The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 3

Monday, Sum I tiu 1, 1997 A3 Tin-Cincinnati Enui iki The scene Princess Diana 1961-1997 ound drew people: sight was gnsiy iQ 'v" 4 I' CLIFF RADEL Tabloid fans share in blame Princess Diana's life should have been a fairy-tale existence. But it ended over the weekend in a nightmarish high-speed car crash along a tunnel in Paris. The most glamorous 36-year-old woman in the world died in the most glamorous of pities after being chased by relentless photographers on motorcycles. The photographers had plenty of outside help. Cheering them on were millions of busybodies.

They weren't in the tunnel. They were miles and miles away checking out the tabloids at the grocery-store check-out counter. They thing that came to my mind was, 'This was a bomb, a terrorist When Mr. Solomon entered the tunnel, he was horrified by his "clear view." "The air bags were out. I saw (Mr.

Al-Fayed) spread over the back seat," he said. "It was just something that nobody should have to see." Witnesses said the sound of the car's horn echoed for nearly two minutes before the driver, also killed in the crash, could be moved. Some witnesses said they saw a man arguing with a photographer who carried professional-looking equipment and was snapping shots of the gory scene. "His equipment was far too sophisticated for a tourist," a witness told CNN in Paris. "I assumed he was with the press." The police arrived about 10 minutes later, the-witnesses said, an ambulance five minutes after that.

Mr. Al-Fayed was dead at the scene, as was the chauffeur. Diana was whisked to the Salpe-triere Hospital in eastern Paris, where doctors worked furiously to save her life. But Diana's head and lung injuries were too severe for her to survive. She went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 4 a.m.

One photographer was snapping wreck pictures BY ANNE E. KORNBLUT New York Daily News First, a piercing screech echoed 0 from the tunnel. Then a deafening 1 boom. vj; The mangled dark blue Merce-l 'des-Benz in which Princess Diana and her companion, Dodi Al-Fayed, 1 had been riding "looked like it hit a American tourist Tom Rich- ardson said. Mr.

Richardson and Joanna Luz were among the first on the scene. told CNN they were walking when they heard the crash and ran into the tunnel. "There was smoke. A man "started running toward us, telling Ciis to go," Mr. Richardson said.

"The horn was sounding for 'about two minutes," Ms. Luz add- ed. "I think it was the driver the steering wheel." Diana and Mr. Al-Fayed were 'motionless in the back seat of the crushed vehicle, witness Michael Solomon said. "(Diana) was just unconscious," Mr.

Solomon, an American tourist, told CNN. "When I walked up to the car, I was extremely nervous. I had heard an explosion, and the first The Associated PressJerome Delay its air baas deployed front end smashed and roof caved in, the Mercedes in which Princess Diana wal riding in the tunnel where" it crashed early Sunday. Three of its four occupants died. The media HLSL'NDWiiMrs' lESIl i mid luvctr 1'rlnccss Diana and Dodi ('w in PnnHvarvinn II I II HI Dodi arc killed in Paris car crash F- 4 i.a i il m-mt, 4 II I.

II It uiiml The local view Area bookstores selling all stock of biographies The Cincinnati Enquirer Local bookstores reported a run on Princess Diana biographies as Tristaters joined the rest of the world in mourning her death Sunday. At Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Norwood, six different biographies of the princess sold out by early Diana considered leaving England She felt badgered by 'ferocious' press tGEMD i were watching TV gossip shows and reading magazines and newspapers. No escape They were and are us. Whether you were looking for it or not, it was virtually impossible to escape seeing or hearing about the latest picture of Di and Dodi. The princess and her playboy, Dodi Fayed, who died with her in the car crash, were photographed while on vacation.

They were spotted sunbathing. And caught smooching. Everyone could have just said: "So what." They're both adults. He's a big boy. She's a big girl.

What's the big deal? We could have just minded our own business. Weeded the garden. Watered the lawn. Watched a ballgame. Taken a nap.

Maybe even done some sunbathing and smooching of our own. But we just had to see those photos. We just had to eavesdrop, to snoop, to pry. These very public views of what should have been a private romance were the work of Tlx am nvinw WW KILLED XIV CAR CHASE Dl BADLY VA INJURED The Associated Press London papers headlined the death of Princess Diana and her friend Dodi al-Fayed in their usual splashy manner. Tm seriously thinking of moving away.

cannot be followed around by all these men all the time. It's a nightmare. Princess Diana cized the British media in an interview published a few days ago in the French daily Le Monde, saying they only look for the negative. "Each act is. twisted; each gesture is criticized," she said.

