Kelley welcomes scrutiny

Spokane’s own Kitty Kelley took a beating last week and emerged smiling like a Lilac princess.

Her new book, “The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty,” is a top seller on Amazon despite a White House statement urging readers to toss it in the garbage.

You can’t buy that kind of publicity. And Kelley should know.

Frank Sinatra sued to prevent Kelley from writing his life story. He dropped the lawsuit, and “His Way” sold 1 million copies. From Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Liz Taylor to Nancy Reagan, none of her subjects has cooperated and many put up resistance. The books? All best-sellers.

In a telephone interview Friday, Kelley said writing about the Bushes gave her renewed insight into her own Spokane family. She talked openly about her late father’s harsh discipline and her late mother’s controlling behavior. She still misses them, she said, and she bristled at a question about whether she had attended her father’s memorial service in 2002. She did attend. Of course.

She said she doesn’t mind the intense scrutiny her book is receiving.

“I think that when you write a book like this, the book should be scrutinized and the author should be questioned,” she said.

Kelley’s critics acknowledge she does her homework, but they fault her for printing gossipy anecdotes from sources with axes to grind. This book’s no different.

On the “Today” show last week, Sharon Bush, ex-wife of the president’s brother Neil and the only named source for the most scandalous claim in the new book, went on camera to deny she ever said what Kelley said she said: that George W. Bush had used cocaine at Camp David while his father was president.

Kelley herself made three consecutive appearances on “Today.” She stood up to host Matt Lauer’s grilling. She said every line in her book was vetted by four attorneys. On Sharon Bush’s denial, Kelley said she has three witnesses who heard Sharon’s cocaine story and are standing by the story the way Kelley writes it. One is Sharon Bush’s former publicist.

No matter what one thinks of Kelley’s work, she is an expert at playing the publicity game.

She was born Katherine Kelley at Sacred Heart Hospital on April 4, 1942, the first of seven children of William and Adele “Delie” Kelley. She grew up in a two-story brick home at 310 E. High Drive, which the Kelleys built the year before Kitty was born.

Various writers have tried to turn the tables on Kitty Kelley by digging up dirt from her childhood. This newspaper got in on the act in 1991, reporting an unnamed childhood friend’s account that Kelley’s father, a successful attorney and partner at Witherspoon, Kelley, Davenport and Toole, had beaten her with a belt. Kelley’s mother was said to have padlocked the refrigerator to keep Kelley and her sisters from getting fat.

But if anything about her home life bothered the young Kitty Kelley, she hid it well. Pretty, popular and smart, she was voted the Friendliest Girl four years in a row at Holy Names Academy, the now-closed Catholic school for girls. She was a cheerleader for Gonzaga Prep and a 1959 Lilac princess.

The question persists: Did Kelley’s obsession with tearing down the myths surrounding American icons stem from a double life lived in Spokane?

Here is an interview with Kitty Kelley:

Q: Where are you today?

A: In Washington, D.C. I’m calling you right now from my home. They’ve got me on a schedule of television and radio interviews, and I’m just on my way to the next one in about a half-hour.

Q: Our clip file says you live in “a historic Georgetown mansion.” Is that where you’re calling from today?

A: (Kelley laughs.)

Q: How would you describe it?

A: Well, anything in Georgetown is historic, only because it’s mandated that way. No, I certainly would not describe it that way at all. It’s an old beat-up house in Georgetown. Actually, it’s an interesting house. It’s the house that Justice (William) Brennan lived in for years and years. It’s kind of a special house to me.

Q: Your new book is dedicated “in memoriam” to your parents, photographer Stanley Tretick and writer Charlie Tolchin. What did Tretick and Tolchin mean to you?

A: Stanley Tretick was a wonderful, wonderful friend of mine. He died several years ago. He suffered a couple of strokes during the time I was writing “The Royals” book. He had made me his caretaker, and I took care of him for the last four years of his life.

Charlie Tolchin was the son of very good friends of mine. He was one of the most valiant, courageous people I’ve ever met. And he fought cystic fibrosis all of his life … .

