bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2014) — Spring 2014 // Printemps 2014, pp. 31–33
suspicions for political gain. What is more
disturbing is that more Hindu Indians than
before now harbour misgivings about
Indian Muslims who form about 15% of the
population, even going so far as to speak of
them darkly as a “fifth column in our
midst”. India has had several pogroms
against Muslims and in 1992 Hindu mobs
demolished the Barbari Masjid alleging that
a Hindu temple used to stand at that site.
Pakistan’s record is no better. In most areas
of Pakistan minorities, even those belong-
ing to Abrahamic faiths, live in fear of
Islamist zealots.
It is a sad comment about the leadership
of these two countries that in 60 years of
existence there has never been a concerted
government-led effort to bring about recon-
ciliation between the peoples who share
common languages and traditions. The
festering wounds of fratricide and uprooting
remain. Intense “cricket diplomacy”,
How The English
HOW THE ENGLISH
ESTABLISHMENT FRAMED
STEPHEN WARD by Caroline Kennedy
and Phillip Knightley, Createspace
Publishing, 2013, 362 pp., $16.47.
Authors Caroline Kennedy and Phillip Knightley have penned a compellingly well-written account of how the “swinging” London of the 1960s was also sometimes a lynching London. Their topic is of twin and interrelated scandals: the political sex and security scandal best known as the Profumo Affair, and the trial of Stephen Ward, one of John Profumo’s circle (or perhaps more accurately, vice versa). Profumo was a rising political star and former Brigadier; he was then the UK Secretary of State for War.
The authors’ principal contention is that the trial of Stephen Ward was orchestrated to deflect attention from the Profumo affair given the declining fortunes of the government of Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. Elections were on the horizon for 1964. Kennedy and Knightley are well placed to tell the tale. In 1987 they published their very cross-border trade, opening of borders and cultural exchanges are some of the ways that might bring the two peoples closer. But, it will not happen in the lifetime of “Midnight’s Children” like Bhaneja and I. Whether the next generation will be more willing to come together is a conversation for another day.
What did I not like about the book? Very little. I found Chapter 2, “Gandhi Darshan in Birla House”, a digression, which does not contribute to the narrative. But, then Bengal has always been ambivalent about Mahatma Gandhi. More importantly, the book also would have benefitted greatly if the photographs had had captions. But these are minor points which in no way detract from this charming little book about one man’s “returning the family honor”.
“Family honour” is an alien concept
for Canadians. “Closure” is something th Establishment Frame
review and interview by Stuart Hughes successful account, An Affair of State: The Profumo Case and the Framing of Stephen Ward. By lying to the House about his sexual liaison with Ward’s erstwhile girlfriend Christine Keeler, (amusingly described as “the fastest rising fallen woman in Britain”), Profumo had committed an unforgiveable offence in British politics. The government needed to “change the channel” and sideline the Profumo affair before it damaged electoral chances any further.
Neither Profumo nor Ward ever really faded from the British political scene, or in the public mind, despite the intervening years. West End musical theatre magus, Andrew Lloyd Webber (of CATS and other fame), has written a new musical based on the life and death of Stephen Ward. It opened in December of 2013 and draws on Kennedy and Knightley’s earlier work. The timing on this second book is no coincidence, having gone to print in the lead-up to Webber’s opening night. In this new account the authors update their earlier research and argue the case for rescinding Ward’s conviction and clearing his name.
Canadians understand. For Bhaneja, one of Midnight’s Children, this was a personal quest and he has had his “closure” in his own way. He comes to the sad realization that “you can’t go home again” because his birthplace, one of his four worlds, is gone forever. Fortunately for him, Canada, Ireland and India remain.
Ottawa-based Anu Bose is a friend of the Foreign Service. She was born in Calcutta to a highly political Brahmo Samaj (Unitarian) family, in the turbulent, waning days of the Raj. She holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK, in Development Administration with a specialization in Economic Anthropology and Behavioural Economics. She is an independent consultant as well as a consumer and human rights activist and, as she is fond of saying, “somehow
manages to muddle along in four worlds”.
parallels with the waning days of McCarthyism when these twin scandals took place. Perhaps more importantly, our Parliamentary democracy is firmly rooted in the Westminster traditions of the “Mother of Parliaments’; how justice was, and was not, seen to be done in Ward’s case should be of special interest to those grappling with Canada’s ongoing PMO/ Senate scandal.
