IN HIS OWN HAND, PRINCE SHARES ANGUISH OF DIANA... IN INTIMATE LETTERS TO NANCY REAGAN
THE TERRIBLE LOSS OF HIS ‘BELOVED’ GRANDMOTHER... AND A HOAXER UNMASKED
Presidential Foundation, said: ‘President and Mrs Reagan really valued their friendship with the royal family, especially the Prince of Wales. They shared the ups and downs of their lives and always wrote the other with strong words of personal support, especially if the situation had become public.
‘Mrs Reagan was extremely touched that he attended President Reagan’s funeral in 2004. She felt a special closeness to him.’
Charles first met the Reagans in 1974 when he was serving in the Royal Navy and was invited to a private dinner at the Palm Springs home of Walter Annenberg, then US ambassador to Britain, and his socialite wife Lee, a lifelong confidante of Nancy’s.
At the time, Reagan was Governor of California and their lasting friendship began at a raucous weekend at the Annenberg’s sprawling 25,000sq.ft home in the desert, where Charles also met Hollywood luminaries including Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.
In a letter dated June 6, 2004, the day after President Reagan’s death following a decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s, the prince wrote a condolence note to Nancy from Highgrove in which he recalls ‘such fond and happy memories of those California days when we used to meet with the dear old Annenbergs.’
Clearly moved by Reagan’s death, he continues: ‘I so wanted to write to say how much my heart goes out to you. I have minded so much for you ever since your husband became ill with that beastly Alzheimer’s as I can well imagine how soul-destroying it must be to be unable to do anything to help as the illness gradually drags your loved one into a separate world from which you are barred…’ The prince recalls: ‘Your husband was always incredibly kind to me and none more so than when we came to stay with you both in The White House in the ’80s and you made us feel so marvellously welcome… I shall treasure his sense of humour, which shone through everything he did. It was a rare gift and he put it to wonderful use.’
The friendship deepened when Reagan became president in 1981.
In May 1981, Prince Charles, engaged to Lady Diana Spencer and preparing for their wedding that July, flew to Washington for a three-day solo state visit.
On May 3, airborne, he writes to thank the Reagans for hosting a dinner at the White House. President Reagan had been shot by John Hinkley on March 30 and Charles wrote how ‘honoured’ he was that ‘you should have found time to see me on Friday – particularly after all you’ve been through recently’.
The prince gushed about sitting next to Nancy – ‘I am a devoted admirer for life!’
Diana still hasn’t got over dancing with John Travolta
I know exactly the methods these dreadful people employ
Apparently there are a whole series of ghastly books coming out in time with our 10th wedding anniversary – so you can imagine what they will contain!
In another letter to Mrs Reagan, Lady (Mary) Henderson, wife of Sir Nicholas Henderson, then UK Ambassador to Washington, wrote of an exchange after the same dinner: ‘The prince said, “I have fallen in love with Mrs Reagan – she is wonderful”, to which I said, “Well sir, I told you so.” The prince then added, “I wanted to kiss her – to thank her…’ Nick, “Well, why didn’t you?” The prince, “Well.. you know... we British... are…”’
While much has been written about the breakdown of Charles’s marriage to Diana, one letter written on November 11, 1985, bursts with love and pride. The couple had enjoyed a hugely successful trip to the States, crowned by a glittering gala at the White House, in which Nancy arranged for Diana to dance with her ‘idol’, Saturday Night Fever star John Travolta.
While that has become an iconic image of the late princess, her husband’s account of that night has never before been made public
In the letter to President Reagan, Charles speaks about the ‘wonderfully relaxed’ visit and how he would be ‘watching with interest to see how your meeting with the Soviet president goes…’ (Reagan was about to have his historic summit with Mikhail Gorbachev)
Proudly, he writes: ‘Diana still hasn’t got over dancing with John Travolta, Neil Diamond and Clint Eastwood in one evening, not to mention the President of the United States as well!’
Ever the loyal friend, one of the most telling letters is clearly written in haste from Birkhall, the prince’s shooting lodge at Balmoral on April 11, 1991. Four days earlier, an unauthorised warts-and-all biography of Mrs Reagan by American author Kitty Kelley had been reviewed by the New York Times.
The devastating exposé was full of salacious gossip, including allegations that Nancy had an affair with Frank Sinatra, had undergone plastic surgery multiple times, lied about her age and advised her husband on affairs of state only after consulting astrologers.
Scathing in its tone, the book portrayed Nancy as an ice-cold gold-digger who used the casting couch to sleep her way around Hollywood and had set out to ‘trap’ Ronald by getting pregnant.
A clearly enraged Charles writes to his friend about the ‘appalling book’, saying: ‘I know exactly the methods these dreadful people employ to create the maximum amount of controversy and conflict by making the wildest allegations so as to make the maximum amount of money. We live in an increasingly uncivilised world and if you happen to find yourself in a public position it becomes progressively more impossible to operate without every move being regarded as having an ulterior motive.’
The following year, 1992, Nancy writes to Charles after the publication of Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story, with which the princess secretly co-operated.
The book exposed Diana’s fears about Camilla Parker Bowles’ relationship with her husband (even though the prince later insisted the affair only started after his marriage had ‘irretrievably broken down’) and portrayed the prince as a cold, uncaring husband.
The book was published on June 15, 1992, and the prince writes to Nancy six days later after receiving her letter of support and tells her of his ‘Greek tragedy’ of a marriage saying: ‘I can’t tell you how much your heartwarming letter means to me. As you say, no one can really understand what it all means until it has happened to you’ and promising: ‘One day I will tell you the whole story’ but that it is ‘so awful that very few people who haven’t been witnesses would believe it’.
On November 24, 1994, a clearly furious Charles confides in President Reagan that a radio station ‘prank called’ him for his birthday: ‘I was …told that a member of your staff was on the line and when I picked up the telephone a strange voice wished me a happy birthday. I slammed down the receiver in a rage as you can imagine!’
On July 18, 1996, in a four-page letter written during a visit to New York, Charles laments that he has not seen Mrs Reagan, who was caring for her husband at their LA home: ‘I do feel for you so much and pray that the president’s condition isn’t making life too complicated for you,’ he wrote.
In frustration, he complains he is being forced to go to ‘yet another’ dinner, this time to raise funds for Henry VIII’s warship The Mary Rose, which he had helped raise.
The most poignant note is a blackrimmed letter dated June 7, 2002, about the death of the Queen Mother on March 30, in which he admitted: ‘I fear it has not been very easy to cope of late’. Heartbroken, he writes of his grandmother: ‘I have dreaded her eventual departure and now she leaves an enormous chasm in my life.
‘However, she also leaves behind the most wonderful legacy of unbelievably happy memories… Oh, how we shall all miss her and everything she stood for...’
When the MoS visited the Reagan Library last week, the letters were in plastic cover sheets. The fragile paper can only be touched wearing special white gloves.
There are hopes that at some point the historic letters may go on public display to allow the world to see for the first time a friendship which endured through the years and was ended only by death.
‘We live in an increasingly uncivilised world’
‘Oh, how we shall miss her and all she stood for’