Bugging Di to death

The reports cannot be released because of "exceptionally grave damage to the national security"

American intelligence agencies were bugging Princess Diana's telephone over her relationship with a US billionaire, the Mail's sister paper has learned.

Evening Standard reports that she was even forced to abandon a planned holiday with her sons in the US with tycoon Teddy Forstmann on advice from secret services, who passed on their concerns to their British counterparts.

Both US and British intelligence then forced Diana to change her plans to stay with Mr Forstmann in the summer of 1997, saying it was too "dangerous" to take her sons there.

Instead the princess took the fateful decision to take a summer break with Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed. This ultimately led to her going to Paris with his son Dodi, where they died in a car crash.

The revelation from independent inquiries by the Evening Standard comes as it emerged that Princess Diana's phone was bugged by US intelligence agencies on the night she died without the permission of the British secret intelligence services.

Authoritative leaks say the extraordinary revelations will be published this week by Lord Stevens and is bound to raise fresh questions about conspiracy theories.

The US secret service was monitoring Diana's friendship with the controversial financier Mr Forstmann for some weeks.

Mohamed Fayed has always insisted the princess and Dodi Fayed were murdered in a plot involving MI6 agents and US intelligence.

The Standard has learned that Diana had agreed to a week's holiday with princes William and Harry in the US.

She had accepted an invitation from her one-time American boyfriend Mr Forstmann to stay with him at his house in the Hamptons.

But as she was travelling with the princes, she needed the trip to be cleared by the British security services. They surprisingly vetoed Diana's plans because of concerns about the security surrounding the billionaire's homes or perhaps a possible threat from elsewhere.

The decision by the security services ultimately led to Diana striking up her friendship with Dodi and returning to the south of France to holiday with him.

This led to her being in Paris on 31 August, the day of the crash.

The Evening Standard also understands that US secret services have a number of secret files on Diana and her closest associates that are held by the national security agency. The files, which include reports from foreign intelligence - thought to include MI5 and MI6 - come under both top secret and secret categories.The reports cannot be released because it could prove highly damaging to a man who gives huge sums of money to the Republican party of "exceptionally grave damage to the national security". The documents on the princess seem to have arisen because of the company she kept rather than through any attempt to target her.


M15, M16 = the UK secret service, who busies itself with protecting the world from pretty princesses,in case you were wondering.

Now I’m not going to get all up in conspiracy theories, but it does make one wonder why the CIA was interested in Diana. Although I would probably agree it had more to do the men she chose to cavort with than her personally, it does make one wonder. Just who is this Teddy Forstmann that the CIA was so interested in?

From this site we learn he’s really, really rich. Really, really. He has bankrolled an Afghan rebel group and is a Republican Party fundraiser of national repute. He gave $100,000 to the Bush campaign in 1988. He backed Ross Perot in 1992, serving on the billionaire's campaign committee. He turned up as cochairman of George Bush's reelection committee weeks before Bush's defeat in 1993.

And then I happened upon this, and it all became clear why the Clinton era CIA may have been spying on this guy. Just check out the guest list at his "annual off the record gathering" in Aspen, Colorado last year.

And this from The New Yorker, which goes into depth about Forstmann's recent legal troubles:

"I happened to run into him after his appearances with Diana had been in the gossip columns, and he told me that she was very eager to pursue a relationship—although he admitted that his wealth and its trappings were probably part of his allure—but he was deeply involved with Hagerty at the time. He told me that he’d reluctantly aborted the romance with the demanding princess. Though I can’t verify his claim, I found it intriguing that he told me, and they remained mutual confidants until her death."

All in all it's obvious Diana laid down with dogs and woke up with fleas. And it most likely cost her her life.

It will be interesting to see how the whole secret wire-tapping thing plays out.