Profumo Scandal Embroiled Britain

It was the scandal that launched a thousand headlines. The Profumo scandal of the 1960s, which whipped Fleet Street into the kind of frenzy only the British press can muster, is examined on its 50th anniversary in An English Affair, a new book by Richard Davenport-Hines. What began with the arrest of official John Vassall for spying quickly became a vast imbroglio that ensnared the highest reaches of government—and revealed the entanglements of sex, power, and money in Britain.