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
Profumo affair title of Baron Profumo, upon his father's death on 27 March 1940. He first entered Parliament in 1940 as the Conservative member for Kettering, while serving with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, and combined his political and military duties through the Second World War. He lost his seat in the 1945 general election, but was elected in 1950 for Stratford-on-Avon. From 1951 he held junior ministerial office in successive Conservative administrations. In 1960, Macmillan promoted him to Secretary of State for War, a senior post outside the cabinet. After his marriage in 1954 to Valerie Hobson, one of Britain's leading film actresses,