Captain Yevgeny (Eugene) Ivanov was an assistant Russian Naval Attaché at the Russian Embassy in London and had arrived in England on 27 March 1960. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was also a spy, a fact he readily admits in his autobiography.
When he first arrived at the London Soviet Embassy, Ivanov was greeted warmly. Not only had he been selected to receive the prestigious intelligence training given by the Russian military intelligence unit, GRU, but he was married to the daughter of the chair of the Soviet Supreme Court, Alexander Gorkin. By his marriage, Ivanov was also the brother-in-law of Colonel Konstantinov, who ran the GRU intelligence base in London.1
Despite his unwavering belief in communism, Ivanov was considered quite the partygoer in London, known for a love of drinking and playing bridge, and for being a playboy character.2 Although Ivanov came to the UK with his wife, Maya, according to MI5 files in the National Archives, the fact he was a ladies’ man was accepted within the marriage.3 From his arrival, he was readily involved in Embassy social life, playing volleyball, hosting parties alongside his pretty and amusing wife and spending weekends at the Embassy’s retreat in Hawkhurst, Kent.4
Ivanov dressed to impress. Shirts and shoes from Barkers, suits and ties from Harrods and Christian Dior colognes. There’s even a story that he wanted a pet alligator and visited Harrods in August 1962 to get one.5
Since he was quite obviously an intelligence officer, as Ivanov himself admits, he knew he would be under surveillance by the British. This didn’t stop him rapidly ingratiating himself into the London set. His friendship with Ward meant that the two of them met frequently and socialised extensively together. Ivanov was known to spontaneously call on Ward, and an impromptu trip to a club, to play bridge, or to eat with one of Ward’s friends would ensue.6 Teaming up with Ward meant Ivanov’s excellent English improved further, as did his bridge playing. Sometimes the two men found themselves misbehaving.7
It wasn’t unusual for Ivanov to visit Cliveden, or other English homes. Ivanov spent his last Christmas in England at the Buckinghamshire country house of Lord and Lady Ednam. Lady Ednam was previously known as Maureen Swanson and was a good friend of Ward. The couple liked Ivanov and had played bridge and dined together. Knightley and Kennedy say that Ivanov was unique in his success at infiltrating such a large and influential group of friends and acquaintances.8 In return for his introductions to society, Ward was a frequent guest at Soviet Embassy parties.
On the weekend in question, Ward invited Ivanov to Cliveden, although from the outset it was known that the Russian had to leave earlier than the rest of the party for a return trip to London.
Keeler had met Ivanov at Ward’s flat, where he often bought gifts of vodka and caviar. It was Ivanov who ended up taking Keeler home that weekend, driving her back to the home she shared with Ward, with both then reputedly drinking spirits and sleeping together.9
For Christine’s part, it seems she was put out Howard-Jones had arrived at Cliveden with a beautiful woman that she was instantly jealous of. While Howard-Jones and Keeler had had a brief affair that lasted a couple of months, later he said he’d struggled to make conversation with Keeler and found her disappointingly dull in bed.10 Howard-Jones’s indifference made Keeler happy to leave with Eugene. She found Ivanov both a boring conversationalist and unenthusiastic lover that night but believed that Ivanov pushed to have sex with her purely because Ward had told him to do it.11 In Keeler’s mind, as Ivanov’s lover, this would mean she would be implicated as part of the spy ring.
Rice-Davies believes that Keeler found Ivanov very attractive long before this weekend, however, adding that the Russian visited the Wimpole Mews flat every day.12 She adds that he was one of the most charming people she had ever met, likening his good looks to that of James Bond. She also says he was very easy to talk to, funny, kind and genial.13 She herself enjoyed discussing Russia and communism with him, although discussing political ideology was new to her.
When Ward returned on Monday, Keeler says he quizzed her about the experience and later relayed the intimate details to a later female guest.14 Ward also told Keeler he had given Profumo her number and was desperate to encourage her to date him.
Just two days later, Ivanov and the Profumos would meet again at a reception at the Russian Embassy held in honour of Major Yuri Gagarin, the first cosmonaut to return from space. Profumo had already contacted Keeler and taken her out. Ward was also invited to the lavish reception. It seems Profumo, Ivanov and Ward were always to be in each other’s orbits.
