Eventually, Profumo was asked to become a fundraiser for Tonybee Hall, and agreed reluctantly to do so. He was in a good position to use his many contacts from the past to raise funds for the charity, and began to win the respect of his former colleagues in political circles once more. Lord Longford, another aristocratic social campaigner, praised Profumo as one of the men he admired most in the world. In 1975 he received a CBE for his services to charity, and went to Buckingham Palace to pick up his medal from the queen.
In 1995, when ex-Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher celebrated her 70th birthday, she invited him to a celebration, where he was seated next to the queen, and announced publicly that it was time he was forgiven ‘It’s time to forget the Keeler business,’ she said. ‘His has been a very good life.’ She also called him, ‘one of our national heroes.’
In his later years Profumo rarely appeared in public and was confined to a wheelchair. His last public appearance was at a memorial service for former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 2005. He died a year later, on 9 March 2006, having suffered a major stroke two days earlier.
Today, in view of the many sex scandals that often surround politicians’ personal lives, whether in Britain, Europe or the United States, it seems extraordinary that such a minor affair should have been taken so seriously. However, during the 1960s, under a stricter moral climate, and with the paranoia of the Cold War ever present, the reports of Profumo’s actions electrified the nation, and led not only to the destruction of his reputation, but to the demise of the Conservative government of the day.
Lord Lambton
Lord Lambton was a British aristocrat who resigned from Parliament in 1973 because of a scandal involving his liaison with prostitutes. At the time, he was regarded as a brilliant and ambitious politician in the government of Edward Heath.
A life of luxury
Antony Claud Frederick Lambton was born into an extremely rich aristocratic family and before 1970, as the Sixth Earl of Durham, was known as Viscount Lambton. As was the custom, he renounced his peerage to enter the House of Commons as a Conservative member of parliament, but insisted on continuing to use his title, thus becoming involved in a legal battle. He grew up in luxury on family estates in Ireland, and was educated at the prestigious Harrow School, an elitist boarding school for boys near London. During World War II, he served as a soldier, but was invalided out and went on to do war work in a factory. In 1921 he married Belinda Blew-Jones, a fellow aristocrat, and the couple went on to have one son and five daughters.
In 1945 Lambton stood for parliament, but it was not until 1951, after serving on Durham City Council, that he gained a seat as a Conservative member of parliament. In 1970 he was made a parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence. In the same year, his father died and he inherited his father’s title, but according to the rules of Parliament, had to give it up if he was to continue as a member of parliament and government minister. However, after disclaiming the title, he insisted on continuing to be addressed as ‘Lord Lambton’ in the House of Commons, which caused a great deal of controversy. Lambton became completely obsessive about the issue, which earned him more than a few enemies in the House, and helped to confirm the stereotypes of snobbery and arrogance that are so often associated with the British upper classes.
Smoking cannabis with naked girls
Perhaps partly because of his arrogant stance, there were those in the media who wished to bring him down, and in 1973 they got their chance. Under the name Lucas, Lambton visited a prostitute, Norma Levy, a beautiful dark-haired young woman whose looks were similar to that of Christine Keeler, who had been involved in the Profumo scandal. Lambton’s real identity became known to the prostitute when, in typically careless style, he handed her a personal cheque. Together with her husband, Norma Levy decided to capitalise on the discovery and take incriminating photographs of what took place on his next visit. They concealed a tape recorder inside a teddy bear, and Mr Levy hid behind a two-way mirror so that he could take photographs of their famous client. When Lambton came to the house on his next visit, he was photographed smoking cannabis with Norma and another prostitute, the three of them naked in bed together.
The scandal is revealed
When Lambton left, unaware of what had happened, Mr Levy tried to sell the photographs to the tabloids. Instead, they were handed in to the police. Then one of the more sensationalist tabloids, The News of the World, printed the story and Lambton’s secret was out. As soon as this happened, Lambton decided to resign, writing to the prime minister and to his own constituency. He issued a statement to the press saying: ‘My own feelings may be imagined but I have no excuses whatsoever to make. I behaved with credulous stupidity and consequently let down those I most wished to please – the prime minister, the Conservative Party, my electorate, who have given me 22 years of loyalty and my family.’ He emphasised that he had never discussed any aspect of his job with the prostitutes, which given that he had been engaged for most of the time in recreational activities with the two of them, was not hard to believe. Further humiliation followed when he appeared in court on drugs charges. He pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis and amphetamine tablets and was fined £300.
After the revelation, an enquiry was held to see whether there had been any breach of security as a result of the liaisons, since Lambton was a junior minister in the defence department. However, Lambton assured the court that he had not taken his red state boxes of government papers when he attended his rendezvous with the prostitutes. Since it was clear to everyone that this would have been a rather unlikely thing to do in the circumstances, the enquiry was satisfied that no breach of security had occurred.
