- Mr Wharfe said the royal family were "jealous" of the princess's "popularity" and that she believed the private secretaries to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were "sharpening their knives" against her
- Mr Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was accused by Mr Wharfe of being partly to blame for the princess's death because he played a dangerous game of "cat and mouse" with the paparazzi
- Lee Sansum, another member of the Fayed security team, said that when the princess heard about the murder of the fashion designer Gianni Versace she "asked me if I thought the same would happen to her".
Mr Wharfe said he believed the "Squidgy" tapes were recorded by GCHQ at Cheltenham on New Year's Eve 1989 and then broadcast on a "loop" until they were picked up separately by two radio hams, Cyril Reenan and Jane Norgrove, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. The radio hams then passed their recordings to the media.
"It was my belief that they had picked this up on a loop somewhere else. I formed the impression that it may well have been a loop from the nearby GCHQ," Mr Wharfe said. "Diana did say to me on a number of occasions she felt she and other members of the family were being monitored."
But the princess's friends have long suspected the "Squidgy" tapes were leaked to smear her at a time when her failing relationship with the Prince of Wales was at its most acrimonious.
Mr Gilbey, a childhood friend of the princess, has previously denied having an affair with her. She had secretly co-operated with author Andrew Morton on his book Diana: Her True Story, which made a series of damning claims about the prince.
Mr Wharfe said the princess told him she knew her conversations were being recorded, that she was not "paranoid" and she discussed it in a "light-hearted" manner. When transcripts of the tapes were published in 1992 she phoned a newspaper's premium rate phone line herself to listen to them.
"Diana was more concerned purely from an embarrassment point of view that this was in the public domain," said Mr Wharfe, a former Scotland Yard inspector who served as her bodyguard from 1987 to 1993.
His account of security service involvement electrified the inquest into the death of the princess, boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul in a Paris car crash in 1997. At the time of the "Squidgy" recording the princess was staying at the Queen's Sandringham estate in Norfolk and Mr Gilbey, heir to the eponymous gin empire, was speaking on a mobile phone.
Mr Reenan, a retired bank manager and Miss Norgrove recorded the conversation several days apart.
Experts who analysed the tapes, said they could not have been "scanned" from Mr Gilbey's mobile phone and had probably been tapped from a landline before being broadcast near Mr Reenan's home.
Mr Wharfe said the Queen was also unhappy when the tape was published and ordered MI5 to carry out an internal investigation to find out why it had been made.
He said: "I remember Diana saying to me that the Queen personally was dissatisfied with what had happened, and the consequences of that, and had herself instituted an inquiry. The Queen would get an answer, I'm sure.
"At this time the IRA issue was very much in the forefront. It is possible the intelligence services were monitoring the Royal family and possibly Cabinet members.
"I did hear it in my department that members of the Royal family could have been a possible contact or the subject of surveillance by the IRA."
In 1993 the princess hired electronic surveillance experts recommended by the Duchess of York to sweep her apartments at Kensington Palace for bugs, Mr Wharfe said. They posed as carpet fitters to avoid suspicion in a clandestine operation organised by butlers Paul Burrell and Harold Brown but four men were detained when they tried to access the main frame telephone exchange.
Towards the end of his time with her the princess's behaviour changed and she became increasingly suspicious of her own protection officers. When Mr Wharfe took her on a shopping trip to Kensington High Street in 1993 she suddenly "ran away" from the car. He said: "I parked the car and then met her in Tower Records where she asked me for some money to pay for CDs. I thought that if this behaviour continued security might be compromised."
Lee Sansum said that when the princess heard about the murder of the fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997 she was upset and "asked me if I thought the same would happen to her" at the hands of "certain people" - by which he understood her to mean security service people.
He added that he had a conversation with the princess about the possibility of her moving to America "and during the course of the conversation I remember asking her whether she'd be taking the boys with her.
This report dates from the time of the so-called 'Squidgygate' tape, which purported to be a recording of a conversation between the late Diana, Princess of Wales and Mr James Gilbey. It was alleged to have been obtained by a scanning enthusiast, but various factors suggested that this was not actually the case. We were commissioned by a leading UK Sunday newspaper to carry out a technical and parametric analysis of the tape, investigate the circumstances in which it had been allegedly obtained and make a report. Here is an extract from it.
It was abundantly clear at the time that the recording was certainly not obtained off-air via a scanning receiver, and Mr Reenan's part in the story remains obscure. It emerged some years later that the recording had indeed been made by means of a wiretap at the Sandringham end, allegedly by a member of the Canadian security service acting on behalf of a UK government agency.
The "Squidgygate" tape: a technical analysis
A tape recording of a conversation purporting to have taken place between the Princess of Wales and James Gilbey on New Year's Eve 1989 was submitted by a UK newspaper for technical analysis. Mr Gilbey was supposed to have been using a cellular telephone, and the Princess of Wales to have been on a normal telephone line at Sandringham. The chain of subsequent events was said to be that the conversation had been intercepted on a scanning receiver by Mr Cyril Reenan - a retired bank manager living in Abingdon - and recorded. The tape had then been passed to the Sunnewspaper and a transcript had been duly published.
I was asked to consider the technical aspects of this alleged chain of events, in the face of speculation by some other newspapers that it did not correctly represent the situation. In particular, there were suggestions to the effect that the conversation might have been intercepted or "tapped" by a Government body which had some interest in discrediting the Princess of Wales, and put into the public domain by means of a rebroadcast on a frequency used by the cellular telephone system. The logic of this would presumably have been that a scanning enthusiast would have monitored and recorded the call and then leaked it in some way.
As a first step, I visited Mr Reenan and examined his receiving facilities. Mr Reenan's memory of the events seemed good considering that they took place some three years ago, and he stated quite clearly that the receiving system I saw was more or less exactly the same as that used on the evening when the recording had been made. He claimed little knowledge of radio, and in fact he demonstrated quite eloquently in the course of the evening that he possessed hardly any.
Mr Reenan's house is in Park Road, Abingdon. As a site for VHF and UHF reception, I would judge it as relatively poor since the area is not elevated and there is a poor "take-off" in most directions. Indeed, there is a large church about 50 yards away, which must act as a considerable obstruction to reception of frequencies which nominally have line-of-sight characteristics. The local Cellnet base station is at Abingdon Town, just over one mile away, and the local Vodafone base is about 6.5 miles away in a different direction.
Mr Reenan uses an Icom IC-R7000 scanning receiver. This is capable of covering a frequency range of 25MHz-1000MHz (and to 2000MHz with reduced sensitivity). The frequency range used by TACS/ETACS cellular base stations in the UK for transmission is 915-950MHz, and from personal experience the R7000 can scan across this range and receive them perfectly well. However, all radio receivers require a proper antenna to give of their best, and in this respect Mr Reenan's receiving facilities were extremely inadequate.
Contrary to some misinformed reports in the press, Mr Reenan used nothing more elaborate than his domestic UHF Yagi-type television antenna for scanning reception. In addition, the feeder cable from the antenna was ordinary "low-loss" semi-air-spaced coaxial cable. For a variety of technical reasons, a TV antenna is a very poor choice for wideband reception. A Yagi antenna is inherently a narrowband device and has very poor performance at frequencies outside the range for which it has been designed and constructed. I would expect the ordinary domestic TV antenna to exhibit little or no gain at frequencies around 900MHz and also to display a very unpredictable polar diagram. Furthermore, the television antennas in Mr Reenan's area obtain their signal from the transmitter site at Beckley. Like the majority of main-station TV broadcast transmitters, this employs what is known as horizontal polarisation - i.e. the elements of an antenna designed to receive signals from it are placed horizontally. In contrast, the cellular telephone service uses vertical polarisation; the familiar cellular antenna on the roof or wing of a car is (or should be) vertical. Attempting to receive vertically polarised signals on a horizontally polarised antenna leads to a marked reduction in signal strength because of a phenomenon calledpolarisation coupling loss. Other things being equal, the overall reduction due to this cause amounts to about 20dB.
The type of coaxial feeder cable used by Mr Reenan is also very lossy at frequencies in the 900MHz region. Given that his feeder is about 60ft long, I would expect there to be at least 10dB loss in it at these frequencies.
On the basis of this combination of a poor VHF/UHF site and a very sub-standard antenna and feeder, it was not surprising that Mr Reenan's receiving system performed very poorly when used to tune across the output frequencies of cellular base stations. A simple way to assess the performance of the installation was to take advantage of the fact that every cellular base station radiates a continuous data transmission on a predetermined frequency. This is known as the "forward control channel" (FOCC) and is used by mobile telephones for various purposes. The forward control-channel frequencies are found in two groups around 935 and 943MHz. At a reasonable site and with a moderate antenna, it is normally found that at least two (the local Cellnet and Vodafone cell sites) are heard at very good strength at most places in the UK and several others some distance away should also be audible.
At Mr Reenan's site, only one FOCC was audible. This was on a frequency of 943.2125MHz, which is that of the FOCC of the Cellnet base station at Abingdon Town, and it was not by any means a strong signal. It deflected the receiver's S-meter to about S6, which was insufficient to produce full quieting and some smooth noise could be heard on the signal. Considerable fading was also heard, and seen on the S-meter. The local Vodafone base station's FOCC was extremely weakly audible, and no transmissions on its voice-output frequencies could be resolved into usable audio. To hear it at all, the squelch control needed to be turned fully anti-clockwise, implying that the signal was on or just under the receiver's inherent FM sensitivity threshold.
