Mulroney claims to be 'betrayed' by new book

<SCRIPT language=javascript type=text/javascript> var byString = ""; var sourceString = "CTV.ca News Staff"; if ((sourceString != "") && (byString != "")) { document.write(byString + ", "); } else { document.write(byString); } </SCRIPT>CTV.ca News Staff

Brian Mulroney has lashed out through a spokesman at a new book about him, saying he feels "devastated" and "betrayed."

" 'I was reckless in talking with Peter C. Newman,' '' Mulroney said, through spokesman Luc Lavoie Monday.

" 'This was my mistake and I'm going to have to live with it.' ''

The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Confessions of a Prime Minister details hours of interviews with Mulroney, his family and friends and quotes Mulroney as saying he was the best prime minister since Sir John A. Macdonald.

The book, which hits stores later this month, has been a closely guarded secret. Neither its author nor the subject matter were revealed before now as Toronto-based publisher Random House feared a possible court injunction.

Now, however, some of those taped conversations have been made public -- revealing the former prime minister's indiscreet, but true feelings for many of his contemporaries.

Those views could explain Newman's choice of opening line in the book: "He bugs us still" -- a play on his former wife Christina McCall Newman's famous line that "He (Pierre Trudeau) haunts us still."

"I turned that around for Mulroney ... because clearly, he does," Newman told CTV Newsnet on Monday.

Newman said the only pre-condition was that any book be published after Mulroney left office, which happened in early 1993.

Mulroney and Trudeau

In the pages of Newman's book, Mulroney lashes out at friend and foe alike. For example, Mulroney thrashed Liberal Prime Minister John Turner in 1984, but his real rivalry was with Trudeau, who was prime minister from 1968 to 1979, and then 1980 to 1984.

In the book, Mulroney is convinced Trudeau was behind the undermining of the Meech Lake Accord.

Trudeau's motivation, according to Mulroney, was that "he didn't want anybody to succeed where he had failed.

"Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in and save it."

Trudeau repatriated the Constitution in 1982, but failed to secure the signature of Quebec, which was then led by Parti Quebecois Premier Rene Levesque.

Mulroney describes Meech as "the sweetest deal ever known to man and it was thrown away."

Newman noted that some of Mulroney's dislike for Trudeau was personal, noting it likely stemmed from Trudeau's wealthy upbringing versus Mulroney's working-class roots in a Quebec mill town.

The book shows Mulroney seething after his lifelong friend Lucien Bouchard departs to lead the fight for Quebec separation following the failure of the Meech Lake Accord.

"I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit," Mulroney is quoted as saying.

Mulroney is quoted as describing his short-lived successor, Kim Campbell, as a "very vain person who blew the 1993 election because she was too busy screwing around with her Russian boyfriend" resulting in "the most incompetent campaign I've seen in my life."

Mulroney praises self

Mulroney says: "Nobody has achievements like this ... you cannot name a Canadian prime minister who has done as many significant things as I did, because there are none."

However former Ontario premier David Peterson, who stood by Mulroney through the wrangling over the Meech Lake Accord, is quoted as saying he would "never trust" the former prime minister.

"He is a pathological liar," Peterson says. "In fairness, I don't believe he knows he's lying ... you couldn't take anything he said at face value. His essential Achilles heel is his baloney."

Newman agreed with that assessment, saying: "He's a different kind of liar. He really believes what he's saying."

The 462-page Secret Mulroney Tapes is likely to top the bestseller lists, something predicted some 20 years ago by Mulroney.

"The publishers don't have to worry about whether this thing is going to sell," he told Newman.

"The only question they're going to have to wonder about is whether they've got enough paper in the forest to print the ******* books," Mulroney said.

Newman conducted 330 formal interviews over the years -- 98 of them with Mulroney. He ended up with 7,400 pages of transcripts containing no less than 1.8 million words.

The book arrives at a time when there has been some softening of public opinion toward the once deeply unpopular former prime minister, in part due to his recent illness.

Mulroney is also writing his own memoirs, which are expected in the next year or so.

CTV's Mike Duffy said Mulroney conducted the interviews with Newman because he thought Newman would be using them to write a major historical work on his prime ministership -- not to create a book of transcripts.

While much has been made of Mulroney's outrageous pronouncements, Duffy said it also shows why Mulroney won back-to-back majorities.

"... Mulroney is very incisive. He shows the brilliant political mind that he has," he said.

One defender brushed off some of Mulroney's blustery remarks.

"If it shows Brian Mulroney as kind of passionate person that speaks his mind sometimes -- that's who he is," said Sen. Marjory LeBreton, a longtime Mulroney associate.

However, one of the Liberal "rat packers", who made Mulroney's life miserable in his first term, wasn't so sympathetic.

"It will remind Canadians of everything they thought was wrong with the man," said Liberal MP Don Boudria.

With a report from CTV's Robert Fife

"His essential Achilles heel is his baloney."