The man whom Elliot has a passive aggressive exchange with at the gallery is John Profumo, who was then the Secretary of State for War. A few months after Philby's flight from Beirut, Profumo would be brought down by the revelation that he had had an affair with a 19-year-old model named Christine Keeler. This was made all the more scandalous by the revelation that Keeler had also been having an affair with a Soviet official stationed in London, raising the possibility that Profumo had been used for espionage.
The "Profumo Affair" previously referenced was dramatized in the film Scandal (1989), in which John Profumo was played by Sir Ian McKellen.