With the squelch control reset so that the receiver was just muted (i.e. as it would be set in normal use) it took no less than 22 minutes of continuous scanning to find a conversation taking place. When found, it displayed similar characteristics to that of the Cellnet FOCC: the S-meter reading was similar and there was audible fading, flutter and smooth noise which occasionally degraded into rough noise. Occasionally, for periods of a few seconds, the audio would reduce beneath the squelch threshold of the R7000, which would consequently mute until the signal became strong enough to lift the squelch. At no time was the signal clear of noise. A recording of the conversation was made and is available for checking.
Taking all factors into consideration, the conclusion is that Mr Reenan's receiving set-up is very poor. Given some other factors - such as his evident ignorance about how to use the receiver to the best of its capabilities, his inability to use the programmed scan-limit mode in the R7000 and his very inadequate understanding of how cellular radio works - it is considered something of a miracle that he ever hears anything at all.
We may now turn to the tape recording alleged to have been made by Mr Reenan. Before we do so, two technical points are of some importance and are explained first.(lengthy technical analysis details removed)
Finally, the Cellnet transmitter site in Abingdon Town -- the FOCC of which was the only one audible on the occasion of my visit -- was not in service at the date of the alleged telephone conversation. It was first commissioned on 3 March 1990.
Interim conclusion 2
The recording could not have been made via Mr Reenan's receiver, or any other receiver, tuned to the output frequency of a cellular base station.
The marked degree of 50Hz hum on the tape could be explained if it was assumed to be the result of recording a telephone conversation by making a direct connection of the A and B wires to the input of a recorder with a fairly high input impedance, together with the use of isolating capacitors of rather too high a value. It is also consistent with a recording made with a less than optimally sited inductive pickup. There is no other simple explanation available for the fact that the hum is at 50Hz. No explanation for the presence of the 31Hz tone can be derived from the tape itself, although it is relevant to note that some types of "bug" require a sub-audible tone of this or a similar frequency to activate them.
It is not possible to make or receive calls via the UK cellular radio system without using BT's Megastream distribution network. For technical reasons, this will not carry any frequency at all in excess of 4kHz, or indeed any below about 300Hz. However, the purported "FVC" data is essentially a 4kHz burst at almost full level. Equally, the 50Hz hum could not have been transmitted by either the telephone network as a whole, byMegastream or by the cellular system. It is therefore necessary to conclude that both are associated with a recording made at the local end of the wired telephone line.
A narrowband spectrum analysis shows that the 50Hz component on the tape is in fact made up of separate components at just under and just over 50Hz respectively. This suggests that for some reason another hum component was added after the initial recording in order to "mask" the first, possibly to cover evidence of tampering with the tape.
Final conclusions
The tape recording analysed by myself of the conversation between the two parties alleged to be the Princess of Wales and James Gilbey could not have been recorded by means of Cyril Reenan's scanning receiver (or any other scanning receiver) tuned to the output frequency of a cellular base station. This conclusion applies irrespective of whether the putative call was recorded in real time or as the result of some form of rebroadcast.
The "FVC data" could not have been genuine, for the reasons given above.
The combination of evidence from an analysis of the radio-frequency issues involved and that derived from a comprehensive audio analysis leads inexorably to the conclusion that the recording can only have been made by means of a direct (or possibly inductive-pickup) tapping of the telephone line somewhere between the female party's telephone line itself and the local exchange.
An attempt has been made to disguise the fact that the recording was made by a local tap by making it appear that it was recorded over cellular radio. This is proven by the presence of the spurious "FVC" data. However, it would not have been technically possible to attempt a compression of the female voice without also affecting the male voice, and in consequence the female voice could not be made to sound as though it was transmitted via cellular radio. Together with the excessive HF energy in the spectrum of the female voice, this is the clearest proof that no radio link was actually involved.
© Crew Green Consulting Ltd, 1993 & 2004
http://www.crew-green.com/Diana.htm
THE INFAMOUS "SQUIDGYGATE" TRANSCRIPT
AKA "SQUIDGEYGATE" or "DIANAGATE"
The following is a transcript of a conversation between Diana, Princess of Wales, and James Gilbey, recorded December 31, 1989
The tape had been edited by the British press, which made it difficult to create a true transcript. Also, the original transcriber had made some mistakes, which differ greatly from the actual tape. Most copies available to to the public have been copies of the original, edited version. I, myself, handwrote this one, from that one. Later sources mentioned items cut out; however, I do not know for sure where these items should be placed. I DID manage to correct as many mistakes as I could find. If anyone out there has a copy of the audio tape of this conversation, I would greatly appreciate a correction, or better, to obtain a copy of the tape. Also, I'd appreciate info upon the identities--and biographies--of certain of the people mentioned. Who, for instance, is Simon Prior-Palmer? His wife, Julia Lloyd-Jordan? Jeremy___? His wife, Suzanne? Mark Davis ( or David )? His wife, Antonia? Guy Morrison? Julia __? Eddie __? Lucy Manners? Simon __? What is a "transfer list"? Or if anyone has copies of the New Year's newspaper's horoscopes referred to by Diana and Gilbey?
December 31, 1989--New Year's Eve into the next decade. Diana was at Sandringham, for the Windsor's traditional Christmas. James Gilbey is speaking from his car mobile phone; at one point from an Oxfordshire layby. There's an indication that TWO different conversations have been spliced together, as there are TWO different times mentioned here: at one point, Diana is giving her dinner order, to be served at 8:00 PM; but at another point, the time is mentioned to be 11:05. It couldn't possibly refer to 11 AM, because tea and lunch that day was mentioned in past tense, as was church--December 31, 1989 was a Sunday. UNLESS--the 11:05 conversation was at 11 AM, and the pre- 8:00 PM, though juxtapostioned first, had occurred later--?? Perhaps it's merely a mistake by the original transcriber?
Help me out, please!!! Likely it's
just these frustrations that drove off all the other internet Squidgy Transcripts! Few paper transcripts are available, currently. Acknowledgement will be given, as desired.
Note: I used James Whittaker's "Diana vs. Charles: Royal Blood Feud"; and Nigel Blundess' and Susan __ "___ "; and Lady Colin Campbell's "Diana: the Princess Nobody Knows" as sources. I, myself, did further research--discovering "ultima Thule"--, and added the emphasis and punctuation to the text ( if you think it's TOO much, let me say in my defense, that the plain, bare text was TOO DULL to scroll through, as was. Just copying it was mind-boggling--especially because Gilbey used such poor grammar ).
GILBEY: "And so darling, what other lows today?"
DIANA: "So that was it, I was very bad at lunch. And I nearly started blubbing. I just felt very sad and empty, and I thought: 'Bloody hell, after
allI've done for this fucking family.'"
GILBEY: "You don't need to; 'cause there are people out there--and I've said this before--who will replace the emptiness; with all sorts of things."
DIANA: "I needn't ask horoscopes, but it is just so
desperate. Always being innuendo, the fact that I'm going to do something dramatic, because I can't stand the confines of this marriage."
GILBEY: "I know."
DIANA: "But I know so much more than they, because........."
GILBEY: "Well, interestingly enough, that thing in '
The People' didn't imply either one of you."
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "So I wouldn't worry about that. I think it's common knowledge, Darling, and amongst most people, that you obviously don't have........"
DIANA: "A rapport?"
GILBEY: "Yeah, I think that comes through loud and clear. Darling, just forgetting that for a moment, how is Mara?"[ Mara Berni, owner of Knightsbridge restaurant San Lorenzo ]
DIANA: "She's all right. No, she's fine. She can't wait to get back."
GILBEY: "Can't she? When's she coming back?"
DIANA: "Saturday."
GILBEY: "Is she?"
DIANA: "Mmmm hmmm."
GILBEY: "I thought it was next Saturday."
DIANA: "No, Saturday."
GILBEY: "Not quite as soon as you thought it was."
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "Is she having a nice time?"
DIANA: "Very nice."
GILBEY: "Is she?"
DIANA: "I think so, she's out of London. It gives her a bit of a rest."
GILBEY: "Yeah. Can't
imagine what she does the whole time."
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "The restaurant; if you have a restaurant, it's so much a part of your life, isn't it?"
DIANA: "I know, people around you all the time."
GILBEY: "That's right. The constant bossing, and constant ordering, and constant sort of fussing. And she hasn't got that. She's probably been 'twiddling her fingers,' wondering what to do."
DIANA: "Mmm hmmm."
GILBEY: "Going to church every day."
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "Did you go to church today?"
DIANA: "Yes I did."
GILBEY: "Did you, Squidge?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Did you say lots of prayers?"
DIANA: "Of course."
GILBEY: "Did you? Kiss me,Darling."[ sound of kisses being blown into the phone ].
DIANA: [ sound of laughter, and returns kiss ]
GILBEY: "I can't tell you what a smile that has put on my face; I can't tell you. I was a sort of caged rat, and Tony said: 'You are in a terrible hurry to go.' And I said, 'Well, I've got things to do when I get there.'"
"Oh, God! [ sighs ]; I am
not going to leave the phone in the car, anymore, Darling."
DIANA: "No, please don't."
GILBEY: "No, I won't. And if it rings, and someone says, 'What on Earth is your telephone ringing, for?' I will say: 'Oh, someone's got a wrong number, or something.'"
DIANA: "No; say one of your relations is not very well, and your mother is just ringing in to give you progress."
GILBEY: "All right, so I will keep it near me, quite near to me tomorrow, because Father hates phones out shooting."
DIANA: "Oh, you are out shooting, tomorrow, are you?"
GILBEY: "Yeah. And Darling, I will be back in London tomorrow night."
