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 bail. With the Ward case now "sub judice", the press pursued related stories. "The People" reported that Scotland Yard had begun an inquiry, in parallel with Denning's, into "homosexual practices as well as sexual laxity" among civil servants, military officers and MPs. On 24 June the "Daily Mirror", under a banner heading "Prince Philip and the Profumo Scandal", dismissed what it termed the "foul rumour" that the prince had been involved in the affair, without disclosing the nature of the rumour. Ward's trial began at the Old Bailey on 28 July. He was charged with living off the earnings of