Author Christopher Andersen on Princess Diana's boys

Christopher Anderson is a former contributing editor of Time and senior editor of People. He is the author of twenty-one books, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. Anderson has contributed hundreds of articles to many publications, including Life and the New York Times. He joined the CNN.com chat room via telephone from New York.

CNN: Thank you for joining us today, Christopher Andersen, and welcome.

CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN: Hello, great to be here.

CNN: Your book is entitled "Diana's Boys." Do we associate them more with their mother than their father, and why?

ANDERSEN: Well, we do associate William and Harry more with their mother, and we should. Diana spent virtually her entire adult life in the role of mother. That was what defined her as a person. From the very beginning, she set out to mold her sons into a new kind of royal. But she also had a very unhappy childhood, and wanted her children to find the happiness she never could when she was young. Diana once said, "My children are everything to me. They're my life." She meant it.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: William looks so much like Diana that it's spooky. Which one of her boys has a similar temperament?

ANDERSEN: Diana often thought of William as a male version of herself. He is definitely more like his mother. Harry is happy-go-lucky, uncomplicated, mischievous, a bit of a scamp. But William, like his mother, is introspective, thoughtful, and headstrong. He is also very sensitive. His mother was afraid that he was too sensitive, in fact. "He feels things too deeply -- just like me," she once commented.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Does the British press protect or pursue William?

ANDERSEN: Since Diana's death, there has been a rather strongly enforced hands-off policy on the part of the British press. Many felt that since the British tabloids had made Diana's life so unhappy, the press should step back and allow the boys to recover from the shock and trauma of their mother's death. However, now that William is 19, and will be entering St. Andrew's University in Scotland this September 19th, the British press is not so willing to play by those rules. Harry will be 17 on September 15, and will definitely still be protected, to some extent.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Hasn't the death of Diana changed dramatically the way in which Charles interacts with the boys?

ANDERSEN: Absolutely. Charles was always an affectionate parent away from the cameras. But when Diana died, he realized that they needed more than that. He suddenly became more openly affectionate and spent far more time with his sons than he had previously. To an extent, the boys have been "Windsorized." They enjoy all the standard royal pursuits: fox-hunting, skiing in Switzerland, playing polo. They're very fond of their "Granny," the Queen. But in a much more profound sense, they have the sensitivity that their mother had, to the suffering and problems of common people.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Have the children adopted their mothers interest in contributing to charitable organizations around the world?

ANDERSEN: Their mother was the single-largest charitable fundraiser in history. I'm sure eventually both William and Harry will do their part. But they're still very young, and I think they prefer to make their contribution in a more personal way. William will, for example, drop into low-income housing projects in London, unannounced, and play soccer with the locals. Both will make hospital visits without any fanfare, and William and Harry both continue to write to some of the sick children that their mother had befriended. When both boys were very young, she took them to AIDS clinics, homeless shelters, and the like, and they seem to have gotten the message from Mom. CHAT PARTICIPANT: What do the boys cherish most about Diana?

ANDERSEN: She was simply the single-most important person in their lives. I'd have to say it's everything they remember about her.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: How would the Queen feel if William married an American?

ANDERSEN: William has said that he wouldn't rule it out. However, it does seem at this stage to be premature. The Queen is very traditional. Her father took the throne because his brother, the Duke of Windsor, abdicated for the love of an American woman. Because of that, Queen Elizabeth's father, George VI, went to an early grave, or so the Queen and Queen Mother believe. That's a bit of history I'm sure they would not like to see repeated.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Is it true that Prince William is a heavy smoker and if so, isn't this taboo for a future king?

ANDERSEN: I've written a number of books about the Kennedy family, including "Jackie After Jack," in which I revealed that Jackie Onassis had a life-long smoking habit, that was virtually unknown to the public. Over a forty-year period, only one photograph was ever taken of Jackie smoking. William seems to be going down the same path. He smokes like a chimney, but only when cameras are not around. Diana's friends agree that she would be very upset by this.

By the way, in all other respects, Princess Diana admired Jackie Onassis tremendously. She wanted to emulate her as a mother, because she felt that Caroline and JFK, Jr. had turned out so spectacularly well. She stated more than once that she hoped William would follow JFK Jr's example, and be able to handle the media and the pressure with the same grace and good humor young Kennedy did.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: How do the boys feel about their father's relationship with Camilla?

ANDERSEN: Amazingly, they're very fond of Camilla. Diana used to call her "The Rottweiler" and Camilla called Diana "Barbie." But now Camilla is simply known around the palace as "Mrs. P-B," as in Parker-Bowles, and she's very much a part of the boys' lives. Camilla has said she will not marry Charles without the boys' blessing. It remains to be seen whether they'll go quite that far, since after all, it was Camilla who ultimately prevented their mother from ever becoming Queen.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Don't you feel that you're exploiting the boy's privacy by so vividly depicting what they esteem as their private life?

ANDERSEN: Not at all. This book is by no means salacious or mean-spirited. It's a sympathetic, and I hope insightful, look into the way Diana, who is still being denied by the Windsors, managed to shape them into remarkable young men. Considering all they've gone through, and what they could easily have become, it's a minor miracle... maybe not so minor.

CNN: Did you have any direct access to the boys in writing your book?

ANDERSEN: The boys have never done an interview. The palace would never allow that. However, some of my sources were as close to William and Harry as you can get, without being a member of the immediate family.

CNN: Do you have any final thoughts for us today?

ANDERSEN: Diana once explained that she wanted her boys to "lead from the heart, and not the head." Another friend of hers, Lady Bowker, told me that "the Windsors have no emotions. Diana was teaching them simply what it is like to be a human being." I walked away from this book convinced that Diana, who was only 36 when she died, had taught her sons well.

CNN: Thank you for joining us today, Christopher Andersen.

ANDERSEN: Thank you.

Christopher Andersen joined CNN.com Newsroom via telephone from New York. CNN provided a typist. The above is an edited transcript of the interview on Wednesday, August 15, 2001.