Profumo affair a fellow Murray's Club dancer three years her junior. The two girls left Murray's, and attempted without success to pursue careers as freelance models. Keeler also lived for short periods with various boyfriends, but regularly returned to Ward, who had acquired a house in Wimpole Mews. There she met many of Ward's friends, among them Lord Astor, a long-time patient who was also a political ally of Profumo. She often spent weekends at a riverside cottage that Ward rented on Astor's country estate, Cliveden, in Buckinghamshire. Stephen Ward, born in Hertfordshire in 1912, qualified as an osteopath in the United
Christine Keeler a couple, but according to her, it was a platonic, non-sexual relationship. In July 1961, Ward introduced Keeler to John Profumo, 5th Baron Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Profumo began a brief affair with Keeler, which ended after he was warned by the security services of the possible dangers of mixing with the Ward circle. Among Ward's other friends, whom Profumo briefly met, was the Russian naval attaché and GRU officer, Yevgeny Ivanov. According to Keeler, she and Ivanov enjoyed a short sexual relationship. After