Talk:John Profumo

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The article lists when Profumo met Keeler as January 1961, but various other sources suggest they actually met on the weekend of 8-9 July 1961 at Astor's estate. [1] --Downloaddom (talk) 11:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Summarized the scandal, given that there is a full article on the subject. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

"Profumo is an Italian baron (the 5th in line), with the title (which he generally did not use) dating from 1903."

With the title ?? what? I don't know the conventions of Italian titles, but is he "Baron Profumo"? Baron Profumo of ? Baron of Profumo? and what is the title in Italian?

Please, if you're going to put tantalising facts like that in, give us all the information! Ian, 02.16.06

As Italy abolished all titles of nobility when it became a republic just after WW2 he may have considered it inappropriate to use it. It says that he had a good war record, but when was this? He was an MP from March 1940 to the 1945 general election, which covers practically all the fighting during the war. He may have had a perfectly respectable record as a peacetime soldier during the occupation of Japan. Mustafa Bevi 12:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• He never used the title. In 1940 when he inherited it Britain was about to go to war with Italy, so posing as an Italian nobleman was probably not a good idea.
• Many MPs spent the war on active service and several were killed. I don't know the details of his service but it shouldn't be hard to find out now that lots of obits will be appearing in the press. Adam 12:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your policy is on this, but the paragraph on Profumo's charity work is extremely close to a section of this report: [2]. Merely changing a few words is tantamount to plagiarism and would be unacceptable for a serious publication. 84.65.181.208 18:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the offending section - maybe someone else can give it some thaught to summarize it in his own words. Agathoclea 19:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I apologise for my hasty adaptation of the BBC report's section on Profumo's charity work. It was late at night and I figured it would "do for now." I have now rewritten it. I notice by the way that the Press Association article on Profumo appears to have borrowed heavily from Wikipedia. Adam 02:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Sections

The article should at least be divided into sections, and requires a pic also.--Rejnal 19:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Sections done - not too sure about "post 1964" - I am convinced someone else has a better idea what to call it. pic still needed. Agathoclea 19:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Stratford

Does anyone know why the parliamentary constituency is called Stratford-on-Avon when the town is called Stratford-upon-Avon? Adam 03:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Date of death

Did he die on March 9 (as in the article) or March 10 (as in Deaths in 2006)? Margana 17:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I just altered the article there. Google search brings up newsitems dated 9th. The referenced article says he died around midnight. He was admitted to hospital on the 7th and died 2 days later which is the 9th. I'd say we stick with the 9th until we have official statment otherwise. Agathoclea 18:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I only found one Swiss newspaper which said he died after midnight. Agathoclea 18:26, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Closer to home [3] says it was "Thursday night". Agathoclea 18:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought: Thursday night is after 24.00 h.; before that, is't evening ain't it? Anyway imho it's still a mystery. --Algont 12:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I would call that "In the early hours of Friday" or "Friday morning" - but once the dust has settled there should be an "offical" orbitatory that will settle it. Agathoclea 14:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

According to German newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau", it was after midnight, so the 10. --217.83.105.45 21:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC) ([4])

The Telegraph said that he died at "Thursday night", which is 9th March. Moreover, The Times clearly stated that he died on 9th March, 2006. I think these are obvious enough. If you spend some times searching The Guardian, you would just find the same answer. --218.103.225.49 13:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP

Statements about living persons must be sourced. Xiner (talk, email) 15:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

George Wigg?

I've read a few times that it was Barbara Castle who stood up in the House and directly asked whether Profumo was having an affaire with Ms.Keeler. --Maarten1963 01:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Degree

...Brasenose College, Oxford, where he took his degree in agriculture and political economy

Where on earth does this come from? I don't think it's possible to get a degree in "agriculture and political economy" from Oxford. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he read law. Flapdragon (talk) 17:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Brigadier?

Inserting the rank of Brigadier into his official designation is an odd one.

