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 would testify against Ward, but he refused. The effects of the police inquiry were proving ruinous to Ward, whose practice was collapsing rapidly. On 7 May he met Macmillan's private secretary, Timothy Bligh, to ask that the police inquiry into his affairs be halted. He added that he had been covering for Profumo, whose Commons statement was substantially false. Bligh took notes but failed to take action. On 19 May Ward wrote to Brooke, with essentially the same request as that to Bligh, to be told that the Home Secretary had no power to interfere with the police inquiry. Ward