Desperately seeking a refuge from Flytrap (so much coverage, so little news), Chatterbox enthusiastically turned to the front-page story in today’s New York Times about the flap over five suppressed pages from Anne Frank’s diary. Nothing like the Holocaust to put Monica Madness in perspective. Or so Chatterbox innocently thought. Alas, like Princess Di and O.J., a Flytrap connection is lurking everywhere.
The Times reports that Otto Frank, just before he died in 1980, entrusted a friend with the five controversial diary pages that deal with Anne’s problems with her mother. The rationale for handing over these extracts was that, according to the Times, “Mr. Frank wanted to be able to say honestly that he no longer had any diary material in his possession.”
Bingo. That was exactly what the Big He was supposed to have told Monica when the president advised her that she could duck a subpoena by getting rid of all those tacky gifts from the Black Dog that he gave her. Maybe David Kendall was Otto Frank’s lawyer.
–Walter Shapiro
