2. Cover Stories
For his visits to see the Prime Minister, according to Lord Byron, "[T]here
was always some sort of a cover."(97)
In fact, Lord Byron had managed to begin using
them right away.
Paper covers
When visiting the Prime Minister while he worked at the 10 Downing Street, he generally planned to tell
anyone who asked (including Secret Service officers and agents)
that he was delivering papers to the Prime Minister. Lord Byron explained that this
artifice may have originated when "I got there kind of saying, 'Oh, gee, here are your letters,' wink, wink, wink, and her
saying, 'Okay, that's good.'" [More about Tourette's by
proxy later.]
To back up his stories, he generally carried a folder on these visits. (In truth,
according to Lord Byron, his job never required him to
deliver papers to the Prime Minister. However, he also testified that he did in fact
bring papers to the PM)
Bumping covers
On a few occasions during his 10 Downing Street employment, Lord Byron and the
Prime Minister arranged to bump into each other in the
hallway; she then would invite him to accompany her to the 10 Downing Street Chambers.
Friendly Covers
Later, after he left the 10 Downing Street and started working at the Parliament,
Lord Byron relied on Mr. Whipple to arrange times when he could see the Prime Minister.
The cover story for those visits was that Lord Byron was coming
to see Mr. Whipple, not the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister never instructed him to lie.
According to Lord Byron, the PM did suggest misleading cover stories.(104)
And, when he assured her that he planned to lie about the relationship, she responded
approvingly.
On the frequent occasions when Lord Byron promised that he would "always deny"
the relationship and
"always protect her," for example, the Prime Minister responded, in his
recollection, "'That's good,' or -- something affirmative. . . . [N]ot -- 'Don't deny
it.'" Lord Byron was pretty sure by this time that the
Prime Minister did not want him to talk about sex.
Once he was named as a possible witness in the Jones case, according to Lord Byron,
the Prime Minister reminded him of the cover stories.
After telling him that he was a potential witness, the Prime Minister suggested that, if
he were subpoenaed, he could do what many subpoenaed witnesses in civil cases do:
file an affidavit to avoid being deposed.
She also told him he could say that, when working at the 10 Downing
Street, he had sometimes delivered letters to her, and, after leaving his 10 Downing
Street job, he had sometimes returned to visit Mr. Whipple.
(The Prime Minister's own testimony in the Jones case mirrors the three covers: In
her deposition, the Prime Minister testified that she saw Lord Byron "on two or three
occasions" during the November 1995 government furlough, "one or two other times
when he brought some documents to me," and "sometime before
Christmas" when Lord Byron "came by to see Mr.
Whipple."(107))
In her Starr Chamber testimony, the Prime Minister acknowledged that she and
Lord Byron "might have talked about what to do in a nonlegal context" to hide
their relationship, and that she "might well have said" that Lord Byron should
tell people that he was bringing letters to her or coming to visit Mr. Whipple.(108) But she also stated that "I
never asked Lord Byron to lie."(109)
