DATE: Monday, September 1, 1997             TAG: 9709010094

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A16  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SERIES: DIANA: A PRINCESS LOST

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

FAIRY TALES AND NIGHTMARES: WE CLAMOR FOR BOTH, THE MEDIA DELIVER

You remember, don't you, when we got up at 4 a.m. to catch every minute of the wedding of Lady Diana and Prince Charles?

A glass coach came rolling out of a fairy tale, and inside it was Lady Diana, princess to be, hid in a frothy veil and billowing gown that filled the coach - an explosion of white as occurs when a green comber hits a rocky shore and erupts into dazzling salt-white foam.

The glass coach seemed awash in blinding snowy surf. Then we saw her hand and caught a glimpse of wondering blue eyes. She alighted from the carriage. Her train kept unreeling behind her until it stretched as long as a townhouse plot. Thereafter, the gown - an antique white that shone bright and pure in the sunlight - dominated the day's pageantry, an icy white comet standing frozen across the sky in midpassage.

She walked St. Paul's long aisle - it seemed to extend forever - beside her father, who looked abash, marveling, as if to say, has it really come to this?

The archbishop read from Corinthians - faith, hope, love, these three - and she and Charles exchanged vows. The archbishop offered advice: Solve our economic problems but fail to build loving families and it profits us nothing. That, in short, was their assignment - exemplify marital happiness for the Commonwealth and all else.

Finally, the icy comet still frozen in the sky, the two made encore appearances on Buckingham Palace's balcony to the roar of a million throats. And just as they were going into the palace the last time, he slipped his arm around her and kissed her quickly.

The door - and the first chapter of the fairy tale - closed.

They brought her home yesterday from Paris. An honor guard met the plane and bore the casket to a waiting hearse. Another vigil, a sad one, is in motion.

There's no way to parcel the blame. Perhaps something of a generational gap obtained - she was 19 during the courtship and he was 12 years older and in tutelage from childhood to be a king one day.

Things had been better, lately, as they met on common ground in their concern for their two boys. And Lady Di had found romance and a role as Lady Bountiful worldwide.

Lord Jeffrey Archer spoke Sunday of her ``great humanitarian, caring side'' on NBC's ``Meet the Press.'' She supported the AIDS campaign long before it was fashionable, he said, and then she crusaded to remove landmines.

``When she traveled to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, she could fill halls that very few film stars could fill,'' he said. ``It will be impossible to replace her. I mean, she was the brightest star in our constellation.''

She was to host a charity function for the Red Cross on Oct. 9, he noted. ``We sold out on day one and would have made vast sums because of her presence.''

Moderator Tim Russert observed that many people in Great Britain's government took umbrage when, on a visit to Bosnia, she spoke out about landmines. They felt she had crossed the line from royalty into political decision making.

She didn't even understand the controversy that had been blown up out of all proportion ``because what she cared about was saving lives, and she hated landmines,'' Lord Archer replied.

Another of her roles, he said, was to introduce Prince William ``to the real world, to show him that there's suffering out there.''

Russert remarked that she wanted to be remembered as ``the people's princess.''

``She was that,'' Lord Archer replied. ``She empathized with the young and the old. She literally touched them and they felt they were friends straightaway.''

From political poles, conservative Republican Pat Buchanan and liberal Democrat Mario Cuomo found agreement in assessing the role of the paparazzi in the wreck that took three lives, including Di's.

There's no question the press has the right to follow a celebrity, Buchanan said. ``They chase Diana because they know they can sell those pictures to the tabloids for tens of thousands of dollars and the reason the tabloids pay is because we want to see all those pictures of her down at Monte Carlo and on the Riviera and with her boyfriend and the rest of it.''

To say the paparazzi alone are responsible wouldn't be proper, said Buchanan. ``I think a lot of us are responsible.''

``That's very close to the heart of the matter,'' Cuomo agreed. ``In the end, these paparazzi were paid professionals doing what the public demanded, and that is pictures of celebrities like Princess Diana, and so, to some extent, we're responsible.''

Why are some films on television so ugly and barbaric? asked Cuomo. ``And it's because people will pay to watch them. And so in the end we're a society, in large measure, that desires things that later we say disgust us. So to some extent we're implicated.''

Russert asked if media groups should look at themselves and their behavior.

``In the end,'' Cuomo said, ``the media's job is to give the people what they want. I think people should start talking for themselves about why tabloids are selling. Because we read them, because we love to read especially the ugly stuff.''

``The pretty stuff is nice, the fairy tale was wonderful. The nightmare will get even more attention, and that's what people should be asking themselves about. What is this proclivity we have for negativism, for harshness?''

And so the question hangs with the white and icy comet in the sky. KEYWORDS: DEATH PRINCESS DIANA

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