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 brief; some commentators have suggested that it ended after a few weeks, while others believe that it continued, with decreasing fervour, until December 1961. The relationship was characterised by Keeler as an unromantic relationship without expectations, a "screw of convenience", although she also states that Profumo hoped for a longer-term commitment and that he offered to set her up in a flat. More than 20 years later, Profumo described Keeler in conversation with his son as someone who "seem[ed] to like sexual intercourse", but who was "completely uneducated", with no conversation beyond make-up, hair and gramophone records. The couple usually