Customer Reviews

The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister

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If Brian Mulroney has any sense of gratitude at all, he will profusely thank Peter Newman for the bad language in this book because it will deftly divert public attention from Mulroney's amazing ineptitude.

"I've been manoeuvering this thing for two years, to be succeeded by Campbell," Mulroney said of Kim Campbell, who led the Conservatives from 169 seats in Parliament to 2 in the 1993 election. That, more than any four letter words, is the absolute worst language in the book. It shows Mulroney's total incompetence as a leader, and may well seal his fate as the worst prime minister in Canadian history.

Politics is all about how you treat other people.

Mulroney knew Campbell was incompetent but said she would improve because, "If you're smart, you'll grow into it. Some prime ministers have not. Dief, I think it's fair to say, did not. Dief was too old."

Well, I lived in Canada when Dief was prime minister. I voted for Dief. I agonized over his indecisions. But I don't remember The Chief leading the Conservatives from 169 seats in parliament to 2. I do remember Dief fought for his vision of Canada until the day he died. Dief never walked away from the land he loved.

Dief was indomitable. Mulroney was inept. Political biography is less about "great deeds" than personality.

The personal image of Mulroney in this book is that of someone with less rapport than a McDonald's clerk who dismisses a customer with the mandatory "thank-you-have-a-nice-day-come-again" mantra while walking away from the counter. Mulroney knew all the right words, but I couldn't find any sense of empathy. There was no inner passion about doing what is best for Canada. It's a "Me-Me-Me Generation" book about a man who seems utterly befuddled to learn that no one likes him as much as he loves himself.

Reading it reminds me of the interminable accounts of the last days of Hitler or Hussein, trapped in an underground bunker with no chance of escape. However, there's two differences: Hitler knew the end was near, and everyone was trying to escape. Mulroney, in comparison, seems clueless.

It's shattering, because I like a lot of things Mulroney tried and on occasion did, such as Meech Lake and NAFTA. His assessments of Trudeau and Chretien are right on the mark; but, as incisive as he is in assessing his antagonists, he was incapable of understanding his own strengths, weaknesses, foibles and faults.

It's rare that any journalist gets such a penetrating insight to the character of a politician. Newman had a choice of saying Mulroney was an insensitive clod with less personal charm than a dead codfish, or letting Mulroney say it in his own words. He chose the wiser course of just quoting Mulroney justly. After all, there's an old saying in politics, "Never murder a man who's committing suicide."

In Mulroney's own words, this book depicts a political career as a fatal plunge into the Politics of Me which produced the mass suicide of the Conservative Party. Mulroney made Jean Chretien look good enough to be prime minister, and Canada may never recover.

This book shows the inner turmoil of the former Prime Minister. Love him or hate him, this is a phenomenal book with an interesting story behind its release. The first review is simply a close-minded individual who refuses to acknowledge that individuals have different beliefs.

I suspect history will, eventually, judge Mulroney to have been a pretty good PM, once commentators get past his self-promoting vanity bull***t and the vulgarities he employs in his conversations with Newman. "A customer" (previous reviewer) - who apparently has his own devils to overcome (specifically: homophobia - see his comments re: Mulroney's son) - probably doesn't realize that the GST has been a deficit-fighting cash cow for Paul Martin and that, despite the histrionics of Mulroney's opponents in the late 1980s, free trade has coincided with a vastly expanded trade surplus with the U.S., without the much-feared compromising of Canadian culture (whatever that is).

In Newman's book, Mulroney is alternately scatological and articulate, seething and riotously funny. It isn't a flattering portrayal, all in all, and will almost certainly destroy the past 10 years of careful "legacy cultivation" by our image-conscious former PM. But the fair reader (aka NOT "A customer" who, I suspect, in addition to being unfair, probably hasn't even read the book, since he had nothing, good or bad, to say about it) will realize that Mulroney's poisonous comments were (at least in part) the product of the quotidien stresses of a physically and mentally demanding job, which called for an incredibly high degree of restraint while in the public spotlight. That the prime minister of Canada should let loose with blue-streaked invective "after hours", perhaps over a glass of single malt, shouldn't bother or surprise us. (Paul Martin, after all, is rumored to have a rant-o-meter that shoots up to "eleven" when he's behind closed doors). The only astonishing thing is that an intelligent man like Mulroney would do so in the company of an eager author with a tape recorder.