According to Keeler, Ivanov disappeared from London on 29 January 1963.15 Mandy Rice-Davies says that Ivanov called Ward’s flat on the night of the Edgecombe shooting, and, since Ward was not there, she spoke to him and told him what had happened. After that, Rice says that Ivanov didn’t call back, and never saw Stephen again.16 Could he guess what was to come?
The Denning Report included details of Ivanov’s departure, noting that leaving England may have been accelerated due to the events. Many people have suggested that this was because he could no longer continue his espionage work once his role in the Profumo Affair came to light. However, at least one person disagreed with that enough to call into the Metropolitan Police. National Archive files have a record of a Surrey resident, Mr Colin Wilton-Davies, a scientist, recounting a conversation he had with Ivanov after meeting him at a reception given by the Congress of Underwater Activities. When Wilton-Davies spoke to Ivanov, in early October 1962, Ivanov said then that he expected to return to Russian in about three months, meaning that his return to Russia in January 1963 was pre-planned and it was a coincidence that it occurred when Profumo was exposed.17
In 1992, Ivanov’s version of events was published in a book. While the foreword explains it was Gennady Sokolov who wrote the book, the details within the pages come from taped conversations between Sokolov and Ivanov dating from 1988 to 1991. Surrounded by controversy, Sokolov says the former GRU agent showed great courage in discussing his past. Since retired GRU officers are forbidden from revealing information, some names have been changed, and certain details and facts omitted. Sokolov also hinted that the need for secrecy may also be connected to the fact that agents recruited by Ivanov in Britain in the 1960s might still be active spies at the time of publication.
Sokolov admits that the contents of the book cannot be proved or corroborated, and that the word of a professional spy is, by its very nature, subject to suspicion. Ivanov was often ill during the six-year period that the book was researched, and Ivanov’s battle with alcohol did affect him physically, including memory problems. The First Deputy Chief of the GRU at the time said that Sokolov’s book was evil and dangerous. Writing from Moscow, Sokolov, however, says in the foreword that the book is the first testimony about the part Russia played in the Profumo Affair.18
Ivanov’s account of his life as a spy seems to be a brutally honest one. He freely admits that when he worked for the Russian government, he believed in the Communist Party. He says he was proud that his country had beaten fascism and sent a sputnik into outer space. However, later in his life he struggled when he learnt the truth about Stalin’s tyrannical rule, making him feel bitter. Thus, he had trouble reconciling his early ideals and his past with how he felt about the party.
Born in January 1926, Ivanov grew up in the town of Pskov. His mother was one of the nobility but his father was a peasant. His mother had been deprived of her rank in the 1917 revolution and so, as an orphan, worked in a tobacco factory to look after herself and a younger sister. It was here she met her future husband, by then a recruit in the Red Army. The marriage was peaceful and happy. With a father in the military, Ivanov got used to moving often, learning to make new friends and speak new languages regularly. He also picked up a love of machinery and could drive, operate a radio station and shoot a gun from a young age. From there, he became a cadet in the Red Navy School and was later admitted to the elite military diplomatic academy, which trained secret service personnel. He had officially started his career in the field of intelligence.
Writing of the Profumo Affair, Ivanov’s book says the scandal remains relevant because of the mix of politics, espionage, sex and the blighted careers of many high-ranking individuals. He must count his own development among those jobs affected, as it appears he was recalled to Moscow when the scandal hit the headlines. The Russian connection to the scandal remained a secret until his book was published, claims Ivanov, who believes the establishments in Britain, Norway (where Ivanov was also posted for a time) and the old Soviet Union deliberately concealed it.
Interestingly, Ivanov says it was a member of the establishment that caused much of the trouble, without even realising. Newspaper editor Sir Colin Coote gave Ivanov access to senior officials, he says, simply by introducing him to Stephen Ward, something he never asked Coote to do. Without his introduction to Ward, Ivanov would not have gained access to Cliveden and gone on to make the acquaintance of lords, ministers, councillors and businessmen.
