in Ward's flat. Ward was prosecuted but committed suicide on the very last day of the trial, before the jury reached their verdict.

At Ward's trial, the prosecution alleged Mandy Rice-Davies had received money from Lord Astor in return for sex. When she was told Lord Astor had denied ever sleeping with her, she uttered the immortal line: "He would, wouldn't he?"

Spies like us

In Keeler's autobiography, she claims Ward was a spy for the Soviet Union and asked her to get information from Profumo about the placing of nuclear warheads in West Germany. She also claims Ward asked her to drop off letters at the Soviet Embassy and at one point tried to kill her while she was water-skiing, because he feared she would blow the whistle on him.

More than this, she claims Ward and herself were used as a smokescreen by the establishment, who wanted the media to focus on the racier aspects of the story in order to cover up a serious breach of British security.

Keeler was found guilty on unrelated perjury charges - for not attending as a witness for the trial of a man who was shot at her home - and sentenced to nine months in Holloway Prison.

The official report

The government ordered an official report into the scandal from Lord Denning (pictured), then Master of the Rolls, on September 25, 1963. When the report was released at midnight a couple of months later, hundreds of curious members of the public queued to buy a copy. However, it contained few salacious details.

Lord Denning criticised the government for not dealing with the affair more quickly, but he concluded that there had been no breach of national security.

Shortly after this, the Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, resigned, his ill health exacerbated by the scandal He was replaced with Earl Home, who renounced his peerage to become Sir Alec Douglas-Home in order to take up office.

The players

John Profumo has kept a low profile since the sensational events of the 1960s, mainly occupying himself with charity work. He was named Commander of the British Empire in 1975 for his charitable work.

After the scandal broke, the Naval attaché Ivanov was called back to Moscow and never heard from again.

Keeler lives quietly in North London, and says she still feels "bewildered" by what happened, Rice-Davies is a grandmother and lives in America.

A great article, which concerns the use of sex for intelligence gathering and spy techniques. Still wonder if this is what MKENCHANT was all about.

http://www.mkzine.com/Essays/Ref-Intellige...Collection.html

[John Simkin]

Lee, you might have missed this when I posted this on the Ellen Rometsch thread on 20th December, 2004. There is a strong link between Christime Keeler and the assassination of JFK. It is Bobby Baker.

Ellen Rometsch met JFK via the Quorum Club. The Quorum was a private club in the Carroll Arms Hotel on Capitol Hill that had been established by Bobby Baker. As Baker pointed out in Wheeling and Dealing its "membership was comprised of senators, congressmen, lobbyists, Capitol Hill staffers, and other well-connecteds who wanted to enjoy their drinks, meals, poker games, and shared secrets in private accommodations". (1)

The last passage of this quotation helps to explain what happened at the Quorum Club. The leading politicians only thought they were sharing “secrets in private accommodations”. In fact, their activities were being recorded. The Quorum was not only used to gather evidence of the sexual activities of politicians. It was also used to gather concrete evidence that politicians were taking bribes paid for by the Military Industrial Congress Complex. In this way, all those capable of exposing LBJ, were fully compromised.

The Quorum was not the only place this evidence gathering took place. Private parties held at the home of Carole Tyler was another source of obtaining incriminating information. So also was Fred Black’s hotel suite at the Sheraton-Carlton in Washington. (2) It was here that LBJ got the necessary information to blackmail Gerard Ford. (3)

Hoover helped LBJ obtain this information. Some of this information was used to help uncover criminal activity. However, most of it was used to apply pressure on politicians to act in a certain way. (4)

Baker used young women working at the Senate and high-class prostitutes to provide the entertainment for the politicians. He also used three women who had been born in communist countries but had fled to the west: Ellen Rometsch, Maria Novotny and Suzy Chang. (5) These three women were brought in to deal with John and Robert Kennedy. It was impossible to get to the brothers with money. Evidence that they were sleeping with women other than their wives would not have been enough. The only thing that could bring them under control was evidence that they had been sleeping with communist spies.

Not that JFK and RFK were aware these women were spies. In fact, it is possible that they were not spies. Nor did the brothers give the women any classified information. All this was unimportant. What mattered was the public perception of these events.

