Christine Keeler's Diary, Letters, Passport, and Photos to Auction

Christine Keeler was 21 when she was thrust into the limelight, becoming a household name as the woman at the heart of the 1960s Profumo scandal that nearly brought down the British government.
 
Keeler (1942-2017) was befriended by Stephen Ward, a well-connected and successful osteopath in 1960s London. In the summer of 1961, Ward – with the connivance of MI5 – encouraged Keeler to become the unknowing bait in a ‘honeytrap’ operation targeting Soviet naval attaché and KGB agent Yevgeny Ivanov. However, soon after, Keeler met Jack Profumo, Secretary of State for War, when she was skinny-dipping in the pool at Lord Astor’s country home, Cliveden House. Keeler then embarked on a relationship with Profumo. In December 1962 the tabloid press caught on to the story, whipping up a media frenzy that led to Parliament declaring the matter a national security issue.

By the end of 1963, Keeler was accused of lying at an assault trial and under pressure following a year of public shaming pleaded guilty to perjury and spent six months in prison.

The auction will offer Christine Keeler's Harrods diary from 1962 with appointments recorded throughout, alongside various notes and sketches, her British Passport issued in 1961 and with trips through to 1964, a telegram from her estranged father at the time of her trial, plus letters to and from her mother and stepfather from her time in prison. Coming to auction directly from her family, these personal items were kept by Keeler in her possession until she passed away. They will be offered jointly with an estimate of £8,000-12,000, as part of Sotheby’s Books & Manuscripts online auction, June 26 – July 11.

Detailing her daily – and hourly – engagements, the diary is annotated with hundreds of appointments, providing names - often incomplete - , addresses and telephone numbers. It records lunches and parties (such as “Peter’s Party” on February 5), gives addresses for evening plans, interviews for modelling work, and occasional intimate details. There is also the odd shopping list outlining the additions to her wardrobe, and countless hair appointments. Hinting at the scandal to come, Ward’s name appears many times and elsewhere she makes a note of the phone number for Mandy Rice-Davies, another of the women involved in the wider scandal.