LONDON - John Profumo, the cabinet minister at the centre of one of the country's biggest political scandals, has died aged 91.
He was forced to resign in 1963 as minister of war over his extramarital affair with a 19-year-old model who had also slept with a Soviet diplomat.
Breaking at
the height of the Cold War, the scandal led to accusations that British security had been at risk. It damaged the Conservative government of the time and contributed to its election defeat in 1964.
Profumo quit after confessing he had lied to parliament about his relationship with the model, Christine Keeler, and devoted the rest of his life to charity work in London's run-down East End.
Keeler, who has described in her autobiography how she used to attend high society dinner parties ending in sex romps, said she slept with both Profumo and Soviet assistant naval attache Eugene Ivanov in 1961.
In 2003, MPs from across party lines called for Prime Minister Tony Blair to restore Profumo to the Queen's Privy Council, a largely ceremonial honour he gave up with his ministerial job.
The reports said he died around midnight in a London hospital. Sky News' website said he had been admitted two days earlier following a stroke.
- REUTERS
