BROOKLINE, Mass. — Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis who spoke openly about her struggles with depression and addiction, has died. She was 88.
Dukakis died Friday night surrounded by her family, said her son, John Dukakis, by telephone Saturday. She fought to make the world better, “sharing her vulnerabilities to help others face theirs,” her family said in a statement.
“She was loving, feisty and fun, and had a keen sensitivity to people from all walks of life,” the statement said. “She and our dad, Michael Dukakis, shared an enviable partnership for over 60 years and loved each other deeply.”
Michael Dukakis, now 91, served as Massachusetts governor from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He was in his final term when he became the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988.
During his presidential run, Kitty won high marks as a political campaigner, stumping tirelessly for him. She was called a key influence on his decision to seek the presidency.
She also figured in the famous opening question of a 1988 presidential debate, when her husband was asked: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Dukakis said he would not, noting his resolute opposition to capital punishment, but his unemotional response was widely criticized.
Earlier in the campaign, in 1987, Kitty Dukakis revealed she had overcome a 26-year addiction to amphetamines five years earlier after receiving treatment. She said she began taking diet pills at age 19.
Her husband made antidrug efforts a major issue, and she became prominent in the effort to educate young people against the perils of drug and alcohol abuse.
But a few months after Michael Dukakis lost the presidential election to Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush, Kitty Dukakis entered a 60-day treatment program for alcoholism. Several months later she suffered a relapse and was hospitalized after drinking rubbing alcohol.
In her 1990 autobiography, “Now You Know,” she blamed her mother for much of her alcohol and drug addiction and a long history of low self-esteem. In 2006, she wrote another book, “Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy,” in which she credits the electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, she began in 2001 for relieving the depression she had suffered for years. The treatment, she wrote, “opened a new reality for me.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called Dukakis “a force for good in public life and behind the scenes,” a leader in the effort to ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten, and an advocate for children, women and refugees.
“She spoke courageously about her struggles with substance use disorder and mental health, which serves as an inspiration to us all to break down stigma and seek help,” Healey said in a statement.
Dukakis used her personal pain to help others, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement on social media Saturday.
“Her legacy will live on in the policies she helped shape and the people she inspired to speak their own truths,” Campbell said.
Dukakis and her future husband met while attending high school in Brookline, Mass., a Boston suburb. He was dull and frugal; she was dramatic and fancy. He is Greek Orthodox; she was Jewish.
Kitty, who was divorced and had a 3-year-old son, married Michael in 1963, and they had two children, Andrea and Kara.
Her late father, Harry Ellis Dickson, was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and she earned degrees in modern dance and broadcasting.
After the presidential election, President Bush in 1989 appointed her to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
She had previously served on the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, in 1979, and on the board of directors of the Refugee Policy Group. She had also been a member of the Task Force on Cambodian Children.
By the late 1990s, Dukakis and her husband divided their time between Massachusetts and California, where she was a social worker and he was a professor for part of the year at the UCLA.