JFK became very concerned with something that took place in the UK on 2nd March, 1963. George Wigg (6) had made a speech where he referred to rumours that John Profumo, the British minister of war, was having an affair with a prostitute named Christine Keeler. (7) A few weeks later Profumo made a personal statement where he admitted he knew Keeler but denied there was any impropriety in their relationship.

At the time few people were aware of the significance of these events. JFK was one of those who did know why this was the start of a very big story. Ben Bradlee reports that JFK became obsessed with the case. He even got David Bruce, the American ambassador to the UK to provide regular information on the Profumo story. As Bradlee reports in his book, Conversations With Kennedy: “Kennedy ordered all further cables from Bruce on the subject sent to him immediately.” (8)

Bradlee believed JFK was interested in the case because it “combined so many of the things that interested him: low doings in high places, the British nobility, sex and spying”. However, this was not the main reason JFK was interested in this case. JFK was scared that the same thing that had happened to Profumo was about to happen to him.

You see, George Wigg, had been told by a MI5 contact that Christine Keeler was also having an affair with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché. (9) It was believed that a man called Stephen Ward, had arranged for Profumo to meet Keeler at a private parties. Ward had in fact being doing what Bobby Baker had been doing in Washington. Both men had even used the same women. This included Maria Novotny and Suzy Chang, two women that JFK had sex with in 1960 (10)

As further details were revealed Profumo was forced to resign on 5th June. Stephen Ward committed suicide (or was murdered) and this stopped the full story being revealed at the time. (11)

Hoover of course knew all about JFK involvement with Ellen Rometsch, Maria Novotny and Suzy Chang. Novotny and Chang were back in London but JFK was still sleeping with Rometsch. Apparently she was the most exciting woman he had ever had sex with and was reluctant to loose her.

John McCone also knew all about what had been happening. He had been told by Cleveland Cram, deputy chief of the CIA station in London. Cram had got the information from Charles Bates, the senior FBI man in London. (12)

In July 1963 FBI agents questioned Romesch about her time in East Germany. They came to the conclusion that she was probably a Soviet spy. This information was now passed onto RFK, who arranged for LaVerne Duffy to take her back to Germany. Duffy was an inspired choice. He was not only a close friend of JFK who could be trusted, he was also involved in a passionate affair with Romesch. In fact, Romesch was in love with Duffy. He was the one man who could get Romesche to do as she was told.

Kennedy now contacted Hoover and asked him to persuade the Senate leadership that the Senate Rules Committee investigation of this story was "contrary to the national interest". He also warned that other leading members of Congress would be drawn into this scandal and so was "contrary to the interests of Congress, too". (13)

It had now become a game of bluff. RFK suspected that Hoover would be unwilling to leak the full story. To do so would expose him as setting up a Honey Trap to obtain evidence against his president. RFK was right but Hoover gambled and increased the stakes. Along with Johnson he needed to keep the pressure on JFK and RFK because of the Bobby Baker case. Hoover therefore leaked the story to Clark Mollenhoff. On 26th October, 1963, Mollenhoff wrote an article in The Des Moines Register claiming that the FBI had "established that the beautiful brunette had been attending parties with congressional leaders and some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of Government... The possibility that her activity might be connected with espionage was of some concern, because of the high rank of her male companions". (14)

Mollenhoff did not name Rometsch or Kennedy. But he did say that John Williams "had obtained an account" of this woman’s activity and planned to pass this information to the Senate Rules Committee, the body investigating Bobby Baker. This was a direct message to JFK and RFK. Hoover and LBJ had discovered that RFK had been passing information about the Baker case to Williams. This was revealed in an interview that Burkett Van Kirk gave to Seymour Hersh in 1997. (15)

Kirk was chief counsel in 1963 for the Republicans on the Senate Rules Committee. He said that the information that Curtis and Williams were getting about Baker, was coming from RFK. The reason for this, according to Kirk, was to “dump Johnson” as vice president. The warning was clear, unless, JFK backed off, he would be exposed as a president who had been sleeping with a Soviet spy. JFK acknowledged that he could not survive the story being published. Harold Macmillan had resigned as prime minister in October, 1963, over the Profumo scandal, although he was allowed to say it was on health grounds. (16)

Kennedy knew that even if he soldiered on he would be defeated in 1964. He therefore decided to agree to Hoover’s terms and said he would help cover up the Baker scandal. The problem was that it had gone too far. Williams had now been contacted by Don Reynolds with information that LBJ had been receiving a rake-off from the Fort Worth TFX contract. Reynolds was now due to testify on 22nd November, 1963. (17) Although it was in a closed session, LBJ knew that Williams would leak it to the press. LBJ had no option. JFK had to die before 22nd November. It was only as president could he cover up this story.

