Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (29 page)

For his millions of devoted fans, however, his death was harder to swallow. Few of them wanted to hear the stream of sordid revelations that emerged in the cash-in books that were written by members of his entourage, let alone read the profoundly hostile biography written by Albert Goldman. Most simply preferred to listen to the records and forget the last tragic years of their hero's life. Others, though, refused to accept the seemingly obvious fact of his demise at all. Very soon the rumours began to spread that Elvis was alive, that he had faked his own death. So were these simply the delusions of the devoted, or could there be any substance to the stories?

T
HE WAX DUMMY
When we take a closer look at Elvis's death, the first mystery we encounter is the matter of the autopsy. Originally, the Shelby County Medical Examiner, Dr. Jerry Francisco, claimed that the autopsy indicated that Presley died of "cardiac arrhythmia", which he described as a "severely irregular heartbeat" and "just another name for a form of heart attack". This was highly credible, given that Elvis was overweight and known to suffer from hypertension, but it failed to mention the presence of up to eleven different drugs (of the legal variety) in his bloodstream. Francisco later admitted that he had deliberately avoided mentioning the drugs, or the possibility that Elvis's death was due to an overdose of drugs, out of sensitivity to the feelings of his family and friends.

A little mysterious maybe, but hardly sinister. Yet this confusion as to the precise cause of death may have been the seed that led to much wilder rumours. Before long fans were reporting sightings of Elvis. One man took a photograph of the pool-house at Graceland a few months after Elvis's funeral. On looking at it closely it became clear that a person looking a lot like Elvis was sitting inside the pool house. A record emerged by one Sivle Nora (Elvis Aron backwards) which sounded uncannily like Elvis. Fans noticed that Elvis's middle name was mis-spelled Aaron on his gravestone – could that be a sign that Elvis was not really in there at all?

But if it was not Elvis, then who was in the coffin? Fans came up with the answer to that too. The figure in the coffin was a wax model of Elvis. After all, funeral-goers had commented on the waxy appearance of the body and one had claimed that Elvis's sideburns were glued to his head. Before long it was being asserted that a Presley family member had bought a wax model of Elvis not long before his "death".

Conspiracy theorists also produced a whole range of answers to the question of what happened to Elvis after his fake death. A helicopter was allegedly seen in the area as he was apparently dying and it was thought that he was taken away at the last minute by air. There were also allegations that the mail consignment that Elvis had signed for that morning had just been part of a ruse. He had purportedly taken delivery of the wax dummy and then disappeared into the mail truck. Another claim was that a passenger calling himself Jon Burrows – a name that Elvis had often used to protect his privacy – was seen catching a plane to Buenos Aires just around the time that the "death" was discovered.

E
LVIS – UNDERCOVER AGENT
?
So perhaps Elvis is alive and well and living in Buenos Aires or Kalamazoo, as others have claimed. But why would this be? What would have possessed him to fake his own death? There are two main theories here. The first is that Elvis simply could not take the stress of his celebrity any longer. He realized that his lifestyle was killing him and he decided to make a clean break with his past. The second is that Elvis had a secret role as an honorary drugs agent for Richard Nixon and he was now working undercover for the government, infiltrating the Mafia. Unfortunately he got too close to his targets and was discovered and as a result the FBI faked his death as a piece of old-fashioned witness protection.

It is here that the "Elvis is alive" theories, tenuous to say the least in their accumulation of circumstantial evidence, really fall apart. None of them seem remotely compelling. Far from hating his fame and celebrity, Elvis positively revelled in it. As for the idea that he was an undercover crime buster, it is perhaps a more likely theory than he was abducted by aliens – but not much.

"Elvis Is Alive" conspiracy theories make entertaining reading – and they provided one Gail Brewer-Giorgio with a major bestseller that was simply entitled
Is Elvis Alive?
– but this seems to be a clear case of wishful thinking getting a lot of mileage out of absolutely no hard evidence at all. Yes, it may be the case that Elvis's death was not the result of a simple heart attack, but the chances of him making a comeback any time soon are – as his namesake Elvis Costello once sang – less than zero.

