Princess Diana’s Top Aide Resigns

Princess Diana’s top aide resigned Monday, the second senior staff member to leave since the television interview two months ago in which Diana admitted adultery.

Patrick Jephson’s resignation leaves Diana without her senior aide at a time when she is involved in negotiations about a possible divorce from Prince Charles and her future role.

Jephson, 39, who had worked for the princess for eight years, described his departure as “perfectly amicable.”

But it is believed that Jephson’s resignation and that of Geoffrey Crawford, her press secretary who quit in November, are linked to the televised BBC interview in which Diana admitted adultery, questioned her husband’s fitness to be king and described unidentified palace officials as “the enemy.”