Diana Spencer

[Joseph]

Today would have been Princess Diana's 50th birthday.
Victim of a tragic RTA or victim of something more sinister ?
Whatever the truth of the matter it sure roused a lot of people's suspicions at the time and I suppose still does to this day, 14 years on.

[Adam Went]

Honestly, I think there's more to the story than what we've all been told, but probably nothing of a sinister nature, at least not in connection to the Royals. We know only too well that they've been falsely tied in with criminal activities in the past. No doubt more will be added on to the story in years to come.

R.I.P. Diana.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

Princess Diana, who did not avail herself of the minimal safety precautions whilst riding in a car, was killed due to excessive speed by her boyfriend's drunken chauffeur.

Three people died in that crash, except the one person -- her bodyguard -- who was wearing a seatbelt.

There is no 'mystery' as to her tragic demise, and there never was.

[Phil H]

Blame the Al Fayed's is my view.

It was their drunken chauffeur, THEIR hotel, their security advice - didn't Dodi phone daddy to get approval in advance for his plans?

Al Fayed can't live with the responsibility - hence his pursuit of others in a transfer the blame game.

As an indication of the view I have of conspiracy theories in this case, on the Monday after the accident, colleagues and I in the office discussed the fact that conspiracy theories would emerge, concocted a scenario and predicted that we would be inundated by similarly ill-based ideas before long. WE WERE RIGHT

If the establishment had wanted to get rid of Dodi or Diana there were surely easier, better, more reliable and simpler methods. For once, I agree with Jonathan, by all accounts, if she had been wearing a seat-belt she would have survived as did the body-guard.

Diana, like the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and Princess Grace of Monaco all died in tragic circumstances. I am only surprised that Diana, was not assassinated by a maniac, as was the Empress, given her refusal to accept proper security.

In some ways dying in the flower of her beauty has made Diana an icon, like Dean or Munro - had she lived to be 50, with her inability to make sensible decisions and her questionable mental state, I think her reputation might now be somewhere below that of Sarah Ferguson, erstwhile Duchess of York.

Phil

[kensei]

I can't help but remember a radio show I heard several years ago that dealt with one of the conspiracy theories on Diana. It was an episode of "Coast to Coast A.M." which is well known for dealing in such things. I have just a general memory of it, don't know what the guest's name was, but I remember it was fascinating at the time and sounded absolutely credible as he described having firsthand knowledge of how Diana was assassinated- not by the royal family at all, but by MI5 or MI6 (and sorry but I have no idea what the difference is between those two organizations or which one he said it was). The story had to do with how Diana was planning to start doing humanitarian work calling attention to the plight of Palestinian youth, and how British intelligence just couldn't abide that. The method of assassination had something to do with the car being sabotaged or rigged to be made to crash by remote control. It sounded credible at the time, but in retrospect I don't know. It doesn't seem like such a reliable method of assassination if simply wearing a seatbelt could have helped her survive it. I don't know, I'm on the fence.

The latest issue of "Newsweek" features a cover story on Diana's 50th birthday in which they imagine what life would be like if she was still alive today. They have age-enhanced a photo of her adding wrinkles to her face, and they created hypothetical Facebook and Twitter pages for her. The main focus is on how she would likely still be heavily involved in humanitarian work around the world, though it also speculated that her love life after Dodi would have continued to involve multiple relationships with powerful men. The author is Tina Brown, who knew Diana personally. Apparently she is taking a lot of criticism for it.

[Bob Hinton]

Seatbelt

Princess Diana, who did not avail herself of the minimal safety precautions whilst riding in a car, was killed due to excessive speed by her boyfriend's drunken chauffeur.

Three people died in that crash, except the one person -- her bodyguard -- who was wearing a seatbelt.

There is no 'mystery' as to her tragic demise, and there never was.

That is one of the myths of the incident. The bodyguard was not wearing his seat belt - bodyguards don't.

[Bob Hinton]

I can't help but remember a radio show I heard several years ago that dealt with one of the conspiracy theories on Diana. It was an episode of "Coast to Coast A.M." which is well known for dealing in such things. I have just a general memory of it, don't know what the guest's name was, but I remember it was fascinating at the time and sounded absolutely credible as he described having firsthand knowledge of how Diana was assassinated- not by the royal family at all, but by MI5 or MI6 (and sorry but I have no idea what the difference is between those two organizations or which one he said it was). The story had to do with how Diana was planning to start doing humanitarian work calling attention to the plight of Palestinian youth, and how British intelligence just couldn't abide that. The method of assassination had something to do with the car being sabotaged or rigged to be made to crash by remote control. It sounded credible at the time, but in retrospect I don't know. It doesn't seem like such a reliable method of assassination if simply wearing a seatbelt would have helped her survive it. I don't know, I'm on the fence.

The main focus is on how she would likely still be heavily involved in humanitarian work around the world, though it also speculated that her love life after Dodi would have continued to involve multiple relationships with powerful men. The author is Tina Brown, who knew Diana personally.