As Reynolds told John Williams after the assassination: "My God! There's a difference between testifying against a President of the United States and a Vice President. If I had known he was President, I might not have gone through with it."

One of the most important sources of information that supports this view of events is a telephone call made by LBJ to George Smathers on 10th January, 1964. (18)

Lyndon Johnson: Have you heard about this tape recording that's out?

George Smathers: No.

Lyndon Johnson: Well, it involves you and John Williams and a number of other people.

George Smathers: You mean, some woman?

Lyndon Johnson: Yep.

George Smathers: Yeah, I've heard about it. And it involves Hugh Scott.

Lyndon Johnson: But it's a pure made-up deal, isn't it?

George Smathers: I don't know what it is. I never heard of the woman in my life... But she mentions President Kennedy in there.

Lyndon Johnson: Oh yeah, and the Attorney General (Robert Kennedy) and me and you and everybody. And I never heard of her.

George Smathers: Thank God, they've got Hugh Scott in there. He's the guy that was asking for it. But she's also mentioned him, (laughs) which is sort of a lifesaver. So I don't think that'll get too far now. (Everett) Jordan's orders.

Lyndon Johnson: Can't you talk to him? Why in the living hell does he let Curtis run him? I thought you were going to talk to Dick Russell and go talk to Curtis and make Dirksen and them behave.

George Smathers: Jordan has assured me over and over again.

Lyndon Johnson: Well, he's not strong enough though, unless someone goes and tells him now.

George Smathers: That's right. Now Dick Russell is the man that ought to do it. And I've asked Dick to do it and Dick has told me that he would....

Lyndon Johnson: They had this damned fool insurance man, in and they had him in a secret session and Bobby (Baker) gave me a record player and Bobby got the record player from the insurance man (Don Reynolds). I didn't know a damned thing about it. Never heard of it till this happened. But I paid $88,000 worth of premiums and, by God, they could afford to give me a Cadillac if they'd wanted to and there'd have been not a goddamned thing wrong with it.... There's nothing wrong with it. There's not a damned thing wrong. So Walter Jenkins explained it all in his statement. This son of a bitch Curtis comes along and says, well, he wouldn't take any statements not sworn to. They had their counsel come down and Walter Jenkins handled it, told him exactly what was done.... A fellow said Manhattan is the only company that would write on a heart attack man.... Bobby said, "Hell now, wait, let my man handle it and he'll get a commission off of it." So we said all right... Now he said - Walter - "I'll swear to it." "No, I want a public hearing so I can put it on television." Now that oughtn't to be. Now George, I ought not to have to get into that personally.

George Smathers: Absolutely not.... And Dick Russell has got to exercise his influence. He must do this and I think you've got to talk to him about it and just say you've got to do it. I'll talk to Jordan. Jordan thinks I'm guilty of something. So he thinks I may be covering up trying to protect myself. Hubert has been really good in this and, believe it or not, Joe Clark' has finally gotten the picture and he's trying to stop it now. But Hugh Scott and Carl Curtis are going wild, and Jordan doesn't have enough experience or enough sense to gavel them down and shut them up. But if Dick will talk to him-really talk to him and say

Lyndon Johnson: I think he needs to talk to Curtis too. Why don't you tell Dick to do that?

George Smathers: I will. I've already talked to him.

Lyndon Johnson: I hate to call him.... Get Dick to go see Curtis in the morning and just say, "Now quit being so goddamn rambunctious about this, Carl."

George Smathers: Can I tell Dick this is not right and you know about it? And naturally it makes you apprehensive and you've got all these damn problems and to have this little nitpicking thing. It's just not fair.

Lyndon Johnson: It's not.

