John Profumo, British Minister for the War, died Friday March 10 of an attack at the 91 years age, one learned near the hospital where it was neat. He is deceased little after midnight at the hospital of Chelsea and Westminster (western of London), where he had been allowed two days earlier, announced a spokesman. John Profumo had resigned of his post of Minister for the War in June 1963, in full period of cold war, after having admitted a connection with a call-girl , Christine Keeler. This call-girl in parallel maintained a connection with the Soviet military attaché in London, Eugene Ivanov. This scandal, certainly one of those which the most marked the British political life at the XXe century, put a term at its political career.

Hope of the preserving party

John Dennis Profumo, born on January 30, 1915, came from an aristocratic family of Sardinia which emigrated in Great Britain in 1885. Educated in Oxford, John Profumo engaged under the flags in 1939. Entered at the Parliament of Westminster in 1940, thus becoming at 25 years the youngest British deputy, John Profumo was in full political ascendance when it was touched by this business. He was regarded as rising star of the preserving party. He left the army with the rank of sergeant and was decorated about the British Empire. Re-elected at the Parliament in 1950 like MP (member of parliament) of Stratford-upon-Avon (center), it was indicated secretary with Transport two years later. But its ambitions did not stop there, and John Profumo aimed at the prestigious function of secretary to Foreign Office, the Foreign Minister. The scandal will prevent some.

A connection which cost him its career

Appointed Secretary of State to the War in 1960 in the government of Harold Macmillan, of which he was a close relation, John Profumo had the favours of the palate of Buckingham. He was distinguished at the time of the Second world war during which he had been useful in Africa and was married with the actress Valerie Hobson, a star of the British cinema, But whereas the rumours spun good train to Westminster and on Fleet Street, the district of the press in London, John Profumo made in March 1963 a personal statement with the deputies in whom he contradicted all "impropriety" in his relation with Christine Keeler by indicating that this platonic relation had ended in 1961. The 10, Downing Street estimated that the business was closed. But the British press did not hear it this ear. After the revelations of Christine Keeler to the newspapers on his connections with the two men, the minister had to give his resignation on June 4, 1963. The Profumo business lasted six months. John Profumo was replaced by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, which lost the following legislative elections. Harold Macmillan itself left Downing Street afterwards a few months. After having left the political life, John Profumo engaged in the social action within a caritative organization, Toynbee Hall.