DIANA: "Good."
GILBEY: "All right?"
DIANA:Yes."
GILBEY: "Back on home territory, so no more awful breaks."
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "I don't know
what I'd do. Do you know, Darling, I couldn't sort of face the thought of not speaking to you every moment. It fills me with real horror, you know."
DIANA: "It's purely mutual."
GILBEY: "Is it? I really hate the idea of it, you know. It makes me really sort of scared."
DIANA: "There was really something strange; I was leaning over the fence yesterday, looking into Park House, and I thought: 'Oh, what shall I do?' And I thought: 'Well, my friend would say go in and do it,' I thought: 'No, 'cause I am a bit shy,' and there were hundreds of people in there. So I thought: 'Bugger that.' So I walked round to the front door,and walked straight in." [ Park House, former Spencer home, where Diana once lived, had become a Leonard Cheshire home for the disabled. ]
GILBEY: "Did you?"
DIANA: "It was just
so exciting."
GILBEY: "How long were you there for?"
DIANA: "An hour and a half."
GILBEY:"Were you?"
DIANA: "Mmm hmm. And they were so sweet. They wanted their photographs taken with me, and they kept hugging me. They were very ill, some of them. Some no legs, and all sorts of things."
GILBEY: "Amazing, Leonard Cheshire."
DIANA: "Isn't he."
GILBEY: "Yeah, amazing; quite extraordinary. He devoted himself to setting up those homes. To achieve every thing, I think it's amazing. Sort of devotion to a cause."
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "Darling, no sort of awful feelings of guilt or.....?"
DIANA: "None at all."
GILBEY: "Remorse?"
DIANA: "None. None at all."
GILBEY: "Good."
DIANA: "No, none at all; all's well."
GILBEY: "OK, then, Squidgey. I am sorry you have had low times....try, Darling, when you have these urges,-- you just try to replace them with anger, like you did on Friday night, you know?"
DIANA: "I know. But do you know what's really quite--um--whatever the word is? His grandmother is always looking at me with a strange look in her eyes.
"It's not hatred; it's sort of interest and pity mixed in one. I am not quite sure. I don't understand it..Everytime I look up, she's looking at me, then looks away, and smiles."
GILBEY: "Does she?"
DIANA: "Yes. I don't know what's going on."
GILBEY: "I should say to her one day: 'I can't ....you; you are always looking at me. What is it? What are you thinking???' You must, Darling. And interestingly enough, one of the things said to me today, is that you are going to start standing up for yourself."
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Mmm hmm. We all know that you are very capable of that, old 'Bossy Boots.'".
DIANA: "I know, yes."
GILBEY: "What have you had on, today? What have you been wearing?"
DIANA: "A pair of black jodhpur things on at the moment, and a pink polo neck."
GILBEY: "Really? Looking good?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Are you?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Dead good?"
DIANA: "I think it's good."
GILBEY: "You do?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "And what on your feet?"
DIANA: "A pair of flat black pumps."
GILBEY: "Very chic."
DIANA: "Yes [Pause in tape]. The redhead [ Fergie ] is being actually quite supportive."
GILBEY: "Is she?"
DIANA: "Yes, she has. I don't know why."
GILBEY: "Don't let the [ garbled; perhaps Don't let the old guard down? Or Don't let your guard down? ]down."
DIANA: "No, I won't. I just talk to her about that side of things."
GILBEY: "You do? That's all I worry about. I just worry that, you know, she's sort of....she's desperately trying to get back in."
DIANA: "She keeps telling me."
GILBEY: "She's trying to tag onto your [ garbled;perhaps coattails?]. She knows that your PR is so good, she's trying to tag onto that."
DIANA: "Jimmy Savile rang me up yesterday, and he said, 'I'm just ringing up, my girl, to tell you that His Nibs has asked me to come and help out the redhead, and I'm just letting you know, so that you don't find out through her or him;and I hope it's all right by you.'
And I said, 'Jimmy, you do what you like.'"
GILBEY: "What do you mean, 'help out the redhead,' Darling?"
DIANA: "Sort her out. He said, 'You can't change a lame duck, but I've got to talk to her, 'cause that's the boss's orders, and I've got to carry them out. But I want you to know that you're my number-one-girl, and I'm not....'"
GILBEY: "Oh, Darling, that's not fair, you're my number-one-girl!"
DIANA: [ speaking to her son in the background,mouth away from the phone] "Harry,it might be in my bathroom.[ louder,speaking into phone ] What did you say? You didn't say anything about babies, did you?"
GILBEY: "No."
DIANA: "No?"
GILBEY: "Why, Darling?"
DIANA: [ laughing ] "I thought you did."
GILBEY: "Did you?"
DIANA: "Yes!"
GILBEY: "Did you, Darling? You have got them on the brain."
DIANA: "Well, yeah, maybe I.....well, actually, I don't think I am going to be able to, for ages."
GILBEY: "I think you've got bored with the idea,actually."
DIANA: "I'm going to!!!!"
GILBEY: "You are, aren't you? It was a sort of hot flush you went through."
DIANA: "A very hot flush!"
GILBEY: "Darling, when he says, 'His Nibs rang [ him ] up,' does he mean your 'other-half',or 'PA'?"
DIANA: "Eh? My 'other-half'??"
GILBEY: "Your 'other-half.'" [ Prince Charles ]
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Does he get on well with him?"
DIANA: "Sort of mentor. Talk in the mouthpiece! You moved away."
GILBEY: "Sorry, Darling, I'm resting it on my chin-- on my 'chinless.' Oh [sighs], I get so sort of possessive when I see all those pictures of you!! I get so possessive, that's the least attractive aspect of me, really. I just see them, and think, 'Oh, God, if only....!!!'"
DIANA: "There aren't that many pictures, are there? There haven't been that many."
GILBEY: "Four or five today!"
DIANA: "Oh!"
GILBEY: "Various magazines. So, Darling, I...."
DIANA: "I'm always smiling, aren't I?"
GILBEY: "Always!"
DIANA: "I thought that, today."
GILBEY: "I always told you that. It's the old---what I call the 'PR package,' isn't it? As soon as you sense a camera---I think you can sense a camera at a thousand yards!"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "That smile comes on; and the charm comes out, and it stays there all the time..., and then it goes away again. But Darling, tell me, how was your tea party?"
DIANA: "It was all right.Nicholas was there, and his girlfriend, Charlotte Hambro. Do you know Charlotte?"[ Is that Nicolas Soames?? Charlotte Hambro's brother?? His sister, not his girlfriend! Perhaps this was a Freudian slip ]
GILBEY: "Yes. She was there, was she? How was that?"
DIANA: "It was all right. I went in in terrific form."
GILBEY: "Where are they staying, then? Nicholas's?"
DIANA: "They are all staying with her sister, down the other side of Fakenham."
GILBEY: "Oh, Jeremy?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Was he there?"
DIANA: "Yes. Difficult man."
GILBEY: "Very difficult man. Saw him at the ballet, the other night."
DIANA: "Oh, he's always there."
GILBEY: "Yes, always. So; quite a long drive, then?"
DIANA: "Yes. But the great thing is, I went in, and made 'a lot of noise' and came out."
GILBEY: "Were they all very chatty?"
DIANA: "Yes. Very, very, very!"
GILBEY: "Very kowtowing?"
DIANA: "Oh, yes."
GILBEY: "Were they?"
DIANA: "Yes, all that."
GILBEY: "Darling! You said all your 'yesses' and 'nos', 'pleases' and 'thank-yous'; you stared at the floor, and there were moments of silence......."
DIANA: "No,no,no!! I kept the conversation going!"
GILBEY: "Did you?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "What about?"
DIANA: "Oh, God, anything!!"
GILBEY: "What's she like? His wife looks quite tough."
DIANA: "Suzanne? I think she looks quite tough. I think she's been given quite a tough time."
GILBEY: "Is she?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "So; there with Charlotte and Willy Peel?" [ Willy Peel: an Earl in Yorkshire--Charlotte's husband ]
DIANA: "Yep."
GILBEY: "I don't know him at all."
DIANA: "She's a very sexy number.
GILBEY: "Quite. Bit 'worn-out,' I reckon."
DIANA: [ laughs ]
GILBEY: "Bit 'worn-out,' I reckon! [ Maybe this bitchiness is due to Charlotte's having been known to have wanted to marry Andrew Parker Bowles; then gave up, marrying another, when he wouldn't divorce? ] Darling; I wish we were going to be together, tonight!"
DIANA: "I know. I want you to think of me, after midnight. Are you staying up, to see the New Year in?"
GILBEY: "You don't need to encourage me to think about you. I have done nothing else for the last three months, hello?"
DIANA: "Debbie says you are going to go through a transformation, soon."
GILBEY: "I am?"
DIANA: "Yes; she says that you are going to go through bits and pieces, and I've got to help you through them. All Libra men, yeah. I said 'Great! I can do something back for him. He's done so much for me.'"
GILBEY: "Are you, Squidgey? Laugh some more! I love it when I hear you laugh. Do you know, I am happy, when you are happy?"
DIANA: "I know you are."
GILBEY: "And I cry, when you cry."
DIANA: "I know. So sweet. At the rate we are going, we won't need any dinner on Tuesday."
GILBEY: "NO, I won't need any dinner, actually; just seeing you will be all I need. I can't wait for Ken to ring! [ Ken Wharfe, Diana's bodyguard. ] And I will be thinking of you after 12 o'clock. I don't need any reasons to even think about you! Mark Davis kept saying to me yesterday, 'Of course, you haven't had a girlfriend, for ages.What's the transfer list looking like? What about that woman in Berkshire?'"