George Smathers: So I'll do it.

Lyndon Johnson: Tell him he's the only one can do it. And he can do it. And if he was involved I'd damned sure walk across the country and do it.

George Smathers: Exactly. All right, that's a damned good thought and I'll do it. I've already talked to him about it, but I

Lyndon Johnson: The FBI has got that record.' Now you know I think you ought to leak it. I don't know who you can leak it to. But I've read the goddamn tax report and I've read the FBI report and there ain't a goddamn thing in it that they can even indict him on. The only thing that they can do is that he puffed up the financial statement, which everybody's done. If he pays that off, they couldn't convict him on that....

George Smathers: They won't print that 'cause I tried to leak that the day before yesterday to ... two different sources and it hasn't been printed. They just want to print this ... ugly stuff.... That Curtis is mean as a snake. (Everett) Dirksen sat in the room the night of the day after you became President with me and Humphrey and agreed that this thing ought to stop and that he would get Curtis to stop it. ... You know, there's some statement about Dirksen and Kuchel with this German girl.' So he said, "It is just ridiculous and it ought to stop.". . . . I think we can handle everybody on our side. Howard Cannon is the smartest fellow over there, but he's a little afraid to do anything because he himself figures he was involved out in Las Vegas. So he's a little afraid to be as brave as he ought to be. ... I'll tell Dick this. I've already told him once, but

Lyndon Johnson: Tell him he ought to talk to Dirksen and Curtis both. Please do it, and also Jordan. He's just got his work cut out Monday 'cause they're going to meet Tuesday and they're going to want a public hearing.' And then that's a television hearing, and then a television hearing about my buying some insurance. And what in the goddamn hell is wrong with my buying insurance? I paid cash for it, wrote them a check for it, made my company the beneficiary, and they didn't deduct it. No tax deduction. We'll do it after we pay our taxes. We pay the premium-only reason being if I died, my wife would have to pay estate tax on me on account of she'd have to sell her stock and they want the company to have some money to buy her stock so she doesn't have to lose control of her company.

Notes and References

1. Bobby Baker, Wheeling and Dealing (1978) pages 78-80 and 180-81

2. Tony Mauro, A Peek Into Justice White’s FBI File (2003)

3. Bobby Baker, Wheeling and Dealing (1978) page 170

4. Anthony Summers, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993)

5. Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (1997)

6. George Wigg: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwigg.htm

7. John Profumo: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRprofumo.htm

8. Ben Bradlee, Conversations With Kennedy (1976)

9. Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (1997) page 391

10. Anthony Summers & Stephen Dorril, Honey Trap (1987)

11. Philllip Knightley and Caroline Kennedy, The Profumo Case and the Framing of Stephen Ward (1987)

12. Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (1997) page 392

13. Meeting between Robert Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover on 28th October, 1963.

14. Clark Mollenhoff, The Des Moines Register (26th October, 1976)

15. Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (1997) page 406

16. Harold Macmillan: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmacmillan.htm

17. Don Reynolds: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKreynoldsD.htm

18. Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and George Smathers (10th January, 1964)

[Ron Ecker]

Any chance of posting the naked photo of Keeler? I need it for research on this subject.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

One of the most important sources of information that supports this view of events is a telephone call made by LBJ to George Smathers on 10th January, 1964. (18)

Lyndon Johnson: But it's a pure made-up deal, isn't it?

George Smathers: I don't know what it is. I never heard of the woman in my life... But she mentions President Kennedy in there.

Lyndon Johnson: Oh yeah, and the Attorney General (Robert Kennedy) and me and you and everybody. And I never heard of her.

Smathers (10th January, 1964)

I am unable to see how this phone conversation supports the story being peddled by Summers, Baker & Hersh.

Anyway, for those who consider chairs to be artwork, here is a link to Ms. Keeler's famous chair:

http://www.arne-jacobsen.com/site_dir/DDC/...h400/aj0413.jpg

[Guest John Gillespie]

Anyway, for those who consider chairs to be artwork, here is a link to Ms. Keeler's famous chair:

http://www.arne-jacobsen.com/site_dir/DDC/...h400/aj0413.jpg

Now, that's what I call a Parliamentary seat!