Ward’s story is succinctly told, a page-turner that politician become best-selling author Jeffrey Archer might envy. One also may quibble here and there: circumstantial evidence of motives may appear compelling but to go from inference to fact is risky business and a few more “it would appear that” or “evidence suggests” would have done the narrative no harm. Occasionally, the authors adopt some of the hyperbole of the News of the World they thoroughly researched (Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct and scandal-plagued London tabloid), as in this seemingly gratuitous swipe: “John F. Kennedy’s sexual appetite was so prodigious and so indiscriminate that he would not have been able to remember (sleeping with Keeler or Rice-Davies during a brief US trip).” Really? The probability of such an encounter seems so remote that the idea of his not being able to remember it — had it occurred — seems even more improbable! But back to our topic…
Stephen Ward was a US-trained London osteopath and WWII officer. He later became a favourite with many of London’s social and economic upper crust thanks to his exceptional talent for soothing aching bodies. His swinging sixties nonchalance about sexual mores and his celebration of heterosexuality (with the likes of a mendacious and fickle Christine Keeler and a coolly self-serving Mandy Rice-Davies) would hardly raise an eyebrow today, but certainly did then with the morally self-righteous.
Ward made good money and made friends with plenty of old money, like the Astors of Cliveden. His financial insouciance could be seen as extremely generous but also as disingenuous when questions of sexual favours arose involving his highly placed friends and the young women he cultivated. In addition, his remarkable talent for portrait sketches of society notables informed an artistic sensibility that predictably defied conventions. His military experience bred patriotism (he briefly acted for MIS during the Cuban missile crisis) and sustained a deep-rooted respect for British justice. However, that ultimately proved sadly misplaced because Ward also, if unwittingly, made himself an easy target for the miscarriage of justice.
The details of Ward’s prosecution and persecution, (there seems no other appropriate word), are marshalled by the authors to great effect. Ward realized that he had been “framed and blamed” by the police, the government, and the judiciary. He was abandoned by his many friends who were either too intimidated, or too preoccupied with their own well-being, to speak the truth. His professional reputation had been sullied beyond recovery, he faced wrongful incarceration and, more simply, his life prospects were now next to nil. In a gesture reminiscent of Canadian Ambassador Herbert Norman’s last act a few years before, (one of US Senator McCarthy’s notable victims in his anti-Communist witch hunt), Ward took the only decision that seemed available to regain some control over his fate and repudiate his tormentors: suicide. As the authors report, the unintended complicity of some in his wrongful death was to haunt them to their own graves.
In Canadian parlance, Ward was thrown under the bus. The principal actor was a government fighting scandals and other political woes as the country prepared for national elections. The book offers a window onto how political scandals once evolved across the pond, something to ponder as Canadians deal with our own issues with closely related political institutions.
In Conversation with Caroline Kennedy
bout: Why do you think the Profumo and Ward stories proved so durable in Britain? CK: This story has remained in the public eye for so long because it left the generation that lived through it with a bad taste in their mouths. Something was not quite right. But, until our original book was published in 1987, no one really knew the truth behind the story. Yes, over the succeeding decades, they had heard Profumo had rehabilitated himself through working with disadvantaged families in the East End of London. They had read conspiracy theorists’ views that Stephen Ward was a pervert, a Communist spy, a master of the black arts or a highly-organized pimp on both sides of the Atlantic, but no one really knew the true story because those that were truly in the know had never opened their mouths. For some reason, in 1984, when I began my research, the timing was right and many, who did not want to go to their graves with the knowledge and insight they had of the story, opened up to me.
bout: Some judicial practices used in the framing of Stephen Ward have been reformed — has enough been done to prevent similar abuses? Did the media really do its job? Has the British establishment mended its ways?