DIANA: "Oh,God."
GILBEY: "And I said, 'No, Mark, I haven't been there, for months.' He said, 'Have you got any other transferees in mind?' I said no. We then went off on a walk, and we started talking about Guy Morrison; He started telling me how extraordinarily Guy had behaved towards me, at Julia's party; and he said, 'Oh, well, the only reason he probably didn't want to speak to you, was because you had been speaking to you-know-who for a long time.' And so, I just didn't sort-of say anything. And I said, 'I suppose that is my fatal mistake.' And Mark said, 'You spend too much time with her.'; and that was that.
"Then he said, 'I wonder whom she's going to end up with?' And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'Well, she must be long overdue for an affair.'(!); And I said, 'I've no idea! I don't talk to her about it; and I've only spoken to her twice since I saw her.' And that was it! I try to kill every conversation stone-dead, now; It's much the best way.
"Darling, how did I get on to that? Oh,the transfer list! So, I said 'No, there was no list drawn up, at the moment; and even less likely there was anybody on it!
"I tell you, Darling, I couldn't. I was just thinking again, about you, going all 'jellybags', and you mustn't."
DIANA: "I haven't, for a day."
GILBEY: "You haven't?"
DIANA: "For a day."
GILBEY: "For a day? Why? Because you have no other people in the room."
"There were only three of us there, last night. Four, actually. Mark, Antonia, their nanny, and myself, and that was it; and I definitely didn't fancy the nanny, who was a 23-year-old, overweight German!"
DIANA: "Did you just get my hint about Tuesday night? I think you just missed it. Think what I said;........"
GILBEY: "No??"
DIANA: "I think you have missed it."
GILBEY: "No, you said, 'At this rate, we won't want anything to eat.'"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Yes, I know; I got there!"
DIANA: "Oh, well, you didn't exactly 'put the flag out'!"
GILBEY: "What, the 'surrender flag?'"
DIANA: "Oh.........??"
GILBEY: "Squidge, I was just going over it. I don't think I made too much reference to it."
DIANA: "Oh, bugger!!!"
GILBEY: "I don't think I made too much reference to it. Because the more you think about it, the more you worry about it."
DIANA: "All right. I haven't been thinking a lot else."
GILBEY: "Haven't you?"
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "Well, I can tell you, that makes two.......I went to this agonizing tea party, last night. You-know, all I want to do, is to get in my car, and drive around the country talking to you."
DIANA: "THANKS!!!" [laughter]
GILBEY: "That's all I want to do, Darling, I just want to see you, and be with you. That's what's going to be such bliss, back in London."
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "I mean, it can't be a regular future, Darling, and I understand that, but it would be nice, if you are at least next-door, within knocking distance."
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "What's that noise?"
DIANA: "The television, drowning my conversation."
GILBEY: "Can you turn it down?"
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "Why?"
DIANA: "Because it's covering my conversation."
GILBEY: "All, right;........I 'got there': Tuesday night, don't worry; I got there!! I can tell you, the feeling's entirely mutual." [ James Whittaker surmises that Tuesday night at Mara Berni's means "beddy-bye" time, at her home around the corner from San Lorenzo. But after he'd meticulously noted all the points which indicated that Diana and Gilbey WERE sleeping together, he contradicts himself, by opining that he thinks they only justtalked about sex. Then why need the use of Mara's private home?? Whittaker chickened out, is my guess. He brownnoses, occasionally. That would explain his support for Charles and Camilla, now that Diana is "out of the game." ]
"Ummmm, Squidgey,.....what else? It's just like unwinding, now. I am just letting my heartbeat come down, again, now. I had the most amazing dream about us, last night. Nothing physical, nothing to do with that."
DIANA: "That makes a change."
GILBEY: "Darling, it's just that we were together an awful lot of time, and we were having dinner with some people. It was the most extraordinary dream, very vivid, because I woke up in the morning, and I remembered all aspects of it; every bit of it. I remembered sort-of what you were wearing, and what was said. It was so strange, very strange, and very lovely, too."
DIANA: [garbled].
[the following items were previously edited out from the first transcript];
DIANA: "I don't want to get pregnant."
GILBEY: "Darling, that's not going happen, all right?"
DIANA: "Yeah."
GILBEY: "Don't think like that. It's not going to happen, Darling; you won't get pregnant."
DIANA: "I watched Eastenders today; one of the main characters had a baby; they thought it was by her husband; it was by another man."
[usual transcript resumes]
GILBEY: [sighing] "Squidgey, kiss me [sounds of kissing by him and her]. Oh, God, it's wonderful, isn't it, this sort of feeling. Don't you like it?"
DIANA: "I love it!!"
GILBEY: "Ummmmm!!"
DIANA: "I love it!!!"
GILBEY: "Isn't it absolutely wonderful?!? I haven't had it for years. I feel about 21 again!"
DIANA: "Well, you're not. You're 33."
GILBEY: "I know."
DIANA: "'Pushing up the daisies' soon, right?"
GILBEY: "No more remarks like that. It was an agonizing tea , yesterday, with,--er--, do you know Simon Prior-Palmer?"
DIANA: "I know who you mean, yes."
GILBEY: "And his wife, Julia Lloyd-Jordan, you must remember her?"
DIANA: "Yes, I dooooo."
GILBEY: "Do you?"
DIANA: "God, yes. Who was she after----Eddie?"
GILBEY: "I can't remember. She lived in that flat, in Cadogan Gardens, didn't she, with Lucy Manners?"
DIANA: "Yes, she did."
GILBEY: "She lost weight. You lived there, for a while, didn't you?"
DIANA: "No, it's the wrong place." [ garbled; Diana corrects him with her former address Coleherne Court or ??? Alleyn Place ].
GILBEY: "Oh! But, the ummm....honestly, I loved going to [garbled]. I mean, they've got quite a nice house, and things; and I knew quite a nice Australian\Polish friend of theirs who was staying.
"And, God! Simon! He's 38-years-old, but honestly, he behaves older than my father! I cannot believe it! I find it so exhausting, when there's people that age. They behave as if they're fifty!"
DIANA: "I know!"
GILBEY: "Anyway, we did time, there, and that was it. We got back; a very nice, quiet dinner. Mark was sort of exhausted from last night; and that was it, really. He was talking about hunting....hunting gets you gripped, doesn't it?"
DIANA: "It does."
GILBEY: "I mean, he drove six hours, yesterday!"
DIANA: [ laughing ] "My drive was two-and-a-half to three."
GILBEY: "He's now talking about both ways. He drives three hours from Hungerford. He was hunting with...can't remember who he was hunting with?--Oh, yes! The Belvoir, yesterday."
DIANA: "The Belvoir, ummmhmm.."
GILBEY: "That was three hours there, and three hours back."
DIANA: "God!"
GILBEY: "And he'd done the same Wednesday to the Quorn."
DIANA: [sarcastic] "How wonderful."
GILBEY: "Ummmm, tell me some more, how was your lunch?"
DIANA: "It wasn't great."
GILBEY: "Wasn't it? When are the Waterhouses turning up?"
DIANA: "Next Thursday, I think."
GILBEY: "Oh? I thought they were coming today?"
DIANA: "No, Thursday."
GILBEY: "To hold onto you, I've gone back to another point about your mother-in-law--no, grandmother-in-law,--no, your grandmother-in-law [ The Queen Mum ]; I think next time, you just want to outstare her, and that's easy."
DIANA: "No, no."
GILBEY: "It's not staring...."
DIANA: "No, no, listen---it's affection, affection----it's definitely affection. It's sort of......??? It's definitely not hostile, anyway."
GILBEY: "Oh, isn't it?"
DIANA: "No. She's sort of fascinated by me, but doesn't quite know how to unravel it, no."
GILBEY: "How interesting. I'm sorry, Darling, when you told me about her, I thought you meant hostile."
DIANA: "No, I'm all right."
GILBEY: "I miss you, Squidgey."
DIANA: "So do I."
GILBEY: "I haven't spoken to you for 28 hours. I've thought of nothing else."
DIANA: "I know, I know."
GILBEY: "Oh, that's all right, if it's friendly, then it doesn't matter."
DIANA: "My stars said nothing about 1990; it was all sort of terribly general."
GILBEY: "Fine; but it's definitely him, within the marriage."
DIANA: "Right!"
GILBEY: "It's not..."
DIANA: [ interrupting ] "Did you see The News of the World?"
GILBEY: "No....he's got to start loving you."
DIANA: "Yes, I saw that. Yeah, she........"
GILBEY: "Did you? I thought, 'Well, there's not much chance of that.'"
DIANA: "No. I know. I know. But, umm, definitely she said I am doing nothing; I am just having a wonderful, successful, well-awaiting year."
GILBEY: "A sort of matriarchal figure."
DIANA: "I know. She said, 'anything you want, you can get next year.'"
GILBEY: "You should read The People, Darling. There's a very good picture of you."
DIANA: "Arrr!"
GILBEY: "Oh, no, it's...where is there a good picture? In The Express was there? I think there's one --wearing that pink, that very smart pink top. That excellent pink top."
DIANA: "Oh, I know, I know!"
GILBEY: "Do you know the one I mean?"
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "Very good. Shit-hot, actually."
DIANA: [laughing] "Shit-hot?!?"
GILBEY: "Shit-hot."
DIANA: "Ummm. Fergie said to me, today, that she had lunch with Nigel Havers, the other day, 'and all he could talk about, was you.'; and I said, 'Oh, Fergie, how awful for you,' and she said, 'Don't worry, it's the admiration club.' A lot of people talk to her about me, which she can't help."
