I do not agree. The security services found as soon as Ivanov left the country on 28th January, long before the right hon. Gentleman made any public pronouncement, that there was no security risk—if there was one before—of which there is some doubt.

I will pass now to an argument even less plausible than the idea that there was an actual security leak. It is the theory that was adumbrated by the right hon. Gentleman on 17th June in one paragraph. Perhaps it was an escape route from his idea that there had been a security leak. It was dealt with in some detail by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in an article in the Sunday Telegraph on 29th September. This was the idea which is put in paragraph 15 of the Denning Report, where it states: It has been suggested to me that Ivanov filled a new rôle in Russian technique. It was to divide the United Kingdom from the United States by these devious means. If Ministers or prominent people can be placed in compromising situations, or made the subject of damaging rumour, or the Security Service can be made to appear incompetent, it may weaken the confidence of the United States in our integrity and reliability. So a man like Captain Ivanov may take every opportunity of getting to know Ministers or prominent people—not so much to obtain information from them.…—but so as to work towards destroying confidence. Lord Denning goes on: If this were the object of Captain Ivanov with Stephen Ward as his tool he succeeded only too well. The fact that we heard so little of this argument before Lord Denning's Report destroyed the other Opposition argument on security is an indication in itself of its lack of credibility. But its violent implausibility can be best demonstrated by assuming for a moment its truth. Let us assume, therefore, that the Russians have achieved the first part of their operation by compromising Mr. Profumo with Miss Keeler and Captain Ivanov. But on this theory that in itself was no good. The important thing was to reveal it to the Americans. But what did the Russians do? Nothing. The uninitiated might have expected that the Cuban crisis would have been a suitable opportunity for this to be revealed. There was a grave danger that America might be divided from Europe and even that the world might be blown up. Ivanov was particularly active, but he did not disclose Mr. Profumo's difficulty. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman believes that the Russians were waiting for a more serious crisis before they revealed it.

But what happened? It was eventually revealed as a result of Mr. Johnny Edgcombe's shooting affray in Wimpole Mews. One can assume that Mr. Johnny Edgcombe is a member of the Russian secret service. But even then everything was not brought out. It came out eventually because of the activities of the hon. Member for Dudley and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, neither of whom seems to have noticed that their theory involves the absurdity not only that the Russians used a West Indian gangster but that both hon. Gentlemen were, witting or unwitting, tools of Russian security machinations. Someone ought to save the right hon. Gentleman from his own theories.

I believe that Parliament should pay more attention to liberty and privacy than to security—something about which, inevitably, Parliament cannot know much. Parliament should not traffic much in security risks. The American Legislature has shown itself at its worst during the last 25 years when it has been scared over security risks and the other McCarthyite trappings. Practically everyone, or a great many people—and a lot of great men—could be described in some sense as a security risk. Even Mr. Gladstone, by trying to reclaim fallen women on the streets, laid himself open to damaging rumour and blackmail. It seems to me, on the apparent view of Lord Denning that what people may reasonably believe rather that what actually happened is what matters, that Gladstone might have been proved guilty, even though he were innocent.

It seems to me that the danger of the Profumo case has been that private lives might become the normal stuff of politicians, and it was—[Hon. Members: "And the Press?"] I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not saying that. He must know that as the case is sub judice I am unable to comment.