I remembered them in memoriam because they were an important part of my life and I miss them all very much. I did dedicate the book to my husband, John Zucker, who really is my life. We’ve been married 12 years.

Q: What’s it like being the target of one of Matt Lauer’s toughest interviews?

A: You get a new definition for what a Category 5 hurricane is. I was on the “Today” show three times (last week). I really do salute the network for having me on, because they were put under great White House pressure not to have me on. The White House had called the president of NBC, so I do salute them.

Q: The questioning was rather pointed, though.

A: No, I think that when you write a book like this, the book should be scrutinized and the author should be questioned. This is a book that really runs right in the face of an established public image. We are talking about the most important family in America. So I think that it’s deserving.

Q: Did you expect his questions and other questions you’ve had this week to be as tough as they’ve been or as detailed?

A: I don’t mind the detail. As a matter of fact, I really welcome the opportunity because if the facts weren’t corroborated, they weren’t published. By that I mean, if they didn’t pass muster, they didn’t get in the book. So I welcome that kind of questioning.

What is surprising is the fact that the White House seems to be so threatened by this particular book … . They started even before publication making official pronouncements against this book.

And the Republican National Committee sent out talking points to conservative radio talk show hosts, so there seems to be a concerted effort to keep this book from the American public.

And I think that pressure they put on networks, I think it’s been felt. Because people have backed away. They’ve almost acted afraid. (Radio host) Don Imus, of all people, canceled his booking of me. Bill O’Reilly … I really looked forward to going into the “No Spin Zone” with Bill O’Reilly. He canceled.

(Called Friday for a response, a White House spokesman read this statement: “This gossip writer’s allegations are false and so trashy that even the tabloids should cringe. The politically motivated timing, the lack of any credible sources and the writer’s long history of making similar false allegations against great Americans, including President and Mrs. Reagan, should cause all Americans and credible news organizations to place this book and its lies where it belongs: in the garbage.” )

Q: What are your worst and best memories of Spokane?

A: I have got wonderful memories of Spokane. I don’t have any bad ones. I really don’t. As you can tell from my acknowledgements: I thank the sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. I love those nuns very much. I’m still in contact with them. I miss my father and mother. My mother died when we were young. My father had to do double-time as a parent for all of us.

I was just in New York for the launch of this book. My sister Ellen lives in New York. She was with me, and I go back to New York in a couple of days and I’ll meet with her and she’ll go back to Washington with me. Spokane was just a part of our catching up just a couple of days ago. She had just recently been out for a school reunion.

So even though I’m 3,000 miles away, Spokane is very much a part of me.

Q: Did you come back for your father’s memorial service? Was that the most recent time you were back?

A: I have not been back to Spokane since my father died.

Q: But you came back for the memorial service?

A: (indignant) Oh, Carla, what are you … ?

Q: I wasn’t sure if you did, or you might have been in Europe or something.

A: I was in Europe. I was in France, and I got a call and came back immediately.

I went out to Spokane on a regular basis. I spent every Christmas with my father after his second wife died so he would not be alone. And Christmas without my father and spending it with my brother was really, it’s hard. Because those last Christmases were always in Spokane with Daddy. Yes, of course, I came for my father’s … (she pauses) … oh, because Barbara Bush was not at her mother’s funeral, you mean?

Q: No, I’m not bringing up anything like that at all. … What’s happened with the house on High Drive?

A: A nice man and his wife have done the most beautiful job of renovating that house on High Drive. … They restored it and Lord knows it must have taken them forever because the seven Kelleys probably kicked the living bejabbers out of that house. You know seven kids and 432 pets must have left its mark.

Q: In 1991, our newspaper - like some other publications that year when you were at one of your peaks and publishing a book - tried to turn the tables on you by writing an unauthorized biography type of story.

A: Darn, I didn’t see it.

Q: It was written by Jim DeFede, who is now a Miami Herald columnist. He’s actually cited in your footnotes because he wrote an article about Noelle Bush (called) “Problem Child.” That reporter was working for us then, and he wrote this lengthy front page story.