GILBEY: "I tell you, Darling, she's desperate to hang onto your coattails."
DIANA: "Well, she can't."
GILBEY: "No, she absolutely can't. Now, you have to make that quite clear......"
DIANA: "If you want to be like me, you have got to suffer."
GILBEY: "Oh, Squidgey!!"
DIANA: "Yeah; you have to; and then, you get what you ..........?"
GILBEY: "Get what you want."
DIANA: "No; get what you deserve, perhaps."
GILBEY: "Yes, such as a second-hand car-dealer!"[laughs]
DIANA: "Yes, I know." [laughs].
GILBEY: [laughs] "Do you know, Honey, as we go into 1990, I can't imagine, you know, what it was that brought us two together, in that night."
DIANA: "No, I know."
GILBEY: "And let's make full use of it."
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "Full use of it; and funnily, enough, it doesn't hold any sort of terror, any fright for me, at all."
DIANA: [sound of knock at the door] "Hang on. It's OK, come in please. Yes, it's okay.---come in---what is it? Ah, I'd love some salad, just some salad, with yoghurt, like when I was ill in bed. That would be wonderful. About 8 o'clock; then everybody can go, can't they?"
PAUL BURRELL: [in background] "Bring it up on a tray?"
DIANA: "That would be great. Edward will come down, and get it."
PAUL BURRELL: "We'll bring it up."
DIANA: "All right, that'll be great, Paul. No, just salad will be great, Paul, thanks, Paul."
GILBEY: "How much weight have you lost?"
DIANA: "Why?"
GILBEY: "Darling, I'm sure lettuce leaves aren't going to keep you strong. You'll run out of energy driving to London."
DIANA: "I am nine-and-a-half." [ We assume she means "9?stone"--i.e., 14 pounds per=139 lb.]
GILBEY: "Are you? Are you? Nine-and-a-half?.....So, you are staying in, tonight?"
DIANA: "I am, because I am babysitting. I don't want to go out."
GILBEY: "Oh, I see. So, is he going?"
DIANA: "Yes. He doesn't know that I'm not, yet; I haven't told him that, yet."
GILBEY: "I was going to say, Darling, that was shitty; you can't face another night like last Friday, absolutely right. But you are "there", Darling."
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "1990 is going to be fine."
DIANA: "Yes! But isn't it exciting?!"
GILBEY: "Really exciting!"
DIANA: "Debbie [ Frank, Diana's astrologer ] said, "I'm so excited for you. It's going to be so lovely to watch......"
GILBEY: "I don't know, I've been feeling sick, all day."
DIANA: "Why?"
GILBEY: "I don't know. I just feel sick about the whole thing. I mean, wonderful!! I mean, straight-through real passion, and love, and all the good things!!"
DIANA: "Becky said it would be OK, didn't she? The most fulfilling year, yet."
GILBEY: "You don't need to worry, do you?"
DIANA: "She's never questioned someone's mental state, or anything like that."
GILBEY: "What, his?!?"
DIANA: "Yes. Nobody has ever thought about his mind. They've always thought about other things."
GILBEY: "[ garbled ].....something very interesting which said that serious astrologers don't think that he will ever make it."
DIANA: "Yeah."
GILBEY: "And becomes a [ garbled ]."
DIANA: "...And Becky also said this person is married to someone in great power, who will never make the ultima....or whatever the word is." [ultima Thule: any distant territory or destination; a remote goal or ideal. Latin: "Farthest Thule". What ancient geographers had considered to be the northernmost habitable land. Obviously a reference to astrologers' opinion that Charles will not achieve the throne. ]
GILBEY: "Absolutely. Oh, Squidgey, I love you, love you, love you!!"
DIANA: "You are the nicest person in the whole wide world."
GILBEY: "Pardon?"
DIANA: "Nicest person in the whole wide world!"
GILBEY: "Well, Darling, you are, to me, too. Sometimes."
DIANA: [ laughing ] "What do you mean, 'sometimes'?"
[ section edited out in newspapers ]
GILBEY: "I got up quite late, went for a walk, this morning, and this afternoon. Had lunch. I only got angry because Mark gave the nanny too much wine, and she was incapable of helping at lunch."
DIANA: "I love it."
GILBEY: "He's a rogue, Mark David[garbled]."
DIANA: "Oh, Wills is coming, sorry."
GILBEY: "Are you going?"
DIANA: "No, no."
GILBEY: "He's such a rogue, Darling. He's the man you met."
DIANA: "I remember. But I didn't recognize him."
GILBEY: "He's incorrigible."
DIANA: "Would I like him?"
GILBEY: "He's a sort of social gossiper, in a way. He loves all that, Mark. He's got a very comfortable life, you know. He hunts a lot."
DIANA: "He's 'got the pennies'?"
GILBEY: "He's got lots of pennies. He calls all the horses 'Business' or 'The Office', because when people ring him up, and he's hunting, midweek, his secretary says, 'I'm sorry, he's away on Business.'"
DIANA: [laughs] "It's great to hear it."
GILBEY: "But, ummm, an incredible sort of argument, last night, about subservient women in marriage."
DIANA: "Well, you're an expert."
GILBEY: "I kept very quiet, actually. I could think, Darling, of nothing but you. I thought: 'Well, I should be talking to her, now.' You know, it's five past eleven?"
DIANA: "I know."
GILBEY: "You don't mind it, Darling, when I want to talk to you, so much?"
DIANA: "No, I love it. Never had it, before."
GILBEY: "Darling, it's so nice, being able to help you."
DIANA: "You do. You'll never know how much!"
GILBEY: "Oh, I will, Darling. I just feel so close to you, so wrapped up in you. I'm wrapping you up, protecting."
DIANA: "Yes, please. Yes, please. Do you know, that bloody Bishop, I said to him....."
GILBEY: "What's he called?"
DIANA: "The Bishop of Norwich. [ who later married Sophie and Edward ] He said, 'I want you to tell me, how you talk to people who are ill, or dying? How do you cope?'"
GILBEY: "He wanted to learn. He was so hopeless at it, himself."
DIANA: "I began to wonder after I'd spoken to him. I said: 'I'm just myself.'"
GILBEY: "They can't get to grips that, underneath, there is a beautiful person in you. They can't think that it isn't cluttered up by this idea of untold riches."
DIANA: "I know. He kept wittering about one must never think how good one is at one's job. There's always something you can learn around the next corner. I said: 'Well, if people know me, they know I'm like that.'"
GILBEY: "Yes, absolutely right. So, did you give him a hard time?"
DIANA: "I did, actually. In the end, I said: 'I know this sounds crazy, but I've lived before.' He said: 'How do you know?' I said: 'Because I'm a wise old thing.'"
GILBEY: "Oh, Darling, Squidge, did you? Very brave thing to say to him, actually. Very."
DIANA: "It was, wasn't it?"
GILBEY: "Very Full marks. Ninety-nine out of 100."
DIANA: "I said: 'Also, I'm aware that people I have loved, and [who] have died, and [who] are in the spirit world, look after me.' He looked horrified. I thought: 'If he's the bishop, he should say that sort of thing.'"
GILBEY: "One of those horoscopes referred to you--to Cancerians turning to less materialistic, and more spiritual things. Did you see that?"
DIANA: "No, I didn't, no."
GILBEY: "That's rather sad, actually. Umm, I don't like many of those bishops, especially."
DIANA: "Well, I felt very uncomfortable."
GILBEY: "They are a funny old lot."
DIANA: "Well, I wore my heart on my sleeve."
GILBEY: "They are the ones, when they've got a five-year old sitting between them, their hands meet. Don't you remember that wonderful story?"
DIANA: "Yes, yes!"
GILBEY: "Gosh, it made my father laugh so much! Go on Darling; when you wear your heart on a sleeve......"
DIANA: "No, with the Bishop: 'I understand people's pain, people's sufffering, more than you will ever know.' And he said: 'That's obvious by what you are doing for the AIDS.' I said: 'It's not only AIDS, it's anyone who suffers; I can smell them a mile away.'"
GILBEY: "What did he say?"
DIANA: "Nothing. He just went quiet. He changed the subject to toys; and I thought, 'AH! Defeated you!'"
GILBEY: "Did you? Marvelous, Darling. Did you chalk up a little victory?"
DIANA: "Yes, I did."
GILBEY: "Did you, Darling? Waving a little flag in your head."
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "How marvelous. You ought to do that more often. That flag ought to get bigger."
DIANA: "Yes, my surrender flag [laughs]."
GILBEY: "You haven't got one, have you?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "What, a big one?"
DIANA: "Well, medium."
GILBEY: "Is it? Well, don't wave it too much."
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "Squidge, in this layby, you know, I understand how frightened people feel, when they break down in the dark."
DIANA: "I'm sure."
GILBEY: "I suddenly thought if someone could have shot at me from the undergrowth; or someone suddenly tried to get into the car. I always keep my door locked, for that reason."
DIANA: "Gosh! That's very thoughtful! That's very good of you."
GILBEY: "Darling, how are the boys?"
DIANA: "Very well."
GILBEY: "Are they having a good time?"
DIANA: "Yes, very happy; yeah, seem to be."
GILBEY: "That's nice. Have you been looking after them, today?"
DIANA: "Well, I've been with them a lot, yes."
GILBEY: "Has he been looking after them?"
DIANA: "Oh, no, not really. My God, you know....."
GILBEY: "Have you seen him at all, today, apart from lunch?"