You of course are absolutely correct. Using a car accident to cover an assassination is fraught with problems, one of them being the uncertainty of what happens in a crash. It’s relatively simple after an accident to say what happened but practically impossible to say beforehand.

For example if you rig the brakes to fail who is to say at the moment of failure the car is going particularly fast?

If you take over the steering ditto!

And so on. I know there was that ridiculous ‘rigged’ car crash in that rather silly book, ‘The Feathermen’, but that was pure fantasy.

Professionals assassinate people in such a way you don’t know that they have been assassinated. When a defector from Department 5 KGB came over he admitted that he had assassinated several people whose deaths had been written off as heart attacks – he used a cyanide cigarette.

As for continuing her world wide humanitarian work, the day after she received her massive divorce settlement she ditched all her charities apart from two high profile ones. Diana was only interested in one person – Diana!

[Phil H]

Kensei

MI5 = internal intelligence (equivalent to FBI in some ways) should not do much overseas.

MI6 = foreign intelligence = (equivalent to CIA) not allowed to do work in UK.

I still remain amazed that anyone should think it likely that an "assassination" be carried out in such a way as a messy car smash, indeed, Diana appears almost to have survived.

The Ferguson woman has been almost as much of an embarrassment nationally as Diana would have been and no one has bumped her off. Equally, why kill her to prevent her working for the Palestinian cause - to discredit her instead might have been equally efiicient?

And if Mossad were not the culprits why MI6? (I wouldn't see 5 as being interested.)

Sorry, but I see no reason for anyone to bump Diana off - not least so ineffectually - it would always be more likely to create attention than letting her be.

Princess Grave was killed in a car accident and there were conspiracy thweories then - wasn't she connected to some occult group? But almost certainly that was an accident. Princess Astrid of belgium was also killed in a car accident in 1926 - so these things do happen, even to royalty.

But I suppose we have to accept a world in which the Daily Express and other saddos have a place!!

Phil

[kensei]

I will also never forget something from my first visit to England as a bumbling tourist in 2004 when I was in Hyde Park, wanting to see Diana's memorial fountain and having very little idea where I was going or what I was doing. It didn't help that there was some kind of marathon run going on at the time to raise money for breast cancer research, with hundreds of women runners, camera crews, police, etc. all over the place. I had literally just arrived in the country that day and found myself in the midst of all that. And I got to the fountain just as the run was ending and the runners were going to rest and soak their feet in it, and I asked a random young woman- one of the first people I spoke to there actually, after the airport- "Is this the Diana fountain?" And she didn't just say "yes." She said, "Princess of Wales, yeah." I got the impression that she was correcting me, that the Brits take very seriously the way in which Diana is referred to. We use her title, you ignorant American!

[kensei]

Bob and Phil- I was typing as you were responding to my previous post and we overlapped. Appreciate your input. Thanks for the clarification about MI5 and MI6. One thing I would expect if Diana was assassinated is that her sons would move heaven and earth to find out, and they appear to be satisfied that she was not. But I do still hold it as a slight possibility.

[Bob Hinton]

Kensei

MI5 = internal intelligence (equivalent to FBI in some ways) should not do much overseas.

MI6 = foreign intelligence = (equivalent to CIA) not allowed to do work in UK.

Phil

Not quite. MI5 is counter intelligence and MI6 is Intelligence. Traditionally their roles have meant that MI5 tend to work at home and MI6 abroad, but over the last forty years or so that has changed.

[Bob Hinton]

after the airport- "Is this the Diana fountain?" And she didn't just say "yes." She said, "Princess of Wales, yeah." I got the impression that she was correcting me, that the Brits take very seriously the way in which Diana is referred to. We use her title, you ignorant American!

How rude making a guest in our country feel uncomfortable for no good reason!

[Limehouse]

I agree weith most posters - that Diana died in a car crash because she was not wearing a seat belt and the driver was prbably drunk or nearly so.

Diana was far too young and dim for Prince Charles. They should never have married. When she finally woke up and smelled the coffee - she decided on a course of action that would elevate her to the icon she became. A good hair cut and a bit of hair dye - expensive clothes - a personal trainer - endless photo opportunities - bashful looks and little tears squeezed out here and there for effect - undoubtedly a lot of good charity work but with equal amounts of publicity - a love of children and old poeople and animals and teminally ill people - a messy divorce and embarrassing accusations (justified nevertheless) and finally the tragic death.

Sorry if I sound flippant - but I much prefer quieter and more modest Royals who may not be so attractive but who work very hard in the background and seek no publicity. Anne is an example.

[kensei]

How rude making a guest in our country feel uncomfortable for no good reason!

Not at all- I totally deserved it.

[Bob Hinton]

But I do still hold it as a slight possibility.

There are three main ways of getting rid of someone who is in need of being got rid of, or there used to be.

Buying the farm. This means the person concerned has cocked up big time but with no real malice or danger. They are quietly retired with all their benefits.

Pass the cash. Buying someone off, always dangerous – the other side might offer more.

Catch a cold. The person is killed. (comes from the saying “So and so caught a cold which unfortunately turned into pneumonia”)