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
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