Joachim Joesten's Der fall Profumo is a true account of the Profumo sex scandal that rocked Britain's conservative government in 1963, eventually brigning about the resignation of Secretary of State for War John Profumo. The book was translated from the original German into Dutch by J. P. M. van Elswijk for Dutch publishers De Kennemer and made into what you see above, and newly titled Christine Keeler.

The names of the other players in the story—Profumo, Yevgeni Ivanov, and Stephen Ward—were listed just below, so sometimes you'll see the title of the book written as Christine Keeler, Profumo, Ward, Ivanov. An unwieldy title perhaps, but the book came out the same year the scandal occurred, which means the names would have been instantly recognizable to bookstore browsers.

You've doubtless heard about Keeler and company as well, but if not check here for a quick overview. Even back then it was Keeler who was the central figure, and today she's the one that's remembered, while the others have become bit players in her story. That's why the beautiful cover painted by Dutch artist Martin Oortwijn is so appropriate. Obviously he was an illustrator with special talent. We managed to find a couple of other pieces by him, so we'll get to him a bit later. 

This Inside Story from November 1963 features cover star Christine Keeler and the people in her life, while the left of the page has insets with Mamie Van Doren and Anthony Quinn. We’ve covered Keeler. Hers was one of the most flogged scandals of the 1960s, and Inside Story editors are well aware of that, which is why they claim to have new information. But it’s nothing new—just rehash on Keeler, a background on Czech call girl Maria Stella Novotny, who was well known by this time as one of Keeler’s colleagues, and standard red scare stuff about motel rooms set up with microphones and two-way mirrors. We will get back to Novotny, however—her tale offers some interesting twists and turns.

Inside Story shares stories about Mamie Van Doren, Jackie Gleason, Peter O’Toole, Ava Gardner and a nervous tailor who measured her for a suit, and how perfume makes men go wild. Editors also decry the injustice of a Harlem restaurant refusing to serve a white woman—this, mind you, during an era when literally hundreds of thousands of U.S. enclaves, from restaurants to schools to country clubs to sectors of the military, were whites-only. False equivalence, thy name is Inside Story. But interestingly, a subsequent piece about the world’s sexiest nightclubs tells readers chic Harlem bars are frequented by white Hollywood stars. And so it goes…

Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the central figures in the John Profumo Affair of 1963, died of cancer early this morning. Most accounts of the scandal describe Rice-Davies as a prostitute, and indeed Stephen Ward, one of the principals in the fiasco, was imprisoned for living off the earnings of Rice-Davies and other women—another way of saying he pimped. But Rice-Davies spent a good portion of her final years denying she was a call girl, saying she didn’t want her grandchildren to remember her that way.

Whatever her means of support during the Profumo Affair, what is certainly true is that she was young and beautiful and somehow found herself at the nexus where rich, entitled men and beautiful women always seem to meet. The Profumo Affair's world of secret parties, middle-aged male egos, and a lurking Soviet spy came into being during the most paranoid years of the Cold War, and John Profumo’s role in it cost him his position as Secretary of State for War in the British government.