Kitty Dukakis, the spouse of former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis who spoke brazenly about her struggles with despair and habit, has died. She was 88.
Dukakis died Friday evening surrounded by her household, mentioned her son, John Dukakis, by phone Saturday. She fought to make the world higher, “sharing her vulnerabilities to assist others face theirs,” her household mentioned in a press release.
“She was loving, feisty and enjoyable, and had a eager sensitivity to folks from all walks of life,” the assertion mentioned. “She and our dad, Michael Dukakis, shared an enviable partnership for over 60 years and cherished one another deeply.”
Michael Dukakis, now 91, served as Massachusetts governor from 1975 to 1979 and once more from 1983 to 1991. He was in his ultimate time period when he grew to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988.
Throughout his presidential run, Kitty received excessive marks as a political campaigner, stumping tirelessly for him. She was known as a key affect on his resolution to hunt the presidency.
She additionally figured within the well-known opening query of a 1988 presidential debate, when her husband was requested: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis had been raped and murdered, would you like an irrevocable demise penalty for the killer?” Dukakis mentioned he wouldn’t, noting his resolute opposition to capital punishment, however his unemotional response was broadly criticized.
Earlier within the marketing campaign, in 1987, Kitty Dukakis revealed she had overcome a 26-year habit to amphetamines 5 years earlier after receiving remedy. She mentioned she started taking weight loss supplements at age 19.
Her husband made antidrug efforts a significant problem, and she or he grew to become distinguished within the effort to teach younger folks in opposition to the perils of drug and alcohol abuse.
However a number of months after Michael Dukakis misplaced the presidential election to Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush, Kitty Dukakis entered a 60-day remedy program for alcoholism. A number of months later she suffered a relapse and was hospitalized after consuming rubbing alcohol.
In her 1990 autobiography, “Now You Know,” she blamed her mom for a lot of her alcohol and drug habit and a protracted historical past of low vanity. In 2006, she wrote one other guide, “Shock: The Therapeutic Energy of Electroconvulsive Remedy,” through which she credit the electroconvulsive remedy, or ECT, she started in 2001 for relieving the despair she had suffered for years. The remedy, she wrote, “opened a brand new actuality for me.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey known as Dukakis “a pressure for good in public life and behind the scenes,” a pacesetter within the effort to make sure that the Holocaust is rarely forgotten, and an advocate for kids, ladies and refugees.
“She spoke courageously about her struggles with substance use dysfunction and psychological well being, which serves as an inspiration to us all to interrupt down stigma and search assist,” Healey mentioned in a press release.
Dukakis used her private ache to assist others, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Pleasure Campbell mentioned in a press release on social media Saturday.
“Her legacy will dwell on within the insurance policies she helped form and the folks she impressed to talk their very own truths,” Campbell mentioned.
Dukakis and her future husband met whereas attending highschool in Brookline, Mass., a Boston suburb. He was uninteresting and frugal; she was dramatic and fancy. He’s Greek Orthodox; she was Jewish.
Kitty, who was divorced and had a 3-year-old son, married Michael in 1963, they usually had two youngsters, Andrea and Kara.
Her late father, Harry Ellis Dickson, was affiliate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and she or he earned levels in fashionable dance and broadcasting.
After the presidential election, President Bush in 1989 appointed her to america Holocaust Memorial Council.
She had beforehand served on the President’s Fee on the Holocaust, in 1979, and on the board of administrators of the Refugee Coverage Group. She had additionally been a member of the Job Drive on Cambodian Kids.
By the late Nineteen Nineties, Dukakis and her husband divided their time between Massachusetts and California, the place she was a social employee and he was a professor for a part of the yr on the UCLA.
