Profumo affair met at Wimpole Mews, when Ward was absent, although once, when Hobson was away, Profumo took Keeler to his home at Chester Terrace in Regent's Park. On one occasion he borrowed a Bentley from his ministerial colleague John Hare and took Keeler for a drive around London, and another time the couple had a drink with Viscount Ward, the former Secretary of State for Air. During their time together, Profumo gave Keeler a few small presents, and once, a sum of £20 as a gift for her mother. Keeler maintains that although Stephen Ward asked her to obtain information from
Yevgeny Ivanov (spy) to try to convince him to shift his allegiance to the United Kingdom. Ivanov was at a pool party at the Cliveden estate when Christine Keeler met John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War. Keeler's subsequent affair with Profumo went on at a time when she was also having sex with Ivanov. This was at a time when Cold War tensions were already heightened, just before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ward and Ivanov are said to have asked Keeler to quiz Profumo as to when American nuclear missiles would be taken to then-West Germany. When the Profumo affair