Ivanov met Coote at a Soviet Embassy party in early November 1960, as he struggled to make headway getting an ‘in’ to the British way of life. Desperate to please his Moscow bosses, ahead of the event that celebrated the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution in his homeland, Ivanov had studied the guestlist closely, identifying those individuals who could be useful to him and preparing conversation-starters. Through the event, he hoped to establish a contact that would help him to discover the strategic and operational plans of NATO countries and the British government, and how the military forces of the UK and the USA were working together.
One such person was the managing editor of the Daily Telegraph, who Ivanov knew was a member of the prestigious Other Club, a dining club co-founded in 1911 by Churchill, which also counted John Profumo as one of its members alongside Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. Not surprisingly, Ivanov was keen to break into this particular social circle and successfully engaged Sir Colin in conversation at the party. Just a week later, Colin Coote was happily showing Ivanov around the printing presses, which gave the Russian the chance to find out that Coote had fought in the First World War and lost a lung in a German gas attack. Perhaps understandably, Coote was therefore not a fan of the deployment of chemical and nuclear weapons in West Germany. Ivanov had found Coote’s weak spot, and a friendship was formed. And Ivanov’s luck got even better when, shortly after, Coote invited him to a now infamous Garrick Club lunch along with David Floyd, the Daily Telegraph’s special correspondent on communist affairs.19 It was there that Ivanov met Stephen Ward, and the pathway to John Profumo and Bill Astor was laid.
According to Ivanov, he and Ward hit it off immediately. After the Garrick Club lunch, Ward took his new friend to his clinic on Devonshire Street to show him exactly what osteopathy was. Ivanov found Ward talkative and eloquent. He also says that Ward crowed that he treated nearly everyone of note, both British and foreigners alike,20 name-dropping the likes of Churchill, ex-Defence Minister Peter Thorneycroft, Eisenhower, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra. Ivanov knew then he had hit a goldmine of contacts.
The talk then turned to another of Ward’s passions, gardening, and Ward explained to Ivanov that his cottage garden was on the Cliveden estate belonging to Bill Astor. Ward also added that Astor owed his health to him after the lord fell from his horse and was also responsible for Bill meeting his wife Bronwen, who was twenty-five years younger than the peer. Ivanov was delighted when Ward said the Russian was welcome to visit.
Rice-Davies says Ward and Ivanov went everywhere together, and that the charming Russian was welcome anywhere he went.21 She also adds that Ivanov always had cash and a high standard of living, spending his money freely. Later, Rice-Davies says, she learnt that Russian agents are groomed and trained to mix in society. She also says she asked Ward if his friend was a spy, and he told her that everybody that worked at the Russian Embassy was a spy. She even broached the subject with Ivanov himself. His explanation was more complex, and although he denied being an actual spy, he said he knew something about spying. He went on to explain that titbits of information seem meaningless on their own but once they are all fed back to an intelligence HQ, a picture can be assembled as if it were a jigsaw.22
Over the two years that Ivanov befriended Ward, the osteopath took him to nearly all the clubs in Pall Mall and St James’s, the Connaught Club in Marble Arch and small card clubs. The Russian found the Carlton to be the hideout of high-ranking Conservatives, the Travellers’ the backyard of medium-rank Foreign Office officials, and the Garrick and White’s the place to find high society. Ivanov says that these locations were at the core of the establishment’s power and held all the information and secrets he sought.23 He goes on to explain that his visits to these London locations, combined with bridge evenings at Ward’s Wimpole Mews apartment, weekends at Spring Cottage within Cliveden and lunching with high-ranking officials, allowed him to target his chosen six targets for espionage.
Of the targets Ivanov planned to obtain information from, Ward was his pass to the majority of them. At the top of this list sat Secretary of State for War John Profumo and his wife Valerie Hobson, followed by the Astors. After that came Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones and billionaire Paul Getty, all also connected to Ward. The final two targets were Sir Colin Coote and fellow press connection Paul Ritchey. Ivanov also had one more person on his list that he refers to as ‘Captain Souls’, who he says he recruited to work for Soviet intelligence. Ivanov also says that all of his attempts at espionage with these targets succeeded, except in the case of Paul Getty.