Nobody in civilian life ever referred to him in this style. Unless he was a Regular Army Brigadier, then the title is incorrect anyway. I'm fairly sure it was wartime rank, not substantive. If it's pukka, then the dates of his Regular Army service should be logged. 86.178.157.135 (talk) 21:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. No-one these days carries military titles in peacetime, and Profumo certainly did not. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:48, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Margesson quote

In his biography of Winston Churchill, Roy Jenkins gives the Margesson quote but claims that it was not in a letter but spoken to John Profumo in person after calling him in the morning after the vote. Is there a more reliable source that claims it was in a letter? 71.175.132.140 (talk) 00:04, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Keeler

Is it really approriate for an enzyclopedia to use politically correct euphemisms? She wasn't a "model", she was a prostitute.

--94.222.154.33 (talk) 18:00, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

She has always insisted that she wasn't, a line accepted by most people who've written seriously about the matter - most also agree that Ward's conviction for "living off immoral earnings" (i.e. pimping) was a gross miscarriage of justice - he was actually subsidising her, not the other way round. A lot hinged on trial (and in the movie "Scandal" in 1989) on the fact that Profumo once gave her a wad of notes to buy a present for her Mum. She enjoyed being looked after by wealthy admirers, no doubt (although not to the extent of Mandy Rice-Davies, who was Peter Rachman's kept mistress for a while), but wasn't paid in cash.Paulturtle (talk) 15:36, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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Nazi spy connection

The BBC are reporting that in the 1930s Profumo had an affair with a German model who later became a Nazi spy. Citing newly declassified documents the BBC says "MI5 documents suggest the minister had a relationship with German model Gisela Winegard in Oxford in the early 1930s, before she became a spy in Paris."

From the BBC report it sounds like Gisela Winegard didn't become a Nazi spy until after her relationship with Profumo ended, but even so it's relevant to this page. 86.30.22.26 (talk) 13:31, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

War Service

The article seems to have got this wrong. John Profumo's 'parent regiment', the one in which he was first commissioned, may have been the Northants Yeomanry (and officers would continue to wear the cap badges of their parent regiments while serving with other units, unless and until promoted to 'field rank' when they would wear a general's cap badge), but he never served overseas with the regiment. Not in North Africa, because they never went there, and not in Normandy as the article claims either. Aristotle reminds us that no man can be in two places at the same time and, from late 1943 to VE-Day, Profumo was a General Staff Intelligence officer attached to Alexander's GHQ in Italy and co-ordinating air support for the US Fifth and British Eighth Armies, a task at which he excelled and for which he was awarded several commendations and decorations. ( https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/90108/Profumo-John-Dennis-Jack-5th-Baron-Profumo.htm )

Sir Antony Beevor, in Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges 1944, Penguin 2019, p.207, claims that, during the German bombing of Eindhoven, Holland, on the night of 19/20 September 1944, while a vast column of British XXX Corps vehicles was moving north through the town in support of Operation Market Garden, 'Captain John Profumo, the second in command of A Squadron (and many years later Britain's secretary of state for war), organised civilian working parties with great speed to clear the debris and allow the column to continue.' Sir Antony is, of course, RS, but he is also sometimes surprisingly wrong. The claim isn't footnoted, so God knows where he got that idea unless it was a previous and even more inaccurate version of Wikipedia's article. He doesn't say which unit John Profumo was supposedly A Sqn 2iC of, but implicitly it's 2nd Household Cavalry, the armoured-car reconnaissance force of XXX Corps, mentioned earlier in the same paragraph as guiding the column through Eindhoven. This makes no sense at all. Profumo never served in the Household Cavalry (and his parent regiment 1 Northants Yeomanry was not part of XXX Corps and was not present at Eindhoven) and in September 1944 he was a staff lieutenant-colonel in Italy, not a cavalry captain in the Netherlands. Just shows how fairy-stories do the rounds. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)