In 1962, Britain was a country on the cusp of change. For the most part it was still locked in post-war austerity and presided over by an elderly and patrician Prime Minister in the shape of Harold Macmillan. The signs of change were starting to appear though. A group from Liverpool called The Beatles were about to release their first single, and the satirical TV show That Was The Week That Was was starting to poke fun at establishment figures, politicians and even the royal family. For the first time in the mass media age the British public was starting to suspect that its elected representatives might not be the respectable figures they seemed to be.

Then came the case that seemed to prove all their suspicions right, the biggest scandal Britain had seen since the war. It began with a rumour that a certain British politician had been sleeping with a woman who was also sleeping with a Russian naval attaché – who was presumed to be a spy. Gradually names were fitted in. The attaché was called Ivanov. The girl was a dancer and hostess named Christine Keeler. And the politician, sensationally, was the Minister for War, John Profumo, an up-and-coming star of the Conservative Party.

The rumours spread to the point at which questions were asked in the House of Commons. Profumo made the fatal mistake of issuing a categorical denial, telling the chamber: "Miss Keeler and I were on friendly terms. There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler." However, the rumours continued to spread and the newspapers soon discovered that there was plenty of fire to go with the smoke. Profumo held out for a while, but ten weeks later he appeared before MPs again to say "with deep remorse" that he had deceived Parliament because he wanted to protect his wife and family and he would resign.

T
HE MAN IN THE MASK
If Profumo thought that would be the end of the affair however, he was wrong. The press had tasted blood and they wanted more. The background to the Keeler/Profumo affair began to emerge. The two had been introduced by Dr Stephen Ward, a society osteopath. Keeler lived in Ward's flat, just one of a number of pretty girls he liked to surround himself with. Rumours began to circulate that Ward's flat was the scene of exotic sex parties that were attended by prominent society figures. Soon, a yet more outlandish rumour surfaced, that of the man in the mask. Apparently this masked man was a fixture at Ward's parties. He would serve the guests entirely naked, apart from a mask. Later he would be fed from a dog bowl. Feverish speculation suggested that the masked man might be yet another cabinet minister. Ward was also the link to Ivanov. Was Ward himself a spy? And if so, for which side?

Then, so the story went, a pimp named "Lucky" Gordon arrived at Ward's flat waving a gun and looking for Keeler, who was allegedly his former girlfriend. Keeler ran off into hiding. At this point the beleaguered establishment evidently decided that enough was enough. The story had rumbled on for too long. Stephen Ward was prosecuted for living off immoral earnings and effectively running a brothel in his home. Two girls were described as "immoral earners" in the charge. They were Christine Keeler and her friend, a vivacious blonde named Mandy Rice Davies.

"H
E WOULD, WOULDN'T HE!"
The trial of Stephen Ward attracted enormous publicity. Keeler denied the charges, saying that Ward did not use women and sex for cash, but to gain influence among his peers. However, she did make a statement in which she said that Profumo gave her money "for her mother". More damningly, Mandy Rice Davies admitted having sex for money in Ward's flat. Rice Davies's performance in the witness box made her an instant celebrity. The prosecution alleged that she had received money from Lord Astor in return for sex. When she was told Lord Astor had denied ever sleeping with her, she uttered the immortal line: "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" She became an instant emblem of the new Britain, a country no longer in awe of its leaders.

The case against Ward looked strong but Ward committed suicide on the very last day of the trial, before the jury reached their verdict. Finally the Profumo affair was over and the man who knew its darkest secrets had gone to his grave. That did not stop the conspiracy theorists, however. Controversy still rages as to whether Ward was an innocent dupe or an agent of British Intelligence who got in over his head and was murdered, with the killing being passed off as a suicide. In her own book on the subject, published in 2001, Christine Keeler made the allegation that Ward was in fact an agent of Russian intelligence and did indeed pass secrets on to Ivanov. However, she has provided nothing in the way of evidence to back this story up.