DIANA: "I have; we went out to tea. It's just so difficult, so complicated. He makes my life real,real,torture, I've decided."
GILBEY: "Tell me more."
DIANA: "But the distancing will be because I go out,---and I hate the word--"conquer the world".I don't mean that; I mean I'll go out, and do my bit in the way I know how, and I leave him behind. That's what I see happening."
GILBEY: "Did you talk in the car?"
DIANA: "Yes, but nothing in particular. He said he didn't want to go out, tonight."
GILBEY: "Did you have the kids with you?"
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "What, you just went by yourselves?"
DIANA: "No, 'they' were behind us."
GILBEY: "Oh, were they? How did he enjoy it?"
DIANA: "I don't know. He didn't really comment."
GILBEY: "No. Oh, Squidgey."
DIANA: "Mmmmmmmm."
GILBEY: "Kiss me, please [ sound of kisses ]. Do you know what I'm going to be imagining I'm doing tonight, at about 12 'o clock? Just holding you close to me. It'll have to be delayed action, for 48 hours!"
DIANA: [laughs]
GILBEY: "'Fast forward.'"
DIANA: "'Fast forward.'"
GILBEY: "Gosh, I hope Ken doesn't say no."
DIANA: "I doubt he will."
GILBEY: "Do you?"
DIANA: "He's coming down on Tuesday, and I'm going to tell him, I've got to go back on Tuesday night; and I've got to leave, and be back for lunch on Wednesday. But I can do that."
GILBEY: "You can?"
DIANA: "And I shall tell people I'm going for accupuncture, and my back being done."
GILBEY: [ laughing ] "Squidge, 'cover them footsteps'!"
DIANA: "I jolly well do!"
GILBEY: "I think it's all right. I think those footsteps are doing all right!"
DIANA: "Well, I've got to kiss my small ones."
GILBEY: "Oh, no, Darling."
DIANA: "I've got to."
GILBEY: "No, Squidgey, I don't want you to go. Can you bear with me, for five minutes, more?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Just five."
DIANA: "What have you got on?"
GILBEY: "I've got the new jeans I bought, yesterday."
DIANA: "Good."
GILBEY: "Green socks. White and pink shirt."
DIANA: "How very nice."
GILBEY: "A dark apple-green V-neck jersey."
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "I'm afraid I'm going to let you down, by the shoes."
DIANA: "Go on, then [ laughs ]."
GILBEY: "You can guess."
DIANA: "Your brown ones [ laughs ]. No, those black ones."
GILBEY: "No, I haven't got the black ones, Darling. The black ones, I would not be wearing; I only wear the black ones with my suit."
DIANA: "Good. Well, get rid of them."
GILBEY: "I have got those brown suede ones on."
DIANA: "Brown suede ones??"
GILBEY: "Those brown suede Guccis [ laughs ]."
DIANA: "I know! I know."
GILBEY: "The ones you hate."
DIANA: "I just don't like the fact it's so obvious where they came from."
GILBEY: "Di, nobody wears them, anymore! I like those ordinary, Italian things, that last a couple of years, then I chuck them out. It was sort of a devotion to duty. I was seeking an identity, when I bought my first pair of Guccis twelve years ago."
DIANA: "Golly."
GILBEY: "And I've still got them. Still doing me proud, like."
DIANA: "Good."
GILBEY: "I'm going to take you up on that, Darling; I will give you some money; you can go off, and spend it for me."
DIANA: "I WILL, yeah."
GILBEY: "Will you?" [ laughs ]
DIANA: "I'm a conoisseur, in that department."
GILBEY: "Are you?"
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Well, I think you are."
DIANA: "Well, I've decked people out in my time."
GILBEY: "Who did you deck out? Not too many, I hope."
DIANA: "James Hewitt. Entirely dressed him, from head to foot, that man. Cost me quite a bit."
GILBEY: "I bet he did. At your expense?"
DIANA: "Yeah."
GILBEY: "What, he didn't even pay you to do it?"
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "God. Very extravagant, Darling."
DIANA: "I am, aren't I? Anything that will make people happy."
GILBEY: "No, you mustn't do it for that, Darling, because you make people happy! It's what you give them."
[interruption in tape]
DIANA: "No, don't. You'll know, you'll know."
GILBEY: "All right. But you always say that with an air of inevitability [laughs]. It will happen, in six month's time. I'll suddenly get, 'Yes, James Who? [laughs] I don't think we've spoken before.'"
DIANA: "No."
GILBEY: "I hope not. Well, Darling, you can't imagine what pleasures I've got in store this evening."
DIANA: "It's a big house, is it?"
GILBEY: "It's a nice house. Thirty people for dinner, or something."
DIANA: "God!"
GILBEY: "I know. Do you want me to leave the phone on?"
DIANA: "No, better not."
GILBEY: "Why not?"
DIANA: "No, tomorrow morning."
GILBEY: "I can't, I can't.....all right, tomorrow morning. Shall I give you a time to call?"
DIANA: "Yes, I won't be around from 9:30 to 11."
GILBEY: "Why not?"
DIANA: "I'm going swimming with Fergie."
GILBEY: "Are you? Are you taking the kiddies?"
DIANA: "Might well do."
GILBEY: "You should do. It's good for you. Get them out. It gives you enormous strength, doesn't it? Have the lovebugs around you."
DIANA: "I know, I know."
GILBEY: "Beautiful things, pampering their mother."
DIANA: "Quite right."
GILBEY: "That's what she wants. I think you should take them, Darling. At least you are not breaking with the rest."
DIANA: "No, I'm not."
GILBEY: "Are you..........."
[interruption in the tape]
DIANA: "I'd better, I'd better. All the love in the world. I'll speak to you, tomorrow."
GILBEY: "All right. If you can't get me in the morning.....you're impatient to go, now."
DIANA: "Well, I just feel guilty, because I haven't done my other business."
GILBEY: "Don't feel guilty. They'll be quite all ........"
[ interruption in the tape ]
"Just have to wait until Tuesday. All right."
DIANA: "All right."
GILBEY: "I'll buzz off, and simply behave. I'll approach the evening with such enormous confidence, now."
DIANA: "Good."
GILBEY: "And you, Darling; don't let it get you down."
DIANA: "I won't; I won't."
GILBEY: "All right."
[ tape ends ]
[ the following are tape excerpts that were edited out, due to references to masturbation ]
GILBEY: "Darling, ummm. It's just like,um,just like, sort of......"
DIANA: "Playing with yourself?"
GILBEY: "What? No, I'm not, actually."
DIANA: "I said "It's just like......." Just like----"
GILBEY: "Playing with yourself."
DIANA: "Yes."
GILBEY: "Not quite as nice. Not quite as nice. No, I haven't played with myself, actually. Not for a full 48 hours. Not for a full 48 hours. Ummm, tell me some more."
DIANA: "I don't know, it's all quiet. " [ I would appreciate if someone would inform me of where these belong? ]
EXCEPT WHERE OTHER SOURCES CREDITED, TRANSCRIPT AND COMMENTARY, EDITING, AND ADDITIONAL TEXT BY SUSAN BROWN, COPYRIGHT ?001
THE CAMILLAGATE TRANSCRIPT
This conversation takes place during Charles' visit to the Cheshire home of the dowager Duchess of Westminster ( also referred to as "Nancy" in this transcript ). Camilla is at her home, Bolehyde Manor, in the West County.
The tape begins a small way though the conversation and lasts six minutes until Charles hangs the phone up.
It is noted that, on this tape, recorded on the night of Monday, December 18th, 1989, the references "I can't bear a Sunday night without you" and Camilla's mentioning of her son, Tom's birthday ( December 18, 1974 ) being tomorrow, was glaring evidence that this tape was pre-recorded, and broadcast in hopes that a ham-radio operator would pick it up.
Charles: "He was a bit anxious, actually."
Camilla: "Was he?"
Charles: "He thought he might've gone too far."
Camilla: "Ah well."
Charles: "Anyway, you know that's the sort of thing one has to beware of. And sort of feel one's way along with - if you know what I mean."
Camilla: "Mmmm. You're awfully good feeling your way along."
Charles: "Oh Stop! I want to feel my way along you, all over you, and up and down you, and in and out..."
Camilla: "Oh, Charles!"
Charles: "Particularly in and out!"
Camilla: "Oh, that's just what I need at the moment."
Charles: "Is it?"
[ At this point the scanner enthusiast speaks over, to record the date ]
Scanner Enthusiast: "December 18th."
Camilla: "I know it would revive me. I can't bear a Sunday night without you."
Charles: "Oh, God."
Camilla: "It's like that programme 'Start the Week.' I can't start the week without you."
Charles: "I fill up your tank!!"
Camilla: "Yes, you do."
Charles: "Then you can cope."
Camilla: "Then I'm all right."
Charles: "What about me? The trouble is I need you several times a week."
Camilla: "Mmmm, so do I. I need you all the week. All the time."
Charles: "Oh, God. I'll just live inside your trousers, or something. It would be much easier!"
Camilla: (laughing) "What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers?"
Both laugh
Camilla: "Oh, You're you're going to come back as a pair of knickers!"
Charles: "Or, God forbid, a Tampax! Just my luck!" (Laughs)
Camilla: "You are a complete idiot! (Laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea!"
Charles: "My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on, forever swirling round on the top, never going down."
Camilla: (Laughing) "Oh, Darling!"
Charles: "Until the next one comes through."
Camilla: "Oh, perhaps you could come back as a box."
Charles: "What sort of box?"
Camilla: "A box of Tampax, so you could just keep going."