Nevertheless, Lampton had to go, especially as after the incident he made matters worse by telling police that he used prostitutes because he felt a ‘sense of futility’ in his job as a junior minister. He also claimed that a battle to continue using an aristocratic title had made him obsessive, and that gardening and sex with prostitutes, among other ‘frantic activities’ had helped him to allay his obsession. Later, in his retirement, he made the simple, perhaps more truthful, statement in an interview with television host Robin Day, that he had visited prostitutes because ‘people sometimes like variety. It’s as simple as that’.
After his downfall, Lambton retired from the political scene to a large villa called Cetinale in Tucany, Italy, where he lived until his death, surrounded by wealthy British expatriates. He and his wife separated and he lived with his mistress, Claire Ward. He seldom returned to Britain, except to attend parties in London, or to go shooting on his estate. Instead, he devoted himself to gardening, reading and entertaining, which he did in style, becoming known as the ‘King of Chiantishire’. He was famous for his sharp tongue, writing acerbic book reviews for a right-wing British newspaper, and gossiping about his many guests. During the 1980s he wrote short stories, novels and a two-volume study of the Mountbatten family, which drew widespread criticism for its unflattering portrait of Earl Mountbatten. In his later years he continued to write, entertain and garden at Cetinale, until his death in December 2006.
Mark Foley
Mark Foley was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives and a campaigner against child abuse. In September 2006 he was forced to resign after it emerged that he had sent sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys who had formerly worked as Congressional pages. The scandal rocked the American media, particularly because Foley had been vociferous in his condemnation of child abuse and exploitation.
Gay rumours
Mark Adam Foley was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a police officer. At the age of three he moved with his father, mother and four siblings to Lake Worth, Florida, and later attended high school and college there. As a young man he started a restaurant with his mother and then moved on to become a real estate broker. He began to serve as chairman for a variety of enterprises, including a hospital, and by the age of 23 was a member of
Lake Worth City Council. He set his sights on a political career, but it was not until 1990 that he was finally elected to the Florida House of Representatives. Two years later he was a member of the Florida Senate. It seemed that his political ambitions were well on the way to being achieved.
However, there were some who questioned his personal life, in particular the fact that he was not married and was rumoured to be gay. A number of articles and commentaries had appeared in the alternative press and on-line speculating that he was gay. The rumours continued to circulate as Foley made a bid to enter the US Senate, and later it was reported by the mainstream press that the fact that Foley was gay was an open secret in the political world.
Child pornography campaign
In 1994 Foley was elected to the US House as a Republican. Two years later he was re-elected with a larger share of the vote, and after that his popularity grew. By 2003 he was in the running to replace Bob Graham at the Senate, but the rumours continued to thwart his career. He had become known as a campaigner against child pornography, serving on a committee concerned with missing and exploited children. He particularly focussed on child pornography, pointing out that there were websites on the Internet featuring suggestive images of pre-teen children, and advocating that these should be outlawed, since, in his words, they were ‘nothing more than a fix for paedophiles’.
Foley drew up a bill to forbid the use of such images, but it proved unworkable since it would have banned many types of ordinary commercial photography involving children. He also wrote to the governor of Florida about a local teenage nudist programme that he disapproved of. He was responsible for changes in sex offender laws, which were supported by TV shows, victims’ rights groups and children’s groups. His legislation became part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, signed by President Bush. In addition he pioneered the use of FBI fingerprint background checks in hiring staff for volunteer youth organisations.
Suggestive e-mail messages
In many ways Foley’s stance was one of a puritanical, right-wing Republican who stood for old-fashioned values. For example, he supported the death penalty, strict sentences for violent crimes and was against abortion. For that reason, it was all the more damaging to his career when stories that he was gay, bisexual or living with a male lover, were published in the New York Times and New York Press, both alternative papers. Foley denounced the rumours as ‘revolting’ and stated that his sexual orientation was not important. However, as many noted, he did not deny them. Shortly afterwards, he withdrew his candidacy, saying that his father’s serious illness had changed his priorities.
A scandal broke in 2006 when it was reported on ABC News that the previous year Foley had sent suggestive e-mail messages to a former Congressional page. According to the report, Foley requested a photograph of the boy and asked him what he would like for his birthday. He also told the page that he had been for a long bicycle ride and was about to go to the gym. When the matter was reported, Foley’s office responded that the boy had asked for a recommendation and that, in such cases, former employees were often asked for photographs for the purposes of identification.
However, another page then came forward and reported that Foley had sent him sexually explicit messages by e-mail. These messages were much more direct, and mentioned sexual organs and acts in a lewd way. This time Foley could find no excuse for his behaviour, and accordingly resigned from office. In a statement he said, ‘I am deeply sorry, and I apologise for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent.’