JG

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Keeler went on to write a book, called "The Truth at Last." She is still living.

http://www.dougiethompson.com/images/kristine-keeler4.jpg

For the benfit of Ron Ecker's research, see the link below for more photos of this beautiful chair with Keeler and Joanne Whalley, who played Keeler in the movie. The movie Scandal is brilliant. I was thirteen when the Keeler Scandal broke in England and I read all about it in the News of The World. After that the word sex always meant Christine Keeler. I went to see the movie Scandal on the day it opened, and now sex means Joanne Whalley. John Hurt gives one of his best performances as Stephen Ward, and now I want to rent the movie again.

http://images.google.com/images?q=%22chris...en&start=0&sa=N

I think you will agree that Christine Keeler would make more money modelling than Paris Hilton does, if the Christine of these photos were to hit the scene today. Sadly for her, she was ahead of her time.

Edited March 7, 2006 by J. Raymond Carroll

[John Simkin]

I am unable to see how this phone conversation supports the story being peddled by Summers, Baker & Hersh.

LBJ is letting George Smathers know that there is a tape that implicates him in various illegal activities. This was the purpose of the “Honey Trap”. As a result, LBJ was able via Bobby Baker to blackmail those who visited the Quorum Club. It was information obtain from Baker that enabled Johnson to control those who had the power to expose his corrupt network. Smathers was especially dangerous as he was one of Baker’s business partners. He knew the full story. Remember, the rumours going around Washington was that Smathers was going to replace LBJ as Vice President (see the Penn Jones article). It is no coincidence that the first person to die after the assassination is George Smathers’ business partner, Grant Stockdale. Smathers was also the man who gave evidence afterwards that Stockdale committed suicide because he was depressed by the death of JFK. Smathers is still alive but he is one man who definitely is not talking.

For the benfit of Ron Ecker's research, see the link below for more photos of this beautiful chair with Keeler and Joanne Whalley, who played Keeler in the movie. The movie Scandal is brilliant. I was thirteen when the Keeler Scandal broke in England and I read all about it in the News of The World. After that the word sex always meant Christine Keeler. I went to see the movie Scandal on the day it opened, and now sex means Joanne Whalley.

I disagree about the film Scandal being brilliant (although I share your taste in Joanne Walley). It is poorly directed but worst of all, it does not tell the full story of what was really going on in London and Washington in 1963.

[Jack White]

John...this seems like an appropriate time to segue to...

Mary Jo Kopechne and Nancy Carole Tyler.

Jack

[Guest Stephen Turner]

As Fredie Mercury was responsible for the lyrics, I can think of another possible meaning for the term "Killer Queen"

[Lee Forman]

As Fredie Mercury was responsible for the lyrics, I can think of another possible meaning for the term "Killer Queen"

Stephen, strangely enough, I was wondering if Freddie hadn't met someone at a wild party that would have fit the bill for the Bi-Sexual assassin character that figured in the film 'The French Connection.' Christine Keeler doesn't seem to fit the lyrics [Dynamite, Killer, Guillatine, Kennedy, etc.], unless there was more to that whole story than anyone seems to know.

http://www.mkzine.com/Essays/Ref-Intellige...Collection.html

A rather interesting part of spy history involves the use of HOMOSEXUAL agents. Some of the most notorious spies in history have been homosexuals (the Cambridge Spy Ring) or sexual deviants (the KGB agent Geoffrey Prime). Most sexual deviants don't succeed in the spy business, but homosexuals apparently do. Instead of being called "honey-traps", a homosexual compromise situation is called "drone-traps."

Perhaps the song wasn't about Keller at all - and 'Queen' was used in the other sense.

No matter really, it made for interesting reading.

Cambridge Spy Ring stuff...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/spies/cambridg...mbridgemain.htm

The dark, windowless room in KGB Headquarters held nothing more than a chair, rows and rows of file cabinets, and a long table. If the room had had a window, in the near distance the walls of the Kremlin could have been seen, ablaze with lights. The newly appointed officer sat at the table while a filing clerk piled file upon file upon it. As he went through the dossiers, the KGB official was astonished. Here was the history of four agents who had penetrated the highest reaches of the British intelligence establishment. Everything that Churchill or Roosevelt or Truman had thought had been reported to the Soviets as soon as the three great statesmen had uttered these thoughts. The files were clearly marked: "Transmission to Control, to Beria, to Stalin." No bureaucracy was to impede the flow of information from these spies. They were too important, their information too reliable. The KGB man smiled. KGB men rarely smiled.