But it wasn’t a one-sided relationship. Ivanov also says Ward also gained valuable contacts via their friendship, particularly in his artistic career. While it was unusual for Soviet ministers to meet journalists unless at official press conferences, Ivanov was able to get Ward portraiture access to Minister for Culture Yekaterina Furtseva when she visited London. Ward was able to sketch the minister, which, with a short write-up, was then included in the Daily Telegraph. Furtseva was pleased with the flattering picture, and suggested Ward come to Russia and be introduced to premier Nikita Sergeyevich. It was an unparalleled opportunity.
With such a relationship established, it’s likely Ward trusted Ivanov completely. This could explain Ivanov’s account of Ward taking him to the home of Winston Churchill on the way to Cliveden one Sunday. Ward was heading to Churchill’s to treat his back and Ivanov was without his car that day so tagged along. Ivanov says he was left in the living room while Ward saw his octogenarian patient. During this time, Ivanov took the opportunity to look at papers left in the room. The papers, Ivanov says, included a letter about the new NATO strategy of ‘forward-based defence’, with West Germany assigned the role of a buffer zone, armed with nuclear weapons. Ivanov memorised what he could before the other men joined him. If true, Ivanov was indeed fortunate as a Russian agent to be left alone in a room containing such sensitive documents.
Ivanov says he bided his time at Cliveden, knowing that eventually he would meet Lord Astor. In preparation, he read up on the Astor family and listened carefully when Ward returned from treating Bill in the main house, full of information about who was visiting there. In time, Ivanov was invited to dine with the Astors, of course, and over dinner conversation made a friend of Lord Astor after which, Ivanov says, he had an open invitation to visit.24 The Russian further improved his chances of socialising with the lord and his Cliveden guests by learning and perfecting his bridge game. Ivanov also says he even offered to redesign Ward’s garden at Spring Cottage as a pretext for spending even more time there.25
Once he was an accepted guest at Cliveden, Ivanov says he used the opportunity to understand the layout of the house and gain access to rooms such as Astor’s study and library. He used a miniature Minox camera hidden under his tie to copy documents and correspondence. If he stole paperwork, he slipped it into an inside pocket his wife had sewn into his suit for this purpose. In this way, Ivanov claims he had access to such items as a letter to Astor that mentioned the delivery of the US Skybolt missiles to Britain, a project that was later dropped. Ivanov sent his findings direct to Moscow and considered his time playing bridge at Cliveden as a win/win situation, because even if he lost at cards, the information he mined while playing was far more important than any monetary gain he might make.26
Horne also says that Ivanov wanted to rent a cottage in the Cliveden estate just as Ward did.27
However, for all his planning, Ivanov’s attempts at using his relationship with the Astors and their powerful social circle were thwarted. Ivanov admitted that the fallout from the Profumo Affair meant that he and Ward were no longer welcome at Cliveden.28 All the access he had worked so hard to gain was now denied him.
Ivanov describes Christine Keeler, who he first met at Ward’s flat in the spring of 1961, in flattering terms, calling her ‘attractive’.29 Although he struggled to understand why Ward helped Keeler and Rice-Davies to meet influential people, he says that Keeler immediately caught his eye and possessed some kind of magic. He admits he left Cliveden with Keeler, after an evening in which he failed to get any useful information out of the high-ranking guests assembled there. He also says that Ward specifically asked him to take Keeler back to London with him as he left because Profumo was clearly very taken with her and couldn’t help but alert his wife to his wandering eye with his behaviour. He goes on to claim that Keeler seduced him and that he found her irresistible, but also felt that by sleeping with her, he had gained an ally. He also adds that he slept with her on a further occasion, by which time her attention had moved on to someone new. He doesn’t specify who this was, however.
However, he was well aware that the fact Keeler had been both his and Profumo’s lover was a valuable resource, making blackmail for information a possibility. He later learned that Moscow Centre was happy to sanction this form of espionage too, but that the plan failed because after the shooting at Ward’s flat, any GRU operation was foiled.30
MI5 files held at the National Archives show that when Ivanov returned to the Soviet Union in March 1962, staying until June, the British security services believed he may have well been receiving further instructions as to how to proceed in his work. By this time, the files suggest, that he would have known about Profumo’s relationship with Keeler and could perhaps have been briefed on how to best exploit it.31
Ivanov used the occasion of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s visit to the embassy’s party as an opportunity to further get to know the Profumos, inviting the couple along to the event. While Jack kept Ivanov at a distance, the Russian says he found it much easier to chat to Valerie Hobson.
