The royals - Kitty Kelley [290]
Her courtiers made sure Her Majesty paid proper tribute to the part Jews played in British life when she welcomed the first president of Israel to make a state visit to Britain in February of 1997. Raising her glass to Ezer Weizman, the Queen ended her speech with one of the most popular Jewish toasts: “Lechayim,” she said. “To life.”
Re: The Queen’s commitment to the throne:
She had once considered abdication. In 1965, when Prince Charles was seventeen years old, she met with her advisers to discuss her son’s future. She said she would like to avoid “an Edward VII” situation, referring to her great-grandfather, who inherited the throne from Queen Victoria when he was fifty-nine years old. By then he had spent most of his life sipping Champagne in the arms of his lovers. “It might be wise,” said the Queen, according to her biographer Robert Lacey, “to abdicate when Charles could do better.”
Her husband joked, “You might be right. The doctors will keep you alive so long.”
By 1991 the Queen had reconsidered. She told her subjects in her Christmas address to the country: “With your prayers and your help, and the love and support of my family, I shall try and help you in the years to come.”
She seemed destined to fulfill the prophecy of Sir John Colville, who was private secretary to Winston Churchill and helped train her for the throne: “I believe that the Queen will reign on to celebrate her golden jubilee, fifty years as monarch, in 2002 A.D.”
EPILOGUE
Articles: The Sunday Times, September 7, 1997; The New York Times, September 1– 18, 1997; Daily Mail, September 1– 18; November 27, 28 and 29; December 2, 1997; February 16, 1998; The Mail on Sunday, February 8– 15, 1998; The Washington Post, September 1– 12; November 3, 1997; Sunday Independent, September 21, 1997; Associated Press, September 29, 1997; Newsweek, October 27, 1997; Vanity Fair, December 1997; Time, February 16, 1998.
Re: Michael Cole, the former spokesman for Mohamed al-Fayed:
Days after this book was published in September 1997, Mr. Cole appeared on CNN and asserted he had not spoken to me. He said he was “astonished” to discover his name in the acknowledgments. Since I had talked to him in London for over twenty minutes on tape, I wrote to him on September 22, 1997:
“To refresh your memory, we spoke at length on November 15, 1993, when I called you at Harrods. During that conversation, you talked about what happened over your part in the early release of the Queen’s Christmas message on December 17, 1988, and, because of it, how and why you resigned from the BBC. We also discussed various press secretaries to the Queen and royal correspondents, etc. You were forthright in your opinions about all things pertaining to royalty and you asked me to call you on my next trip to London so we could have tea and talk further. The tapes of that conversation are with my lawyers, and I’m enclosing a copy of the letter I sent you on March 5, 1994, proposing that we speak again.”
Cole did not respond to my 1997 letter but again went on television to deny talking to me. So my literary agent gave the tape of my interview with Michael Cole to a reporter. “Kitty Kelley is not in the business of releasing details of interviews with sources,” said Wayne S. Kabak of the William Morris Agency, “but felt she had to in this case to prove she was right and Mr. Cole was wrong.”
A reporter from The People in London contacted the al-Fayed spokesman. Cole denied again that he had