CK: The judicial practice that was glaringly unfair during Ward’s day was that the defendant was tried twice. The first trial was a “hearing” at a Magistrate’s Court where only the prosecution could state its case and the Magistrate would decide whether there was enough evidence to bring the case to the higher court. And it was legal for the press to report on anything said during this hearing. This meant, in effect, that the prosecutor in Ward’s case could outline his evidence against Ward, call Ward “dissolute”, “debauched”, even “evil” and the newspapers could, and did, print it all. The defence had to remain silent. So, in Ward’s case, the public was already primed to find him guilty and, with such a high-profile case, every single newspaper, radio programme and TV show reported avidly every day.
This practice was abolished after Ward’s trial. Newspapers cannot publish details of hearings at Magistrate’s Courts. This has made for a fairer system for the defendant. Tabloid newspapers, as we have seen with the now defunct News of the World, still use questionable methods to gather information. In the information age, phone-tapping and spying have become commonplace.
And, as far as the English political establishment is concerned the hypocrisy continues. If it is not “MPs’ expenses” or “cash for questions” (in the House of Commons) or even, in these times of hardship, the amount MPs’ salaries should increase, they treat their own very differently from the way the rest of us are treated. The double standard is alive and well in English politics.
bout: Did you imagine that Stephen Ward would become the central figure in a Webber musical? What would he have thought of it?
CK: A courtroom drama? — Yes. A movie? — Yes. But a musical? — Definitely not. I was stunned when I heard Andrew Lloyd Webber was planning a musical based on the case of Stephen Ward. I understand he had read my book and the contemporary book written on the trial by Ludovic Kennedy (no relation), who was covering the court case for the BBC. Ward’s story became a passion for ALW. He is currently funding an effort to refer Ward’s case to the Court of Criminal Appeal to have his conviction overturned. He is fighting in the House of Lords to have the Cabinet Papers of the day, the transcript of the trial and the evidence of Lord Denning’s Report released. At first there was a 25-year ban on the release of these papers. With subsequent governments, the release has been extended, at first, to 50 years and then to the current, imprecise explanation, “not until all the sons and daughters of anyone involved in the case have died.” This has obviously led to much speculation as to what the government hopes to hide. bout: Canada’s Parliamentary traditions derive from Westminster, what are some the principal lessons of the Profumo/Ward experience for Canadians?
CK: I wonder if many lessons were learnt from the case even in the UK. A similar case arose 17 years later. An MP, Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party, was accused of trying to murder his male prostitute boyfriend. Whereas in Ward’s case the testimony of known “prostitutes” and perjurers was accepted as evidence, the words of Thorpe’s boyfriend were discarded as “unreliable” because of what he was — a male prostitute. Had Thorpe been anything other than an MP, had he been someone like “Stephen Ward”, for instance, the judge in his case would have found the boyfriend’s testimony completely acceptable. And Thorpe would have been found guilty immediately. But in Thorpe’s case it was the political and judicial establishment protecting their own.
DOUÏ: You lived in the UK, the Philippines, Central America and elsewhere but choose to live in Newfoundland for the summer —why such a special affinity?
CK: I fell in love with Newfoundland in the summer of 1999. I had been working in refugee camps in Bosnia and Croatia during the war, and then in Azerbaijan in a post-conflict setting. With all the tragedy and destruction around me for several years, I was burned out. I needed some R & R. I chose Newfoundland in the hopes of seeing some whales. I was not disappointed. That first summer, and subsequent summers, I spent mostly in the company of literally hundreds of whales that spend their summers feeding along the North Atlantic coastline. Added to the enchantment of the whales was that the people of Newfoundland immediately adopted me as their own, and I was hooked. I love the serenity of the place. I love the fact that I can sit and write while watching whales breaching outside my window. I love the fact I can leave my doors and windows open and not expect intruders to exploit the situation. I love the warmth of the people. And I love the clean air and breathtaking landscapes.
Stuart Hughes is a retired Foreign Service Officer and Editor of bout de papier.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2014) — Spring 2014 // Printemps 2014, pp. 31–33. Read the rest of this issue →