Secret alcoholic
But the scandal was by no means over. One by one, more pages came forward alleging Foley’s inappropriate conduct, which appeared to have gone on for more than a decade. It emerged that Foley had already been warned about his behaviour in 2005 by a House clerk and a house republican. Foley countered the claims, insisting that he was not a paedophile, and had not had any sexual contact with a young person. He explained the e-mails by saying that he was an alcoholic and had sent the messages while drunk. He issued a statement that he was checking himself in to a rehabilitation clinic. He also let it be known, through his lawyer, that he had been molested by a church minister between the ages of 13 and 15, and added, finally, that he was a homosexual.
The scandal provoked a furore in Washington, and there were calls for Foley’s Republican bosses such as Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to resign. The affair did their careers a certain amount of damage, but after Foley’s resignation the matter was dropped.
In 2006 a man named Anthony Mercieca identified himself as a former Catholic priest who had had a relationship with Foley while he was a teenager. He said that the liaision had taken place in Fort Worth, while Foley was serving as an alter boy. The priest, who was now retired and living on the island of Malta, told how he and Foley had taken naked saunas together, but said that no actual sexual activity had taken place.
Jim West
Jim West was Mayor of Spokane, Washington, when he was involved in a sex scandal in 2005. He was accused of sexually abusing two young boys during the 1970s, and also of luring teenage boys into his office as interns. One of the most shocking aspects of the scandal was that he had campaigned forcefully against gay rights, yet he himself had engaged in gay sex for many years in his private life.
Child sexual abuse
James Elton West had grown up in Spokane County, Washington, attending high school there. In 1978 he graduated from Gonzaga University with a degree in Criminal Justice and went on to serve in the US army. As a Republican, he joined the Washington Legislature, and worked hard to further his career. Many respected his commitment to his job, although some found his style abrasive. Nevertheless, his career flourished and he became mayor of the city. As Senate majority leader, he supported or introduced a great deal of anti-gay legislation, and in 1995 was involved in the impeachment of the governor, Mike Lowry, when a scandal regarding Lowry’s alleged sexual harassment broke. However, ten years later it was West who was at the centre of a bigger, more serious scandal involving the sexual abuse of minors.
According to several reports, when West was a Boy Scout leader in the 1970s and 1980s, he had sexually abused two young boys. Later, as mayor, he corresponded on the Internet, under the name ‘Right-BiGuy’, using his position to lure teenage boys into sexual relationships with him. He was discovered to be using the Gay.com website to do this, and when confronted with the accusation that he had been trawling for sex on the Internet, admitted that this was what he had been doing. However, he continued to deny that he had ever had sex with minors.
Child witnessed suicide
In June 2005 the Spokane Republican Party called for West to resign. A commission was set up to enquire into the allegations against him, and the FBI was called in to consider whether West had actually broken any laws, or gone against any of his policies.
For example, he proposed a bill outlawing sexual activities between any young people aged below eighteen, yet as it later emerged, he himself had been sexually involved with teenage boys, and – it was alleged – had even had sex with underage boys. In addition, West had also tried to have all gay and lesbians teachers and carers banned from working in educational and social institutions, even though he himself was gay, or bisexual. He later said that he regretted voting for these laws, but explained his hypocritical stance, and the gap between his public face and his private behavior, by saying, ‘If someone hires you to paint their house red, you paint it red, even if you think it would look better green’. However, his plea for leniency was rejected and he was asked to stand down, and was officially stripped of his duties on 6 December 2005. Later, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, and after undergoing several operations, died on 22 July 2006.Two months later the FBI took away West’s computer to analyse it, but on 16 February 2007 he was cleared of all the charges. He left office and became ill with colon cancer, but according to some reports, shortly before he died on 22 July
2006, he was considering returning to office.
more allegations
The darkest part of the story emerged in recent years, when two men came forward alleging serious sexual abuse at the hands of West and another leading Spokane figure, the county sheriff’s deputy, David Hahn. West was friendly with Hahn, who was revealed as a paedophile, and committed suicide as a result in 1981. At the time both men were working with young boys in their capacity as scout leaders, and were members of an organisation called Morning Star Boys Ranch.
The men, Robert Galliher and Michael Grant, both in their 30s, alleged that during their childhood West and Hahn had sexually abused them. On some occasions they fondled them and forced them to have oral sex, while on others they sodomised them. One of the most horrifying aspects of the story was that when it was discovered that Hahn was a paedophile, he took Grant into his bedroom and pointed a gun at his head, then turned it on himself and blew his brains out in front of the boy, who ran away and hid.
Sodomy and oral sex
Infamous Scandals Page 15
