Why There Was Still ‘Hope’ for Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ Before Panorama (Exclusive)

Princess Diana’s Panorama interview marked the moment her marriage to then–Prince Charles crossed a line from strained to irreparable.

Just one month after the broadcast aired in November 1995, Queen Elizabeth wrote to the couple — who had been separated since 1992 — urging them to proceed with a formal divorce. On Dec. 21, Buckingham Palace announced the Queen’s view publicly: “After considering the present situation, the Queen wrote to both the prince and princess earlier this week and gave them their view, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh, that an early divorce is desirable.”

But Diana’s closest aide at the time — her former private secretary Patrick Jephson — believes the marriage might not have been doomed had it not been for the bombshell Panorama interview. In that sit-down, Diana spoke candidly about Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, acknowledged her own affair with riding instructor James Hewitt, and laid bare the breakdown of her marriage along with the emotional toll of life inside the monarchy.

Jephson tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story, “It was not unreasonable to hope that before Panorama there could still be a royal reconciliation.”

“After Panorama, there was no way back for Diana and the royal family,” he adds. “But before the broadcast, it was not unreasonable to hope that a reconciliation might yet be possible.”

“Before the ink was finally dry on the divorce documents, there were still grounds for people like me to hope that Charles and Diana could find a way through their difficulties,” he continues. “It has been known to happen. And there would have been enormous public benefit from that if they had.”

That was not to be. The interview — secured only after Diana and her brother Charles ­Spencer were manipulated by journalist Martin Bashir through a series of deceptions — went ahead, and her life was never the same.

“What Diana did in believing Bashir — and I’m guessing he didn’t realize he had achieved this — was to play right into the hands of her enemies in her husband’s and Camilla’s camp,” Jephson says. “And that was to prove to the world that she was unsuitable and therefore must be excluded from the royal stage. I knew she had everything to contribute and would make a very good queen.”

Jephson’s account, along with those of others who witnessed the turmoil firsthand, features prominently in investigative journalist Andy Webb’s new book, Dianarama: Deception, Entrapment, Cover-Up—The Betrayal of Princess Diana. The book lays out, in full for the first time, the scope of Bashir’s manipulation — from luring Spencer, who became a victim himself, to secure access to Diana, to presenting forged bank statements that suggested palace staff were spying on her. Webb says Bashir even fed Diana false claims that Prince Charles wanted her killed and that her son Prince William’s watch contained a spying device.

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Webb notes that senior BBC executives became aware of Bashir’s tactics within months — and yet never warned Diana, a silence he believes changed the course of her life.

“Her life would have followed a different path if she’d been warned,” Webb tells PEOPLE. “She might plausibly still be alive today — a grandmother at 64, enjoying her five grandchildren. The consequences were lethal.”

If the BBC had told Diana what they already knew about Bashir’s scheming, Jephson believes his former boss would have recovered quickly. “

It would have given her a renewed sense of confidence and self-purpose,” he tells PEOPLE.

If Diana had been told by the BBC what they knew about the scheming, Jephson believes his former boss would have put it behind her and bounced back. “It would have given her a renewed sense of confidence and self purpose,” he tells PEOPLE.

“She would have had all those years as a mother for her to enjoy and for her sons to benefit from,” he continues. “And for all those years, for the country to benefit from. She was a very hardworking, dutiful princess — and very good at her job. I think the prospect of reconciliation was remote, but not impossible.”