Unable to get the information he wanted out of Profumo by casual chit-chat, Ivanov hoped to use Profumo’s affair with Keeler to his advantage instead. While he had played along with Profumo’s cheating in the infamous Cliveden swimming pool games, when Keeler was perched on his shoulders, Ivanov thought Profumo underestimated him, not realising he was playing a longer game. Ivanov says Profumo was mistaken too when he thought nobody other than Ward knew about his affair with Keeler and when he assumed Keeler would keep quiet about their liaison.
Throughout his time in England, Ivanov says British Intelligence were well aware of his real mission to the country and followed him everywhere. He says that every day in the early 1960s he had to deal with the surveillance32 and that MI5 were shadowing him more and more by the Spring of 1961.33 At that point, Soviet diplomats, journalists and other officials living in London could travel no further than 35 miles from the capital unless special permission was obtained from the Foreign Office. The trip itinerary and the hotel reservation confirmations all had to be declared. He also believes MI5 tapped his telephone but admits that the Russians also listened in to British calls.34 Everyone was playing by the same rules, it seems.
Once the Profumo scandal hit the headlines, however, it was game over for Ivanov, as he explains that he was recalled in January 1963 once the incident in Wimpole Mews brought everything out into the open.35
Ivanov left England when it was suffering from fog, heavy snow and frosts, the like of which hadn’t been seen for 150 years. He says he said goodbye to his friend Ward, and acquaintances such as Coote and Lord Astor, giving his mother’s sickness as the excuse for his recall. Knowing his phone was tapped, Ivanov says he booked a flight on 29 January, and then instead left by train and ferry via Chatham.
Lord Denning reported that Ivanov saw Ward to bid him farewell on 18 January, warning him the story might break soon. But Ward’s friends, Noel Howard-Jones and John Zeiger, say the osteopath last saw the Russian at Christmas and was very hurt to that Ivanov didn’t even call to say goodbye in person. Mandy Rice-Davies also says Ward was hurt by Ivanov’s silent departure.36
Later Ivanov learnt that it was Kim Philby who had told the KGB about the impending fallout from the Profumo scandal and saved him from becoming ensnared.37
What happened to Ivanov after he left the UK for Moscow was the subject of some rumour. When asked about it at a dinner, one Russian Embassy staff member told an inquirer that nobody in the Embassy had liked Ivanov because of the arrogance his position afforded him, which was taken to mean since he was a well-connected GRU operative. This Russian Assistant Naval Attaché also said that contrary to reports, Ivanov didn’t get a medal for his work in London, and there was no truth to the rumour that he was in prison.38
Ivanov died in January 1994, but the book he left behind has not been without controversy. In 2015, research from Cambridge scholar Professor Jonathan Haslam indicated that there was no need for Ivanov to ask Keeler to find out anything from Profumo because he was able to walk into Profumo’s study and photograph top-secret documents. Haslam claims that when he studied the Russian version of the Ivanov memoir, it reveals that Valerie Hobson left the Russian unattended in the study, while Profumo had sensitive documents visible there without following any security protocols. Haslam says that the passages in the book were removed for the UK market because of the threat of libel being brought against the book’s UK publishers, as Valerie Profumo was known to be extremely sensitive about the contents of Ivanov’s memoirs.39
Interestingly, Ivanov’s memoir does not mention any offers of recruitment he received from the British intelligence services, despite MI5 records showing that an agent codenamed Cat Burglar had been given this mission. The agent reportedly made friends with Ivanov after approaching him at Bayswater’s Columbia Club. Cat Burglar used the threat of Russia recalling him over his womanising and drinking in an attempt to ‘turn’ him.40
Always perplexed by his sudden disappearance, Mandy Rice-Davies claims that she was later told by an ex-CIA agent that the CIA took Ivanov and that he was an involuntary defector.41 Although I’m sure that Rice-Davies was used to hearing a lot of fanciful stories from men trying to impress or intrigue her.