Charles: "That's true."
Camilla: "Repeating yourself...(Laughing) Oh, darling I just want you now."
Charles: "Do You?"
Camilla: "Mmmmm."
Charles: "So do I!"
Camilla: "Desperately, desperately, desperately. Oh, I thought of you so much at Yaraby."
Charles: "Did you?"
Camilla: "Simply mean we couldn't be there together."
Charles: "Desperate. If you could be here - I long to ask Nancy sometimes."
[ AKA Anne Winifred Sullivan, the Duchess of Westminster, called "Nancy" by her friends. At the time of this phone call, the Prince was staying at her residence. Here, Charles is consulting with CPB about whether or not to impose upon Nancy's hospitatilty, by asking her to host their illicit rendevoux.]
Camilla: "Why don't you?"
Charles: "I daren't."
Camilla: "Because I think she's in love with you?"
Charles: "Mmm."
Camilla: "She'd do anything you asked."
Charles: "She'd tell all sorts of people."
Camilla: "No, she wouldn't, because she'd be much too frightened of what you might say to her. I think you've got - I'm afraid it's a terrible thing to say - but I think , you know, those sort of people do feel very strongly about you. You've got such a hold over her."
Charles: "Really?"
Camilla: "And you're..... I think, as usual, you're underestimating yourself."
Charles: "But she might be terribly jealous or something."
Camilla: "Oh! (Laughs) Now that's a point! I wonder, she might be, I suppose."
Charles: "You never know, do you?"
Camilla: "No, the little green eyed monster might be lurking inside her. No, but I mean the thing is, you're so good when people are so flattered to be taken into your confidence, but I don't know they'd betray you. You know, real friends..."
Charles: "Really?"
Camilla: "I don't..." (Pause)
Camilla: "Gone to sleep?"
Charles: "No, I'm here."
Camilla: "Darling, listen: I talked to David tonight again. It might not be any good."
Charles: "Oh, no!!"
Camilla: "I'll tell you why: He's got these children of one of those Crawley girls and their nanny staying. He's going-- I'm going to ring him again tomorrow. He's going to try and hold them off till Friday. But as an alternative, perhaps I might ring up Charlie..."
Charles: "Yes."
Camilla: "...And see if we could do it there. I know he is back on Thursday..."
Charles: "It's quite a lot further away."
Camilla: "Oh, is it?"
Charles: "Well, I'm just trying to think: coming from Newmarket...?"
Camilla: "Coming from Newmarket to me at that time of night, you could probably do it in two and three quarters, It takes me three."
Charles: "What to go to, Um, Bowood?"
[ Bowood: the family home of Charles Maurice Petty-FitzMaurice , Earl of Shelburne, who'd been rumoured to have had an affair with Camilla, and who had been page of honor to the Queen in 1956. See his place in Descendants of William the Conquerer ]
Camilla: "Northmore."
[ Northmore: A horse stud farm near Newmarket in Suffolk, at the time owned by Emilie and Hugh Van Cutsem. Parents of Edward Van Cutsem, the handsome, dapper chap who nearly was assigned to accompanying William to South America, on a polo visit--which was later cancelled, due to too many people thinking that such a holiday for William's "gap year" was too frivolous.
He ended up doing a famous *** to Chile, instead. Edward was page at Prince Charles wedding to Lady Diana, and had been noteworthy for having been quite a ham upon the balcony.
He married Lady Tamara Grosvenor, The Westminster daughter, on November 6, 2004. See Pics ]
Charles: "To go to Bowood?"
Camilla: "To go to Bowood would be the same as the same as me really, wouldn't it?"
Charles: "I mean to say, you would suggest going to Bowood, uh?"
Camilla: "No, not at all."
Charles: "Which Charlie, then?"
Camilla: "What Charlie do you think I was talking about?"
Charles: "I didn't know, because I thought you meant....."
Camilla: "I've got lots...."
Charles: "Somebody else."
Camilla: "I've got lots of friends called Charlie."
Charles: "The other one, Patty's."
[ Patty and Charlie Parker -Tomkinson, the good friends of Charles, whom Diana felt betrayed by. Parents of the famous girls Santa and Tara Parker-Tomkinson --Tara had gotten into trouble for taking drugs, and for tattling to the Tattler about Prince William.
Later, she was the first WINNER of Britain's I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. ]
Camilla: "Oh! Oh!, There! Oh that is further away. They're not...."
Charles: "They've gone....."
Camilla: "I don't know. It's just, you know, just a thought I had, If it fell through, the other place."
Charles: "Oh, Right. What do you do? Go on the M25 then down the M4 is it?"
Camilla: "Yes, you go, um, and sort of Royston or M11, at that time of night."
Charles: "Yes, well, that'll be just after shooting anyway."
Camilla: "So it would be, um, you'd miss the worst of the traffic. Because I'll er.... You see the problem is I've got to be in London tomorrow night."
Charles: "Yes."
Camilla: "And Tuesday night, A's coming home."
Charles: "No!" [ groans ]
Camilla: "Would you believe it? Because, I don't know what he's doing. He's shooting down here or something. but, darling, you wouldn't be able to ring me anyway, would you?"
Charles: "I might just, I mean, tomorrow night I could have done."
Camilla: "Oh Darling, I can't bear it. How could you have done tomorrow night?"
Charles: "Because I'll be (Yawns) working on the next speech."
Camilla: "Oh no, what's the next one?"
Charles: "A Business in The Community one, rebuilding communities."
Camilla: "Oh no, when's that for?"
Charles: "A rather important one for Wednesday."
Camilla: "Well, at least I'll be behind you."
Charles: "I know."
Camilla: "Can I have a copy of the one you've just done?"
Charles: "Yes."
Camilla: "Can I? um, I would like it."
Charles: "OK, I'll try and organize it."
Camilla: "Darling..."
Charles: "But I, oh God, when am I going to speak to you?!"
Camilla: "I can't bear it... Umm......."
Charles: "Wednesday night?"
Camilla: "Oh, certainly Wednesday night. I'll be alone, um, Wednesday, you know, the evening. Or Tuesday. while you're rushing around doing things I'll be, you know, alone until 'it' reappears.
"And early Wednesday morning, I mean, he'll be leaving at half past eight, quarter past eight. He won't be here Thursday, pray God. Um, that ambulance strike, it's a terrible thing to say this: I suppose it won't have come to an end by Thursday...?"
[ James Whittaker feels that the "it" Camilla is referring to is her own husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, that it is a reference denoting lack of respect and liking. The "he" referred to is definitely referring to APB, who, along with his Army unit, was in charge of substituting for the striking ambulance workers at the time.
As long as the strike continued, Andrew would be stuck in the city of London, not home with Camilla--though it's a mystery as to why that should make a difference in whether or not the Prince could take "favors" with his mistress. Andrew had his own string of mistresses.
Whittaker feels that Charles was being selfish in wanting the strike to continue, as he was a future king, and should be more concerned with the welfare of his subjects, than whether or not he can get laid:
"The ambulance strike of 1989 was one of the ugliest industrial confrontations in Britain since the miners' strike. It lasted more than 6 months, and cost more than ?35 million." People had suffered and died needlessly, due to the strike, which was 3 months along, and at it's height, at the time of this conversation. ]
Charles: "It will have done?"
Camilla: "Well, I mean I hope for everybody's sake it will have done, but I hope for our sakes it's still going on."
Charles: "Why?"
Camilla: "Well, because if it stops he'll come down here on Thursday night."
Charles: "Oh no."
Camilla: "Yes, but I don't think it will stop, do you?"
Charles: "No, neither do I. just our luck."
Camilla: "It just would be our luck, I know."
Charles: "Then it's bound to!"
Camilla: "No, it won't. You mustn't think like that. You must think positively."
Charles: "I'm not very good at that."
Camilla: "Well, I'm going to. Because if I don't, I'd despair. (Pause) Hmmm - gone to sleep?"
Charles: "No. How maddening."
Camilla: "I know. Anyway, I mean he's doing his best to change it--David... But I just thought, you know, I might ask Charlie."
Charles: "Did he say anything?"
Camilla: "No, I haven't talked to him."
Charles: "You haven't?"
Camilla: "Well, I talked to him briefly, but you know, I just thought I - I just don't know whether he's got any children at home, that's the worry."
Charles: "Right."
Camilla: "Oh, Darling. I think I'll..."
Charles: "Pray. Just Pray."
Camilla: "It would be so wonderful to have just one night to set us on our way, wouldn't it?"
Charles: "Wouldn't it? To wish you a Happy Christmas."
Camilla: (Indistinct) "Happy. Oh, don't let's think about Christmas! I can't bear it. (Pause) Going to go to sleep ? I think you'd better, don't you, darling?"
Charles: (Sleepy) "Yes, Darling?"
Camilla: "I think you've exhausted yourself by all that hard work. You must go to sleep now, Darling."
Charles: (Sleepy) "Yes, Darling?"
Camilla: "Will you ring me when you wake up?"
Charles: "Yes I will."
Camilla: "Before I have these rampaging children around. It's Tom's birthday, tomorrow. (Pause) You all right?"
Charles: "Mmm. I'm all right."
Camilla: "Can I talk to you, I hope, before those rampaging children...?"
Charles: "What time do they come in?"
Camilla: "Well, usually Tom never wakes up at all, but as it's his birthday, tomorrow, he might just stagger out of bed. It won't be before half past eight. (Pause) Night-night, my darling." [ James Whittaker feels that Camilla's emphasis on Tom's birthday being tomorrow, meant that she was trying to give Charles a hint: "but the penny doesn't drop. It's clear that he hasn't sent a present." I have no information as to whether or not he had. ]
Charles: "Darling....."
