Posted on 11/11/2003 2:37:02 PM PST by quidnunc
We'll find out he's a herion addict. Then he'll be a gay, Muslim heroin addict.
The shocking revelation that Ted Kennedy is his evil twin, that they were both fathered by Elvis aboard an alien mothership, and that he is about to announce a new diet that can help you lose 20 pounds in just one week!
That he is a reptilian.
(Filed: 11/11/2003)
The Telegraph (UK)
Those seeking to influence the royals have ensured that allegations no one believes remain headline news. Philip Johnston and Caroline Davies report
On the official website of the Prince of Wales yesterday, the latest news concerned his recent visit to India and Oman.
He was pictured holding talks in the Arab sultanate while other items recounted his visit to the slums of Bombay. His engagement diary foreshadowed tomorrow's visit to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, to attend the annual Drumhead Remembrance Service for the nation's war dead.
Here, then, was the very essence of the Prince's duties: a successful overseas trip followed by a hectic schedule of public appearances and charitable events.
Yet to judge by the newspaper headlines that awaited the Prince on his arrival home yesterday, he and the Royal Family were at the centre of the gravest crisis since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales or - in the hysterical opinion of one paper - of all time.
The Prince's mortification at this turn of events is matched only by the bewilderment of many of his mother's subjects: what on earth is going on here? Why is Prince Charles being required to deny a lurid allegation that no one is able to substantiate?
This is a story of newspaper circulation wars, petty rivalries among lowly courtiers and servants, and the hurt sensibilities of those who once had the ear of the Prince but whose influence has waned. Its origins lie in the bitter separation and divorce of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
It begins on Oct 25, 1995, when an assistant valet named George Smith, a Falklands war veteran, was taken ill on duty. He had marriage problems and had become depressed.
Mr Smith was taken from his Twickenham home to Highgrove, the Prince's country residence, where he could be looked after. On the journey to Gloucestershire he poured out his heart to Elizabeth Burgess, the personnel officer accompanying him.
He told her about his horrific experiences in the Falklands aboard the Sir Galahad, the troopship bombed by Argentine warplanes, killing or wounding dozens of his colleagues in the Welsh Guards. He also spoke of his troubled childhood.
In passing, Mr Smith referred to the "fact" that he had been raped by a senior member of the Prince's household. He gave no more details and Mrs Burgess did not mention the conversation to anyone for several years.
Mr Smith, who was in a disturbed state, was referred for treatment to the Priory Clinic, one of three stays paid for by the Prince of Wales. Mr Smith also told the Princess of Wales about the alleged rape and in October 1996 - just a few weeks after their divorce - she informed Prince Charles.
Police records show that around this time, the valet went to his local police station in Hounslow, west London, though he has no recollection of the visit. He also claimed that he had been approached at his home by a man who threatened him with a gun.
Unknown to Mr Smith, the police installed a CCTV camera to keep watch on his door. When he later made similar claims they found no trace of the gunman or any suspicious visitor. Hounslow CID records state that the inquiry "was discontinued because of the unreliability of previous allegations" made by him.
After negotiations, the valet left the Prince's household with a lump-sum payment of £30,000 plus legal and other expenses.
Nothing further was heard about the rape allegation until 2001 when the police were investigating Paul Burrell, the Princess's former butler, over the whereabouts of some of her personal effects that had gone missing after her death.
According to notes made by the Crown Prosecution Service, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, the Princess's sister, said she had entrusted Burrell with a sensitive tape recording referring to a rape allegation. It was said to have been kept in a mahogany box but its whereabouts are unknown.
All of these stories appeared around the time of the Burrell trial. Mr Smith's claims have even been thoroughly aired in an official report written by Sir Michael Peat, the Prince's private secretary.
So why has it resurfaced now? The catalyst was the publication a few weeks ago of Burrell's book and its serialisation in the Daily Mirror. Other newspapers wanted a royal story of their own, so the Mail on Sunday despatched a reporter to re-interview Mr Smith and prepare a 3,000-word feature.
The Mail on Sunday had done this story a year earlier under the headline "I Was Raped By Charles Servant". It even referred, almost in passing, to a separate incident that Mr Smith said he had witnessed involving a senior member of the Royal Family and a servant.
This time, it proposed to attach names to the story about the separate incident but had no corroboration and admitted as much in court when an injunction was obtained by Michael Fawcett, another palace servant and the Prince's former valet, to block publication. Nonetheless, the injunction gave the newspaper the headline that some in Clarence House believe it wanted in the first place: "Gagged."
All these legal machinations triggered last week's welter of innuendo, claim and counter-claim. On Thursday, The Guardian, while not wanting to divulge the details of the allegations, sought and won a court ruling that it could name Mr Fawcett as the beneficiary of the injunction.
That evening, fearful that the affair was getting out of hand, Sir Michael issued a statement and gave a television interview to acknowledge that the Prince was the subject of salacious gossip and to deny there was any substance to it.
Sources say this was a "clearly thought-out strategy" and was followed in order to issue the strongest possible denial before the allegation became public. "We needed to get the Prince's denial across, and we managed it just in time. This totally unfounded allegation was going to be printed, sooner or later."
However, the statement triggered a ferocious attack on Sir Michael from some sections of the media. He was portrayed as a hapless courtier, unversed in the ways of public relations, who had landed the Prince in an unholy mess.
The furore culminated in an article in the News of the World written by Mark Bolland, the Prince's former press secretary, who some in Clarence House accuse of nursing a grievance since he was ousted when Sir Michael arrived last year.
When he worked with the Prince and was confronted with similar rumours, Mr Bolland said he laughed them off. This time, Clarence House had "an unrivalled public relations disaster on its hands" - the implication being that he would have handled it better.
For good measure, he also claimed that Sir Michael once asked him whether he thought the Prince of Wales was "bisexual". Sir Michael told the newspaper he had never asked Mr Bolland any such question.
This was the farrago with which the Prince had to deal on his return to Britain yesterday. An old and unsubstantiated rumour had been recycled and when his advisers tried to stop the gossip, they appeared only to have made matters worse.
As a result, newspapers in the Mail group, and individuals who once had influence inside the Prince's household but who have since been frozen out, have seized the opportunity to deride those who have supplanted them.
Some inside Clarence House believe that this unresolved vendetta - combined with a cynical pursuit of newspaper sales - demonstrates a reckless disregard for the future of the Prince and the monarchy. Alternatively, those at its centre are pursuing a republican agenda by proxy.
With the internet and foreign newspapers now full of gratuitous gossip simply because of the way it has been perpetuated in the British media, those who claim to have his best interests at heart have succeeded only in tarnishing the Prince's image both at home and overseas.
Homeopathy.
I dunno, but I know Sultan Qaboos is gay (but we must not speak of such things, or so they told me when I was in Oman). He keeps a harem of boys at the palace:
• He toured the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque for almost two hours and "took keen interest in studying various sections at the mosque, including the main prayer hall." As his spokesman put it, "The Prince was particularly keen to come to the mosque today to see the fantastic building and remarkable architecture which Prince was fascinated with. The Prince has a great love for Islamic architecture and I can't think of finer example than this mosque."
Maybe not, Lion Heart was himself both a king AND a queen.
DO DIANA'S SECRET TAPES STILL EXIST IN A N.Y. VAULT?
Suddenly the Di story might become interesting, which might explain the rumors that various intelligence agencies were tracking the Prince. Is he a security risk?
As long as he is not Catholic. ;)
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