Special Events

Kitty Kelley Event

By Alan Portner, WIW Treasurer

WIW Founding member and best-selling author Kitty Kelley addressed a crowd of almost 300 at a special event and booksigning held in the Ballroom of the National Press Club Thursday, September 16. The event was Kelley's first Washington, D.C., appearance following the release of her controversial unauthorized biography documenting the family of President George W. Bush. 

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, Kelley's eighth book and her seventh unauthorized biography, has received intense scrutiny from the Bush White House. Even before release, the book was labeled as "garbage" in White House statements. A number of calls were made by White House officials to national media outlets in an effort to limit Kelley's public exposure while promoting the book. According to Kelley, many of those calls were successful and caused several scheduled invitations to be rescinded.

Kelley spoke for 45 minutes about the process of writing and fact checking one of her four-year-long biography projects. She then answered questions from the audience and the press for an additional 45 minutes.

Kelley addressed allegations that her reporting does not measure up to the highest journalistic standards by pointing to the 988 interviews she did while preparing the volume and the four sets of lawyers she said vetted the sourcing prior to release.

Among the most damaging allegations to the current Bush administration is the disputed claim that President George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidential administration. One of the confirming sources for the claim, the president's ex-sister in law, has now denied ever doing so despite independent triple confirmation that she said she believed the claims to be true.

Kelley spoke fondly of her thirty-year relationship with Washington Independent Writers beginning with the 1974 founding of the group and its legal defense of her during the controversy surrounding her first biography of singer and actor, Frank Sinatra.

The National Press Club event was co-sponsored by Washington Independent Writers and Kelley's publisher, Doubleday, and broadcasted live on C-Span.