Profumo affair Party was marked by the scandal, which may have contributed to its defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election. When the Profumo–Keeler affair was first revealed, public interest was heightened by reports that Keeler may have been simultaneously involved with Captain Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, thereby creating a possible security risk. Keeler knew both Profumo and Ivanov through her friendship with Stephen Ward, an osteopath and socialite who had taken her under his wing. The exposure of the affair generated rumours of other scandals, and drew official attention to the activities of Ward, who was
Christine Keeler imprisonment. After her release from serving four and a half months in prison in 1964, and two brief marriages that produced two children, Keeler largely lived alone. Most of the considerable amount she made from newspaper stories was dissipated by lawyers; during the 1970s, she said, "I was not living, I was surviving". She published several accounts of her life, in one of which she claimed that she became pregnant as a result of her relationship with Profumo and subsequently had an abortion. Her portrait, by Ward, was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1984. In 1988, Keeler was