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Crossmangate

crossman

On 12 May 1965, Richard Crossman, then Minister for Housing, went for dinner at Prunier's restaurant in London's West End. In a fit of absentmindedness, he left a sheaf of Cabinet papers under the table. A fellow diner noticed the clumsy mistake, but rather than return the papers to their rightful owner, handed them to Chapman Pincher instead. Two days later, Pincher revealed the security blooper in a front-page splash. Wilson's Labour government was left shamefaced. Only a few years before, Wilson and co. had taunted Macmillan's government for security lapses and scandals, culminating with the Profumo Affair in 1963.

The Richard Crossman papers are held at the Modern Records centre, the University of Warwick.