A Case of Peers and Playgirls

"There has been for some time a general feeling of unrest in this country as to the morality of the present government." Thus wrote the Conservative Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed a decade ago, commenting on the sex-and-security Profumo affair that embarrassed and eventually helped bring down the Tory government of Harold Macmillan. John Profumo,* added Lord Lambton, should have resigned as soon as rumors began to circulate about his involvement with Call Girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies and the Soviet military attache.

Last week Lord Lambton -- whose family motto is Le Jour Arrivera (The Day Will Come) -- found it convenient to act on his own advice of ten years before. Linked to a call girl, he stepped down as Under-Secretary of Defense for the Royal Air Force. Next day Lord Jellicoe, Leader of the House of Lords and holder of the ancient office of Lord Privy Seal, resigned for similar reasons.

For the British press, it was a return to the good old days. SEX RINGREPORT FOR THE PRIME MINISTER screamed one headline; THE CALL GIRL AND THE LORD roared another. There were two major differences this time round, however: the compromising of national security, a paramount consideration in the Profumo case, seemed barely greatest affront involved, if at all. Profumo's greatest affront to pubilc morality--lying before Parliament in his initial denial of the charges-- was not repeated.

Lord Lambton, 50, is a diffident, nonchalant aristocrat, who has been an M.P. for 22 years. In 1970, after the death of his father, he disclaimed the hereditary title of Earl of Durham in order to stay in the Commons. Once an outspoken and contentious backbencher, Antony Claud Frederick ("Tony") Lambton in recent years apparently became bored with politics. His family pedigree dates back before the 12th century, and there is a legendary curse, acquired in the 14th century, that dooms the family heads to die violently (many have: Lambton's elder brother, for example, committed suicide in 1941).

A scandal started to bubble after a police raid in March on a Soho pornography shop turned up a black notebook chock-full of prominent names and addresses. As investigations progressed, Lambton's name turned up. Last year he had slipped into a series of casual liaisons with a black model he knew only as "Betty." They met in a two-bedroom flat, owned by a blonde identified as Mrs. Nora, or Norma, Levy, near Lambton's own $400,000 home in the fashionable London section of St. John's Wood. Unknown to the M.P., Mrs. Levy's business agent had installed cameras behind two-way mirrors set into the apartment's walls and ceiling and bugged the room. As police began to close in after the notebook was found, the conspirators tried to sell the photos and tapes to a London paper, the Sunday News of the World, for $80,000. The editors called the police, and Lambton's name was passed along to Prime Minister Edward Heath, who or dered a full investigation by Scotland Yard and M15.

The only uncoded name in the little black book was that of Lord Jellicoe, who as Leader of the House of Lords is a Cabinet member. As such he had some access to state secrets. Described by a colleague as "plump, pinstriped and good-natured," Jellicoe, 55, is the son of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Jellicoe (victor of the Battle of Jutland in World War I), the godson of George V and the possessor of a splendid World War II record (Distinguished Service Order, Military Cross and Croix de guerre), spent three years as deputy Tory leader in the Lords before becoming Leader in 1970. In 1966 his first wife charged him with desertion and adultery and was granted a divorce. Jellicoe remarried almost immediately, and has two children by his second marriage.

When Heath informed him that his name had been linked with a call-girl ring, Jellicoe resigned immediately. "Unhappily," he wrote to the Prime Minister, "there was justification [for these allegations]. I deeply regret that my own conduct makes it impossible for me to continue." Lambton's statement was more outspoken. "I have been in politics long enough," he wrote, "to know that if any unpleasant truth is covered up, rumor multiplies, and the innocent become involved. I have no excuses whatsoever. I have behaved with credulous stupidity." That stupidity was compounded by the fact that a small amount of cannabis was found in his possession; Lambton was charged on this count.

Family Backing. Aside from the lubricious newspaper stories, British reaction was surprisingly blase. Sexual strictures, apparently, have eased considerably since the Profumo affair. The families of the men involved also seemed cool and nonchalant. Lambton was staunchly backed by Wife Belinda and his six children (aged eleven to 30) as well. "Mummy is sticking," said one of his daughters. Added another: "What a sad thing over a relatively trivial matter. Politics was Father's life." Jellicoe's misfortune also seemed to have a good chance of being overlooked at home: his eldest son, Viscount Brocas, 22, fathered a child out of wedlock a year before his marriage.

Heath seemed somewhat less than furious at the potential embarrassment caused his government. He wrote Jellicoe, for example, that his decision to resign "accords with the best traditions of British public life."

Meticulously refraining from calumny during his Commons speech, Heath detailed the course of the investigations and then pledged that "there are no grounds for supposing that any other minister or any member of the public service is involved." Noted the Times of London: "Mr Heath does not need to learn the lesson taught to President Nixon by the Watergate scandal

he has made clear that any attempt to cover up the facts must make a bad situation worse." At week's end rumors persisted that at least one more minister, as well as several other prominent British public figures, might be implicated in a continuing police investigation of a huge vice syndicate. Heath added that he proposed to invite the Permanent Security Commission headed by Lord Justice Diplock "to verify that there has been no breach of security as a result of the incidents."

After that, Lord Lambton went into seclusion on the family estate in Durham, Lord Jellicoe was with his wife at Tidcombe Manor, their country home in southern England, and the Prime Minister himself departed for a quiet weekend at Chequers.

* Since his resignation as Macmillan's Secretary of State for War, Profumo has been a full-time social worker in the London slums.

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