Profumo died peacefully late Thursday night, surrounded by his family at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said its spokesman, Mark Purcell. Profumo had been admitted there two days earlier.

Profumo was secretary of state for war -- the defense secretary -- when he was involved with Christine Keeler in 1963. At the same time, she was seeing a Soviet naval attache and intelligence agent.

Although there proved to be no breach of security, the scandal rattled the government to its foundations, made celebrities of call girls Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, and transfixed newspaper readers around the world.

Far more damaging than a tawdry association with Keeler and their meetings at the apartment of osteopath Stephen Ward was the fact that she was sharing her favors with Soviet agent Yevgeny Ivanov.

He said Ivanov and Profumo "did no doubt narrowly miss one another on occasions; and this afforded Stephen Ward and Christine Keeler much amusement."

Ivanov had told Ward in 1961 that the Soviets knew the United States was about to supply atomic weapons to West Germany and he asked Ward to find out through his friends when that decision was to be implemented, Denning said.

"Mr. Profumo was also clear that she never asked him, and I am quite sure that he would not have told her if she had asked him," Denning concluded.

The scandal was a severe blow to the government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Macmillan resigned in November 1963 for health reasons, and his Conservative Party went on to lose the national elections in 1964.

There was a sensational trial. Ward was convicted of living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies. He took a drug overdose during the trial and died after the verdicts were announced.

Keeler was convicted of perjury for her testimony against Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon, a Jamaican who was accused of causing "grievous bodily harm" to her in an incident that originally drew attention to the Profumo affair. Gordon's conviction was reversed by the Court of Appeal.

Profumo retreated from the public eye and looked for something to do with his life. His wife, actress Valerie Hobson, whom he had married in 1954, stood by him throughout the scandal. She died in 1998.

Profumo was a wealthy man, the Harrow- and Oxford-educated son of a prominent lawyer descended from an Italian aristocrat who settled in England in 1880 and owned a large stake in the Provident Life Association. A Swiss takeover of the firm in 1981 yielded Profumo more than 6 million pounds (then worth nearly US$12 million).

He had served in North Africa during World War II, received a U.S. Bronze Star and was made a military OBE, or Officer of the Order of British Empire, for his service. He was elected to Parliament in 1940.

About a year after his public disgrace, Profumo found work as an unpaid helper at Toynbee Hall, a charity for the poor in London's East End. He began as a dishwasher, worked in a social club for alcoholics, became a fundraiser for the charity, then its chairman, and eventually its president.

In 1989, Thompson appealed to filmmakers to give up plans to make the movie "Scandal" about the Profumo affair. It was unjust, he said, to make the Profumos live through it once again. The movie was eventually released that year.

"In their story there is much for their grandchildren to be proud of, and they can bear the name of Profumo without shame; with honor and not with scandal."

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