The four were not characters in a spy novel. The KGB official was not an invention of a writer of fiction. They were real. The spies were Burgess, Blunt, Maclean, and Philby.

There have been no more successful, more dramatically impressive spies than a group of Englishmen who all met at Trinity College, Cambridge University in the 1930s. To one degree or another, they were active for the Soviet Union for over thirty years. They were the most efficient espionage agents against American and British interests of any collection of spies in the Twentieth Century. One of them, Kim Philby, served the KGB for almost fifty years.

All four were eventually exposed but --- amazingly --- never caught. One, Burgess, was a flamboyant, alcoholic homosexual. The second, Blunt, was a discrete homosexual who rose to knighthood as the Royal Curator of Art. The third, Maclean, was a tense, insecure diplomat of ambiguous sexual persuasion. The fourth, Philby --- and perhaps the most intriguing of the group --- was a dedicated heterosexual who has been called, not inaccurately, the "Spy of the Century."

Great spies are more interesting in fact than in fiction, more fascinating in reality than in the legends that grow up around them. It is easy to forget that successful spies, by their treachery, are some of the most adept of killers. Their murder victims are faceless, usually never seen by the agents who send them, unwittingly, to their deaths.

"Today, of course, it is well known that Harold Adrian Russell Philby was a Soviet agent within MI-6, a traitor to his own country and a man who betrayed many of the most important secrets of the Western democracies to the Soviet Union. Now Kim Philby is a legend --- a demon or an antihero, depending on one's philosophical bent. Philby himself, or a thinly disguised fictional counterpart, stalks through many modern spy novels."

--- Robert J. Lamphere, FBI Special Agent, 1986

- lee

[Francesca Akhtar]

John Profumo dies:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4792066.stm

[Terry Adams]

Keeler went on to write a book, called "The Truth at Last." She is still living.

http://www.dougiethompson.com/images/kristine-keeler4.jpg

For the benfit of Ron Ecker's research, see the link below for more photos of this beautiful chair with Keeler and Joanne Whalley, who played Keeler in the movie. The movie Scandal is brilliant. I was thirteen when the Keeler Scandal broke in England and I read all about it in the News of The World. After that the word sex always meant Christine Keeler. I went to see the movie Scandal on the day it opened, and now sex means Joanne Whalley. John Hurt gives one of his best performances as Stephen Ward, and now I want to rent the movie again.

http://images.google.com/images?q=%22chris...en&start=0&sa=N

I think you will agree that Christine Keeler would make more money modelling than Paris Hilton does, if the Christine of these photos were to hit the scene today. Sadly for her, she was ahead of her time.

Raymond, People who do not do spend time in the research community cannot imagine the rewards !!!

[Terry Adams]

Hello All. In the event that some may have missed the news, it should be mentioned that one of the subjects of this particular posting, former British Secretary of State of War, John Profumo died today at the age of 91. Proof positive that time waits on no one .

Terry

[Lee Forman]

Hello All. In the event that some may have missed the news, it should be mentioned that one of the subjects of this particular posting, former British Secretary of State of War, John Profumo died today at the age of 91. Proof positive that time waits on no one .

Terry

Very bizarre on the timing. Both Keeler and Profumo are mentioned in 'The Berlin Conspiracy' which I have just about finished - a newly released fictional account of the assassination of Kennedy in Germany. Bought to pass the time on a plane, I found myself laughing aloud at the author's treatment of a passage dealing with Keeler.

- lee

[Duke Lane]

Very bizarre on the timing. Both Keeler and Profumo are mentioned in 'The Berlin Conspiracy' which I have just about finished - a newly released fictional account of the assassination of Kennedy in Germany. Bought to pass the time on a plane, I found myself laughing aloud at the author's treatment of a passage dealing with Keeler.

- lee

Scary, indeed: you read about them, they die.

Ummm ... could you maybe put MY posts on "ignore" for a while?