Kitty Provides the Passion

By Richard Stengel

In the iconography of political campaigning, it is traditionally the wife who gazes worshipfully at her husband. In the case of Michael and Kitty Dukakis, it is just as often the candidate who is caught looking starry-eyed at his wife.

The intimacy of Michael and Kitty, unlike that of many political unions, is never questioned. Seeing them together suggests that the lyrics of sappy love songs can be true -- or perhaps that he is the one candidate this year who could be accused of uxoriousness. Marching in a chilly St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago last month, Kitty asked him to push up her collar against % the wind. Dukakis, who forgot that he was wearing a microphone that allowed the press to hear his comments, whispered to her as he adjusted her coat, "Tonight if I'm asleep, wake me up. Don't let a moment go by." (Kitty cut in with a sharp, "Your microphone's on.") Sometimes, to counteract criticism that he lacks fire, Dukakis will tell audiences, "Kitty thinks I'm passionate."

They present a sitcom study in contrasts, a political Odd Couple. He is cool; she is warm. He counts their pennies; she spends their dollars. She favors sleek high heels; he wears clunky wing tips. (One of her cardinal campaign rules is not to unpack in front of her husband, lest he see some new purchase.) His desk is as clean as a putting green; hers resembles a rummage sale of old papers. He is guarded; she is winningly open. She loves to gossip; for him, small talk is a foreign language. He is Greek Orthodox; she is Jewish.

Whereas Dukakis is contained, Kitty spills over with emotion. When she sneaks a cigarette, she will often say, "Don't tell Michael!" On nights before primary votes, she does not sleep, and she is a devoted reader of tracking polls, which he largely ignores. High-strung and hyper, she speaks in a quick, clipped cadence, like someone eager to get off the phone in order to make another call. The two complement each other. It may well be true that the only person who knows the real Kitty is Michael and that the only person who knows the real Michael is Kitty. Yet there is one attribute they share: ambition.

Katharine Dickson is the daughter of Harry Ellis Dickson, a former violinist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the retired associate director of the Boston Pops. Her home was a lively one, with musicians and artists as frequent guests. At an early age she took up modern dance, and later became a teacher of it. Her nickname comes from her mother's friend, the vivacious actress Kitty Carlisle Hart.

Kitty first met Michael Dukakis when she was 14, but Dukakis, then a self- important high school senior, does not recall it. After high school, she went to Penn State, which she left in her sophomore year. She married John Chaffetz, who was in the Air Force ROTC, and moved to California. Their union did not last: they divorced when their son John was three years old. Kitty then rented a small apartment in Cambridge, Mass., for herself and her son and began attending Lesley College part time.

A mutual friend brought together the 24-year-old divorcee and the serious, idealistic Harvard Law graduate. The normally frugal Dukakis took her to a smart French restaurant and an Italian movie on their first date. (They hated the movie, left early and went back to her apartment for tea.) Dukakis was quickly smitten. She was impressed with how he took to her son, occasionally baby-sitting while Kitty studied for an exam. When the two decided to marry, Dukakis' parents were less than thrilled: they liked her, but a divorced woman with a young son was not what they had envisioned for their Michael. Kitty's parents were delighted: her mother dubbed Michael "the Saint," referring to not only his righteous manner but his willingness to put up with the mercurial and sometimes difficult Katharine.

When she married Dukakis in 1963, Kitty had been taking diet pills for seven years, depending on her small, 5-mg dose of amphetamines to get her through the day. Eleven years later, her husband discovered her cache of pills, but her subsequent attempt to kick the habit failed. She finally succeeded in 1982 at a drug-rehabilitation center in Minnesota, although it was only this past summer that she bravely went public with the story of her 26-year addiction.

Drug rehabilitation is one of a variety of issues to which she is devoted. She has been effective in fighting for the homeless, serving as co-chair of the Governor's Advisory Committee on the Homeless. She and her staff are credited with devising a plan for the state and charitable organizations to share the cost of maintaining shelters. Seven years ago, she organized a task force on Cambodian refugee children in Thailand, and she has led two tours of refugee camps there and helped to bring orphaned children to the U.S.

At the state house, she has an office down the hall from the Governor's, and has been known to stride into a meeting unannounced and question her husband on some pet project while slightly startled state legislators look on. She can be imperious with others, and is quite exacting with those who work for her. If thank-you notes are not done perfectly, she demands new ones. She is vigilant about catching mistakes, from a misspelled name to an incorrect date. Even more so than her husband, she does not suffer incompetence gladly.

As a campaigner, she is a definite asset. In Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, she switched into Yiddish at appropriate moments. While she can be just as unexciting as her husband when delivering a scripted speech, she turns * spontaneous and exuberant when she breaks away from the text, bringing applause from charmed audiences. If she becomes First Lady, she is certain to break the set-in-aspic mold of Nancy Reagan. She has little tolerance for what are known as "silly wife questions," which have always pursued political spouses. When a woman reporter wanted to know, "How do Michael's shirts look so fresh at the end of the day?," she starchily replied, "I don't do his shirts. You'll have to ask him."

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Boston and Michael Riley with Dukakis