"I think it's different overseas. I'm welcomed with kindness I think, in my place, any sane person would have left a long time ago. But I can't. I have my sons." Since her breakup with Prince Charles, Diana had become increasingly intolerant of paparazzi following her. She got a court order against one last year.

On the eve of going to Bosnia to campaign against land mines this month, Princess Diana faced a tabloid barrage in Britain focusing on her new friend. The publication of photographs BY EDWARD COLIMORE Knight-Ridder News Service Only days ago, Princess Diana said that she'd love to leave England because of the hounding media coverage. She told a French newspaper that "the press is ferocious," that forgives nothing and is only hunting down mistakes." Princess Diana, the most photographed woman in the world, often fled the attention of the media and paparazzi, especially as she began spending time with her friend Dodi It-Fayed, son of multimillionaire boss Mohammed allayed. Their car was speeding through tunnel in Paris, pursued by photographers on motorcycles, when a collision killed the. princess and Fayed early Sunday morning.

It was not clear whether the 'motorcycles contributed to the collision, which also claimed the life of driver and seriously injured of the princess' bodyguards. Witnesses interviewed on CNN reported seeing at least one photographer shooting pictures of the "accident scene before emergency crews arrived. tr.The princess had sharply criti- afternoon. "We had a run first thing this morning on all our biographies in stock," said manager Scott Ruble. "Normally we keep one or two copies of each, and everything's been sold out.

We don't have anything left in the store about her." The story was the same at Borders Books Music in Springdale. "We've sold out of Diana books throughout today," said manager Dori Reinhart. Barnes Noble Booksellers did not have any Diana biographies in stock at the time of her death, but the store's postcards of the princess were selling well. Callers inquiring about books were not interested in special-ordering existing biographies, said assistant manager Erma Sanders. "No one's expressing interest because they know new biographies will be coming out soon," she said.

Brits living in the Tristate mourned alongside Americans. Hazel Par-rish, president of a local British organization, was shocked. "It's just such a tragic waste. I happened to think (Diana) was doing some good work," she said. "I don't think she got a fair deal." me I cannot be followed around by all these men all the time.

It's a nightmare. I can't go to lunch. I certainly don't go out in the evening I hide in the back of cars." In an interview before the announcement was made of Diana's death, National Enquirer editor Steve Coz said his tabloid had been offered photographs of the scene, taken moments after the accident, for prices up to $1 million. Mr. Coz said his publication will not buy any photos taken by anyone who may have been involved in the chase.

He also urged other tabloid editors to do the same. showing Diana in embraces with the 41-year-old film producer filled eight pages of London's Sunday Mirror newspaper. The photos, taken by an Italian photographer, had been the subject of a bidding war and reportedly cost the Mirror $400,000. The princess had already suggested in April that she might leave Britain. In an audiotape, recorded by two paparazzi as she confronted them over photographing her, she's heard saying: "I'm seriously thinking of moving away I cannot be battered every single day because someone is making money out of photographers like the ones who chased the princess's car into that Paris tunnel.

They are the dreaded paparazzi, nervous, nervy men with sweaty clothes and expensive cameras. They stalk high-profile celebrities and ambush their prey with a flash of light and the snap of a shutter. The lure of money Their work may not be highly prized. Don't ever expect it to win a Pulitzer. But it is highly paid.

Tattle-sheet editors so the stories go paid $500,000 for the picture of Di and Dodi kissing. That was a small investment. Tabloids sell by the millions. Magazines, newspapers and TV pay for the right to show such photos. A fortune can be made off a candid kiss.

No one should feel guilt-free about this tragedy. You can't make it go away by saying: "It's the media's fault." Or, "We're not the paparazzi." It's true, we weren't in the tunnel. Analysis: Princess basked Diana: Tragic end to storybook life in glow ol the spotlight CONTINUED FROM PAGE Al mm 1 iJ -L the media's violation of her privacy had made her consider leaving Britain for good. But she herself was widely viewed as an expert manipulator of the press and TV for her own purposes. Author Andrew Morton, who in his best-selling book Diana first revealed that her marriage had broken down, was said to have been encouraged by her to write it.

She used a TV interview in 1995 to suggest that her ex-spouse whom she had come openly to despise was not qualified to be king. Some analysts saw the remark as the opening shot in a campaign to form an anti-Charles movement in order to put the couple's oldest But we might as well have been. Instead of muttering, "Who cares whom she's dating?" we plunked down our dollars and in other countries pounds, francs and marks to find out. Earl Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, lashed out at the media Sunday. former husband, Prince Charles, or even his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Tributes to her poured in Sunday from prime ministers and such figures as India's Mother Theresa, as well as thousands of ordinary people. With tears in his eyes, British Prime Minister Tony Blair described her as someone who will "remain in our memories and our hearts as the people's princess" a reference to a famous TV interview following her divorce in which she declared that was how she wished to be remembered. The circumstances of the crash in which she and millionaire Dodi Fayed were killed produced an instant backlash against the tabloid press and celebrity-chasing photographers known as paparazzi. The paparazzi allegedly were conducting a high-speed motorcycle chase of their car in a Paris tunnel when Mr. Fayed's chauffeur lost control and smashed into a barrier.