Camilla: "I do love you."
Charles: (Sleepily) "Before..."
Camilla: "Before half past eight."
Charles: "Try and ring?"
Camilla: "Yeah, if you can. Love you darling."
Charles: "Night, Darling."
Camilla: "I love you."
Charles: "I love you too. I don't want to say goodbye."
Camilla: "Well done, for doing that. You're a clever old thing. An awfully good brain lurking there, isn't there? Oh, darling, I think you ought to give the brain a rest now. Night-Night."
Charles: "Night darling, God bless."
Camilla: "I do love you, and I'm so proud of you."
Charles: "Oh, I'm so proud of you."
Camilla: "Don't be silly. I've never achieved anything."
Charles: "Yes, you have."
Camilla: "No, I haven't."
Charles: "You're greatest achievement is to love me."
Camilla: "Oh, darling easier than falling off a chair."
Charles: "You suffer all these indignities and tortures and calumnies!"
Camilla: "Oh, darling don't be so silly I'd suffer anything for you. That's love. It's the strength of love. Night-night."
Charles: "Night darling. Sounds if you're dragging an enormous piece of string behind you, with hundreds of tin pots and cans attached to it. Night-night, before the battery goes. (Blows kiss) Night."
Camilla: "Love you."
Charles: "Don't want to say goodbye."
Camilla: "Neither do I, but you must get some sleep, Bye."
Charles: "Bye, darling."
Camilla: "Love you."
Charles: "Bye."
Camilla: "Hopefully talk to you in the morning."
Charles: "Please!"
Camilla: "Bye, I do love you."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Night."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Love you, forever."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "G'bye. Bye, my darling."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Night-night."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Bye-bye."
Charles: "Going."
Camilla: "Gone."
Charles: "Going."
Camilla: "Gone."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Bye, Press the button."
Charles: "Going to press the tit."
Camilla: "All right darling; God--I wish you were pressing mine."
Charles: "God, I wish I was! Harder and harder!"
Camilla: "Oh, darling!"
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "Night."
Charles: "Love you."
Camilla: (Yawning) "Love you. Press the tit."
Charles: "Adore you. Night."
Camilla: "Night."
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: ( Blows a kiss--or farted. )
Charles: "Night."
Camilla: "G'night my darling, Love you."
Charles then finally hangs up the phone....
I quote The Enemy:
"On 30 November 1998, APB News Online published the results of a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request.
The news agency's request for documents on Diana, held by America's National Security Agency, had been rejected, but the rejection notice itself revealed that a total of 1,056 pages of documents is held by the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), State Department, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
APB quoted John Pike, an intelligence expert from the Federation of American Scientists, as saying that the NSA was "insatiably curious, and monitors everyone of interest outside the US."
A spokesman for the NSA, which holds 124 pages from "39 NSA-originated and NSA-controlled documents", declined to answer further questions about the documents, as did a spokeswoman for the CIA, which has at least two documents.
When asked why the Defense Intelligence Agency might be holding documents on Diana, Lieutenant-Colonel James MacNeil said he had "no idea why. All of our stuff is on military [matters]. Obviously she wasn't in the military."
After a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Guardian newspaper in 1999, the NSA told the paper that it was—and is still—holding reports under both "secret" and "top secret" classifications, and that: "these documents cannot be declassified because their disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."
The agency said it also needed to protect its sources: "The reports contain only references to Diana, Princess of Wales, acquired incidentally from intelligence gathering. It is neither NSA policy or practice to target British subjects in conducting our foreign intelligence mission. However, other countries could communicate about these subjects; therefore, this agency could acquire intelligence concerning British subjects."
U.S. journalist Gerald Posner was played innocuous extracts from the NSA tapes of Diana's conversations in early 1999.
Diana, and other international figures including Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, were all listened in on by the Echelon monitoring system, a world-wide monitoring network capable of processing millions of messages every hour. "'Anybody who is politically active,' said Madsen, 'will eventually end up on the NSA's radar screen.'"
In December 1998, the French magistrate who investigated Diana's death, Hervé Stephan, wrote to the American secret services to request the 1,056-page dossier of transcripted calls.
This request was refused a month or so later.
On 31 August 1997, the day Diana died, most of the British press was caught in the spotlight.
A number of early editions of that Sunday's papers were already in circulation, and these carried stories that were simply jokes about the Princess's persistent "dumb blonde" image.
A piece of "psychological profiling" about the Princess's ever-present role in public life, for The Sunday Times, featured a large picture of Diana, and began with the words "There is something missing from all our lives today."
The tabloid Sunday Mirror carried the story of how Palace courtiers were ready to press the Queen to let the Royal Warrants for Harrods lapse:
"It would be a huge blow to the ego of store owner Mohamed al-Fayed—and would infuriate Diana [...] but the Royal Family are furious about the frolics of Di, 36, and Dodi Fayed, 41, which they believe have further undermined the Monarchy...
Prince Philip, in particular has made no secret as to how he feels about his [former] daughter-in-law's latest man, referring to Dodi as an 'oily bed-hopper'."
After noting that MI6 had prepared a report on the Fayeds, which would be presented at an early September meeting of the Royal policy think-tank, The Way Ahead Group, the paper quoted a friend of the Royals as saying:
"Prince Philip has let rip several times recently about the Fayeds: at a dinner party, during a country shoot, and while on a visit to close friends in Germany.
He's been banging on about his contempt for Dodi and how he is undesirable as a future stepfather to William and Harry.
Diana has been told in no uncertain terms about the consequences should she continue the relationship with the Fayed boy.
Options must include exile, although that would be very difficult, as—when all is said and done—she is the mother of the future King of England [sic]."
Mirror columnist Chris Hutchins could not have been aware that events later that night would mean his words would be read in a very different light. He had written in the paper's "Confidential" feature:
"Just when Diana began to believe that her current romance with likeable playboy Dodi Fayed had wiped out her past liaisons, a new tape recording is doing the rounds of Belgravia dinner parties. And this one is hot, hot, hot!
Labelled 'Squidgygate II,' the tape is of a completely different conversation the princess had with her sometime beau James Gilbey.
"'It's absolutely outrageous,' says a woman friend who heard the tape last week, but was too polite to ask her hostess if she could make a copy for 'Confidential'. 'It's full of sexual innuendo, and far more explicit than the one we all heard before'."
Hutchins concluded: "I must remember to take it up with Diana next time we find ourselves on adjacent running machines at our West London gym."
The second "Squidgygate" tape disappeared from the media without trace, before it had even had a chance to appear, with no further information on its contents, origins, or on its sudden surfacing in private hands after a gap of some seven years.
Suspicion about responsibility for the "Squidgygate" leak (perhaps naturally) focused on the United Kingdom's security service, MI5.
Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke said:
"The security services are strictly controlled in their telephone tapping, and I know of no evidence whatever to indicate that they were involved."
Such suggestions, he added, were "wild" and "extremely silly."
On the same day as these remarks, members of the Commons all-party Home Affairs Select Committee had their first meeting with Dame Stella Rimington, director general of MI5. Committee member John Greenway MP (Conservative) remarked that the recent "Camillagate" leak
"strengthens the case for a parliamentary committee to have responsibility to oversee or scrutinise the work of the security services [...] I suspect that colleagues will want to ask how true the allegations [of MI5 complicity in the 'Camillagate' leak] are, and I suspect that she [Rimington] will refuse to tell us."
No record exists of matters discussed at the meeting.
Before any investigation into "Squidgygate" or "Camillagate" had begun, Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke told the House of Commons:
"There is nothing to investigate.
[...] I am absolutely certain that the allegation that this is anything to do with the security services or GCHQ [...] is being put out by newspapers, who I think feel rather guilty that they are using plainly tapped telephone calls."
The Labour Party, then in Opposition, accused Kenneth Clarke of irresponsibility, issuing a statement:
"He has to show that he is taking these allegations seriously, otherwise he will be perceived as being unable to control an organisation for which he is responsible."
John Major's government eventually published two reports, both of which cleared MI5 and MI6 of involvement in the "Royalgates" tapes.
One of these was the annual report of the Interceptions Commissioner, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who oversaw the intelligence-gathering practices of the security services. Excerpt follows:
"[Lord Bingham] was impressed by the scrupulous adherence to the statutory provisions [against misconduct] of those involved in the [intelligence-gathering] procedures."
In a clear reference to the "Squidgygate" affair, he commented on "the stories which occasionally circulated in the press with regard to the interceptions by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ," stating that such stories were, in his experience, "without exception false, and gave an entirely misleading impression to the public both of the extent of official interception and of the targets against which interception is directed."
Conservative MP Richard Shepherd called the official reports:
"two old buffers saying that in their opinion the security services act with integrity."
The National Heritage Secretary Peter Brook gave MPs
"a categorical assurance that the heads of the agencies concerned have said there is no truth in the rumours."
Okay - this has succeeded in seriously creeping me out...
Diana's Head Turned To Avoid The Dazzling White Light. Trevor Rees - Jones Had Lowered The Sun Visor, His Right Hand Raised AS Though To Avoid Bright Sunlight - The Reflection In The Spectacles Of Henri Paul Clearly Show A Dazzling Light, Henri's Eyes Look Wide And Stunned ! And An Inquest That Failed To Expalin How Henri Paul Could Possibly Have Had So Much Carbon Monoxide In His Bloodstream Which Would Have Left Him Unable To Stand !
