Kitty Dukakis, Wife of 1988 Presidential Nominee, Dies at 88
Kitty Dukakis, an activist first lady of Massachusetts and humanitarian who overcame alcoholism and depression with the help of electroconvulsive therapy, then became a proponent of the treatment with her husband, Michael S.Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, died on Friday night at her home in Brookline, Mass.
She was 88.Her son, John, said the cause was complications of dementia.
Mrs.Dukakis “lived a full life fighting to make the world a better place and sharing her vulnerabilities to help others face theirs,” her family said in a statement.Mrs.
Dukakis was a longtime activist on behalf of underdogs and people who struggled.Among the subjects most important to her was continuing education on the Holocaust.
She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the first President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which sought to create a national memorial and museum; when that panel was replaced a decade later by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, she was appointed to the council by President George H.W.Bush.“Perhaps in the entire history of civilization, the Holocaust was the most important object lesson in man’s inhumanity to man,” she told the National Governors Association in 1983.Few political wives have been as forthright as Mrs.
Dukakis in sharing the intimate details of their struggles with addiction and depression.She wrote two books that revealed in painful detail her early dependence on diet pills, how alcoholism later took over her life and how she turned, at age 64, to electroshock therapy to treat the crippling depression that she said had long been masked by her drinking.Her successful electroshock treatment led her and her husband to publicly advocate for the effectiveness of the procedure, and even to hold support groups at their home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while...