Critics accused the press of hounding Diana to her death by their "aggressive and excessive intrusions" into her private life. Her brother, Earl Spencer himself a onetime reporter for NBC said the press had "blood on its hands." Yet, in this as much else, Diana's life was filled with ambiguities. She claimed to deplore the way in which the press stalked her every move and only last Monday, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, insisted that CbNTINUED FROM PAGE Al 7 The French joined the British in mourning the loss of the princess who had carried on with style and smiles through years of marital adversity. "She had everything," said Pas- cale Tremblay, a waitress in a Parisian bakery. "She was as good she was beautiful." Seven photographers who were detained immediately after the crash, which occurred in a tunnel at the Pont de l'Alma, just north of "the Eiffel Tower, were placed under formal custody Sunday after- i- noon.

Diana often had complained of being plagued by the paparazzi the commercial photographers who -trailed her since she entered the I eye as a shy young woman. 1 black Mercedes carrying Diana and Mr. Fayed reportedly crashed shortly after midnight as it being chased by photogra- phers on motorcycles. Diana and Mr. Fayed had dined at the Ritz Hotel owned by Fayed's family and reportedly were on their way to a private villa" v- in western Paris, also owned by Mr.

Fayed. France's interior minister, Jean-'', Pierre Chevenement, said Diana's was traveling at high speed through the tunnel, and d.c driver control. He didn't specify the but a source close to the speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was well over 60 mph perhaps almost twice that. The speed limit was 30 mph. Diana and Mr.

Fayed were not believed to be wearing seatbelts. The car hit a curb, then crashed into a concrete post in the center divider, then bounced into the right wall. The impact destroyed the car, turning it into a heap of crumpled metal and broken glass. France Info radio said at least some of the photographers took pictures before help arrived and that one of the photographers was beaten at the scene by horrified witnesses. Mr.

Fayed, the 42-year-old son of the billionaire Egyptian owner of London's prestigious Harrod's department store, died immediately, as did the chauffeur. Diana was rushed to Paris' Hospital de la Pitie Salpetriere, suffering major chest and lung injuries and internal bleeding. Bruno Riou said Diana had quickly gone into cardiac arrest and that doctors tried for at least two hours to save her, applying internal and external cardiac massage to no avail. At 4 a.m., she died. Princes William, 15, and Harry, 12, were informed of their mother's death by their father at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, where the royal family traditionally spends its summer holidays.

At the hospital later Sunday, about 800 people waited silently in the brilliant afternoon sunshine. Some were tearful, others merely The real cause of death If we weren't such a ready audience for the paparazzi' pictures, life would have gone on. Yours and mine. And maybe hers. If the princess didn't sell papers, the big fees for her photos would have dried, up.

And, like the dirtballs they are, the paparazzi would have blown away. In search of more money, they would have left her alone and gone on to their next victim. Now, they must. They have no other choice. The princess is dead.

And, our need to know killed her. Cliff Radel's regular column appears on Bl today. His column appears in The Enquirer Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Call 768-8379 or fax at 768-8340. son, Prince William, on tne tnrone in his place.

Although their antagonism to each other appeared to have declined during recent months, Diana was still suspected by some royalists of hoping to block Charles's succession as an act of revenge on the man who, in her eyes, had deeply humiliated her by his longstanding affair with his lover, Camilla Parker Bowles. There is little doubt that, right up to the end, some royal advisers saw Diana as a threat not only to Charles' position as king-to-be but to the monarchy itself. The sexual scandal and acrimony surrounding the divorce left the once-over-whelmingly popular royal family much-weakened in the public's esteem with sentiment rapidly growing in favor of dumping the monarchy for an American-style republic. stunned. News of the widely popular princess's death ieft people across Britain and elsewhere saddened.

Radio and television stations played the national anthem. President Clinton expressed sorrow, saying he and his wife, Hillary, "knew Princess Diana and we were very fond of her." Diana was the youngest of the late Earl Spencer's three daughters. The sisters' only brother, Charles, lives in South Africa. In Cape Town, Earl Spencer accused the media of killing his sister. "I always believed the press would kill her in the end," Mr.

Spencer said, blaming editors or publishers who had paid for intrusive pictures. Every one of them, he said, "has blood on his hands.".