The article mentioned you were a Lilac princess, et cetera, and included some details remembered by school classmates about your father beating you with a belt and your mother padlocking the refrigerator. I’m wondering if you wanted to comment on any of that. Was that true?

A: You know what? I’m happy to answer any question that you ask me, truly. I did not see the piece. I don’t remember it.

Q: OK, did your father beat you with a belt? I’m sorry to ask you that; it’s rude.

A: Not every day. Just four times a day. (Laughs)

Q: It’s dangerous to try to fool a reporter.

A: I’m not doing that. (She turns serious.) I was punished. Yes, I’m no stranger to corporal punishment, no question.

Q: The other specific question I did want to ask: Did your mom padlock the refrigerator?

A: Oh, absolutely. And not only the refrigerator. The cookie box. The cake box. The pie box. Absolutely.

Q: Did that way of growing up influence your choice of what you write about: families and looking behind the curtain of families to see what’s really going on with some of our icons in America?

A: (Laughs) No, but I’ve never lost my sweet tooth. Those things were locked up. (She turns serious again.) I don’t know. I can’t answer your question with specificity. It’s an intelligent question.

I will tell you this. I think that families are the most important unit in our society. And I’m fascinated by them. We all come from families, so we understand them. We know their importance. They tie us to the real world. They define who we are. They mark our hearts and our souls. So I have chosen to analyze and to report on the most important family in America.

I have been doing the work that I have been doing for almost 30 years, but I have only written about six biographies. … It takes me that long to do it. I take the work I do very, very seriously. I have researched this particular family, not my own, but the Bushes, very thoroughly.

I will tell you that I come away with renewed insights, as you should as a biographer, into my own life. So reading about the Bushes you’re going to discover certain things about yourself.

As most people know in Spokane, Washington, I came from a very, very Republican family. My father was a supporter of the former President Bush and the current President Bush.

I think the only Bush he wasn’t enthusiastic about was Barbara Bush, and that was because about 12 years ago Daddy came back to Washington because he had read that the Smithsonian Institution had put in an exhibit of my books on the first ladies in the first ladies exhibit.

He came back and he couldn’t find them. We later discovered that Barbara Bush had had them taken out. … I said, “Daddy, please, don’t be that upset. Thank God she’s not the librarian of Congress, she’s just first lady.” Well, he said it wasn’t right.

Q: It was his daughter’s work. He was proud of you.

A: When I would come home to visit my father and stay with him, we would go to church, period, paragraph. Whether or not I wanted to go, we went to Mass. The first time we went he introduced me to the parish priest, who said, “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you, Kitty. I’ve enjoyed your books.”

My father, ever the lawyer, stood back and said, “Father, you haven’t read Kitty’s books, have you?”

And he said, “Yeah, Bill, I have.” And he named some of the books and a couple of incidents.

And Daddy said, “Now, Father, I just want you to understand. Kitty didn’t do those bad things. She just wrote about them.”

Which tells you something about my father as a lawyer and a defender. So I do miss him. I wish he were here now.

Q: Are you saying what your next book is?

A: I certainly would tell you if I knew, if I could even think of a next book. This book has not even been published a week yet and it was four years in the making. … I don’t know if there will even be a next book.

Q: After writing books about Jackie, Liz, Frank, Nancy and the Bushes, what do you know for sure about life in America today?

A: It’s a great question. I know that life in America today has changed dramatically. Forty years ago, when John F. Kennedy was running for president as an Irish Catholic, he had to spend the majority of his campaign telling the American people, promising the American people, who had never put a Catholic into the White House, that he would never ever let his religion influence public policy in any way.

Forty years later, we have a president who has brought his evangelical religion into his public policy. That’s just a fact of life. I’m not saying it as a negative or a positive. But that is how we have changed. My first biography was on the Kennedys. This one is on the Bushes. That is the change that is mirrored in America today.

Q: Kitty Kelley, thank you very much for taking time with me.

A: My love to Spokane.