Ineffectual but Innocent

Her Majesty's Stationery Office announced jubilantly last week that the celebrated blue-bound volume entitled Lord Denning's Report (price: $1.05) had sold nearly 100,000 copies in 24 hours, an alltime record for an official document. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition had somewhat less reason to rejoice. The report, based on a three-month investigation of the Profumo affair by Britain's second-ranking judge, dismissed most major charges and every squalid rumor of government culpability in the case. In 60,000 lucid words, Denning rejected persistent reports that other Tory ministers had been involved in bizarre sexual exploits, left no grounds for belief that John Pro-fumo's affair with Christine Keeler had resulted in any leakage of Allied secrets, and quashed partisan speculation that Harold Macmillan's Cabinet had sought to protect the former War Secretary in order to avoid another scandal.

But Britain, though relieved at the A-plus report on its rulers' morals, was chagrined by the detailed picture of muddle inside the government. Denning concluded that the Prime Minister and his advisers were naive and even careless in accepting a philanderer's denials of philandering. "The conduct of Mr. Profumo," as Denning put it, "was such as to create, among an influential section of the people, a reasonable belief that he had committed adultery. It was the responsibility of the Prime Minister and his colleagues, and of them only, to deal with this situation, and they did not succeed in doing so."

Provider of Popsies. Britain's serious press was more critical of the Prime Minister. The Tory Daily Telegraph headlined its Page One account of the report: PREMIER "FAILED" IN PROFUMO AFFAIR. The Times demanded to know why Macmillan had not himself questioned Profumo or checked into other evidence in the case, pointing out that the "Prime Minister selects his ministerial colleagues; responsibility for their fitness for office is his, and serious imputations on their character must concern him personally."

Nevertheless, the report bore little resemblance to the sizzling expose for which Macmillan's critics had hoped. In a post-Denning TV attack on the government, Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson rehashed the weary charge that the Tories have debased public morality. As for the public, most Britons were so happily absorbed in Denning's brisk, chatty account of upper-crust sinning that many TV sets stayed dark.

The late Stephen Ward, as pictured in the report, was not only "the provider of popsies for rich people" but caterer as well "to their perverted tastes," and an avowed Communist sympathizer who yearned to paint Khrushchev's portrait. His close friend, Soviet Naval Attache Evgeny Ivanov, was a spy who made no secret of his activities. Poor Christine was "enmeshed in a network of wickedness" from the time she arrived in London at the age of 16 and took a job as a showgirl--"which involved, as she put it, just walking around with no clothes on."

Denning went to particular pains to investigate widespread rumors about other government ministers, even tried to get corroboration from a French paper that purported to list the officials and their peccadilloes. (The French editor did not reply to Denning's request.) The judge found "a great deal of evidence" about fashionable parties at which "the man who serves the dinner is nearly naked except for a small square lace apron round his waist" and a black mask over his head so he "cannot be recognized." The dinner, it appears, is "followed by perverted sex orgies; the guests undress and engage in sexual intercourse one with the other, and indulge in other sexual activities of a vile and revolting nature."

Added Denning: "My only concern was to see whether any Minister or other person prominent in public life was present at these parties." The judge, who found that no Top Person had even attended the orgies, actually unmasked the masked man as an unimportant fellow who is "now grievously ashamed of what he did."

In the course of his investigation, Denning reports, one Cabinet minister asked him to track down "damaging rumors" naming him as the "headless man," an otherwise unidentified corespondent in the Argyll divorce case, who reportedly paid to have his face cropped from pornographic pictures introduced at the trial. The minister in question submitted to an examination by a doctor "of the highest eminence," proving that his "physical characteristics differed in unmistakable and significant respects" from those of the duchess' nude friend. Lord Denning could hardly resist adding that he had obtained new evidence that "indicated who the 'unknown man' was. But I need not go into it here."

On to A.D. Thus, despite Profumo's famous fall, Denning concludes that there has been no "decline in the integrity of public life." To many critics, however, the judge's verdict on the main issue he was supposed to investigate, the security question, was far from reassuring. The report concedes that Profumo "disclosed a character defect which pointed to his being a security risk," adding that Christine might well have tried to "blackmail him or bring pressure on him to disclose secret information." Indeed, suggests Denning, Ivanov may have been under express orders from the Soviet government to blow up a scandal involving Profumo, in the hope that it would weaken U.S. trust in the government--and "he succeeded only too well."

Yet the report notes that the Security Service did not even know of Chris tine's affair with Profumo until 18 months later. Then, when it was finally discovered, the anonymous head of Britain's security decided "it was not within the proper scope of the Security Service to inquire into these matters," since "it was not a case of a security risk but of moral misbehavior by a Minister."

The judge supports this decision as well as the gentlemanly tradition that British Cabinet ministers--unlike civil servants--should be exempt from surveillance save in dire national emer gencies. Concludes Denning: "It would be intolerable to us to have anything in the nature of a Gestapo or Secret Police to snoop into all that we do, let alone into our morals."

Only 21 1/2 hours A.D., as Whitehall wags called the period After Denning,* the Prime Minister broadcast his own interpretation of the report. It had little to do with Denning. Said Macmillan bravely: "The report only confirms what I've said, that most people have a feeling of sympathy for us for having been treated in this way, rather than blame for having fallen a victim to deceit." He added the astonishing comment: "There is no machinery but common sense for finding out when a man is telling the truth." It was precisely the lack of common sense for which Macmillan & Co. bore a burden of blame. At this time of Profumo's ringing denials, high Tory officials knew that the War Minister had often been alone with Christine, and they had been told of a "Darling" letter from Jack--which no one bothered to investigate.

Macmillan's Kiplingesque oration was aimed primarily at the rank-and-file Tories who would attend the annual party conference in two weeks and there help decide whether he or a younger figure should lead them into the next election. One thing was certain: the government cannot now afford an election until 1964; it will probably go to the people next spring if Britain's economy is still as effervescent as it is this fall.

Neither party had quite finished with the Denning report, which should be laid to rest in a House of Commons debate next month. But the judge's bestseller was the nation's assurance that the election campaign will concern itself with issues far more vital to Britain's future than the private vices of public men.

-As opposed to B.C. -- Before Christine.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.