Roger Hollis in 1956 and remaining in that post until his retirement in 1965. After Kim Philby's flight from Beirut to Moscow in 1963, rumours began to circulate that Hollis had alerted him to his impending arrest. Hollis was criticised for not alerting John Profumo, the War Secretary in Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, that he might have become entangled with a Soviet spy ring through his friendship with Stephen Ward, and his affair with showgirl Christine Keeler, who was introduced by Ward to Profumo. Soviet Naval Attache Eugene Ivanov was also involved with Keeler at this time, in the early
John Profumo party at Cliveden, home of Viscount Astor, John Profumo met Christine Keeler, a model with whom he began a sexual relationship. Profumo ended it after only a few weeks but rumours about the affair began to circulate. Since Keeler had also had sexual relations with Yevgeni Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, the matter took on a national security dimension. In December 1962, a shooting incident in London involving two other men who were involved with Keeler led the press to investigate Keeler, and reporters soon learned of her affairs with Profumo and Ivanov. But the British