Cuban missile crisis: Secret files reveal UK Profumo scandal players' bizarre role

Newly released MI5 archives reveal Stephen Ward helped pass information to Russia and the UK

MI5 files released by the National Archives give an insight into the actions of Stephen Ward during the Cuban missile crisis. PA
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An off-the-wall attempt to broker a breakthrough in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was launched in London by the Russian spy and society doctor who were later exposed in the Profumo scandal that cost the defence minister his job and the demise of the then prime minister.

Secret MI5 documents released on Tuesday revealed Stephen Ward was used by the Soviet spy Yevgeny Ivanov to propose a secret summit to Foreign Office diplomats just two days after America announced the blockade of the island.

The Cuban missile crisis, which erupted 60 years ago, saw the world come close to nuclear Armageddon. Unknown until now was that British doctor and amateur artist Mr Ward approached the UK government with a proposal from Mr Ivanov.

The 13-day nuclear showdown in 1962 came during the Cold War after the US discovered the Soviet Union had secretly deployed weapons to Cuba.

It led to US president John F Kennedy ordering a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent further missiles from being delivered.

This week, the UK's National Archives has published the latest batch of previously secret files – the first MI5 release in three years.

More than 140 files, some running to more than 100 pages, have been digitised and made public on the National Archives website and reveal secret details surrounding the Cuba crisis.

It was at the height of the crisis, the documents reveal, that Mr Ward approached the UK government on behalf of his contact with a message that Russia’s leader Nikita Khrushchev would be willing to come to London for talks.

“On October 24, 1962, Mr Ward informed the Foreign Office of a conversation he had just had with Mr Ivanov, in which the latter said that in the Cuban crisis there was absolutely no opportunity for either side, Russia or America, to compromise and that the Soviet government looked to the UK for their one hope of conciliation,” the archives say.

The pair then met at the country home of British peer Lord Arran to “get a message by indirect means asking the government to call a summit forthwith.”

“He said that Mr Khrushchev would accept the invite and that by doing this Great Britain will break the deadlock over Cuba,” the notes say.

When Lord Arran reported the message he told the security services he believed Russia was “trying to drive a wedge” between Britain and the Americans.

The crisis was abated when both sides agreed to remove their weapons.

The relationship between Russian agent Mr Ivanov and Mr Ward began when the pair met at London’s Garrick Club in January 1961.

With the artist desperate to be invited to Moscow to paint Mr Khrushchev, he willingly used his influential contacts to help obtain government information to pass to Mr Ivanov, the archives say.

“He was diligent in introducing him to potential useful contacts as well as trying to interest him in female companions,” the reports say.

Over the years both sides sought to use both men to spy for them.

In one archive entry a government agent, who had been introduced to Mr Ivanov through Ward at London’s Dorchester Hotel, said the Russian “was amenable to defection”.

He later took him to the pet shop in London’s Harrod’s where the Russian expressed an interest in getting an alligator.

From early 1962, documents show the foreign office was corresponding with both men.

“Mr Ivanov put requests to Mr Ward for information about the government’s policies on disarmament and Berlin and unofficial answers were obtained from the Foreign Office in the form of letters signed by [British politician] Sir Godfrey Nicholson.”

It would be a year later that the actions of the pair contributed to the fall of the UK’s Harold Macmillan government in the form of the Profumo Affair.

Mr Ward had introduced the then secretary of state for war, John Profumo, to model Christine Keeler and he embarked on an extra martial affair which was exposed in June 1963.

The scandal was made worse, as Miss Keeler was also romantically linked to Mr Ivanov and it was revealed she had been asked by Mr Ward, on behalf of Mr Ivanov, to obtain a date from Mr Profumo on when West Germany would receive delivery of nuclear weapons.

The archives reveal Mr Ivanov “would almost certainly” have known of the affair and would have reported back to Moscow on how the situation could be “exploited”.

It led to the resignation of Mr Profumo.

Updated: October 11, 2022, 8:50 AM