Alfred Williams' assertion that Newman pulled the wool over Mulroney's eyes is not amply supported by the book, but by another, related, source.

For insights into Peter Newman (as well as more on Mulroney himself), I have to recommend the CBC Passionate Eye special on the Mulroney Tapes, which makes Newman a subject of inquiry as well as omniscient narrator. Actually hearing Newman's urging and Mulroney's responses delivers valuable context missing from the book -- context that I believe Alfred Williams unwittingly used in his assertions concerning the book.

Amazon, if you're listening, sell the DVD of the TV special & the book as a package set.

On the book itself, the most notable aspect is the discipline and burden of power. As a senior manager myself running a large foreign payments division of a major bank, I know how difficult it is to retain, attract and motivate staff, and the book provides some insight into Mulroney's unparallelled management skills with a caucus with a diverse set of values, priorities and personalities.

Most of the reviews of this piece are people with a political axe to grind. I did not care for Mulroney during his time in power, but I usually don't care much for politicians in the first place. In any event, what is noteworthy about this book is its candor (despite the method used to extract BM's words); and I don't suspect one will find another political biography like it. That's one of the contributions the book makes. The other contribution is what it says about our leaders - they are basically scum. And the editorial responses in the National Post (the GM and TS are simply mouthpieces for central Canadian liberals, the views from which are "parroted" by un-thinking Ottawa bureaucrats), especially from the West, congratulate the book for laying this bare. We all knew it; its nice that the former PM confirmed it.

Peter Newman has done the impossible: left the reader with the nagging feeling that, with treatment like this, maybe one should occasionally start feeling sorry for Mulroney after all. (Viz, John Diefenbaker's House of Commons hatchet job on Lester Pearson in 1957). But following the constellation of overwhelmingly justifiable Mulroney revelations tending to the critical - elsewhere taxonomically regurgitated - one yet suspects that this particular exercise in muckraking will rebound on the raker.

This book does not really add much to the sum of human knowledge, but it leaves a taste in the mouth usually associated with the complaints department of a grocery chain.

But, then, in the Andy Warhol-style 15 minutes of fame society which Western countries have descended into, it is the sort of thing that sells, to the detriment of extrapolations regarding the human condition.

What a story! It's everything I expected and everything I didn't. Mulroney's slick style and Irish blarney comes through loud and clear. But what is extraordinary is the mix of insecurity and humour that Mulorney displayed throughout his reign as Prime Minister. Half way into the book, and I start to agree with how bad he was treated by the press. However, Mulroney was never able to rise above the criticism, the cronyism and the perceptions. The references to Mila are the true highlights of his life and character. However, Peter Newman's presentation of this material leaves a bad taste. Regardless of how Newman qualifies his right to expose Mulroney, I feel that once again, Mulroney was not shown in the light that he should of been from a friend and confident. Mulroney placed his loyalty in the wrong hands just as he did with Kim Campbell, Steven Lewis and many others. Because he magnanimously rewarded his friends he expected them to remain subservient forever. This is not a character flaw but a false principle that he learned while growing up in Baie Comeau.
The tape recordings speak for themselves and they have produced a controversial and revealing book. In vain titillation, I'm glad they were released but, my disrespect for Newman as a person is now equal to my distaste towards the egotism and greed of Mulroney.

I have not read the book extantly, but have read significant excerpts of it, and enough of Newman's work, to be able to gauge that it's probably something worth buying to read to get from it whatever your political beliefs lead you to get from it. Mulroney inspired strong emotions in people, to a large part negative ones. Let us not forget the Progressive Conservatives ignominious defeat in 1993; Mulroney is caught on tape, and thus revealed in this book, as blaming Kim Campbell for this defeat in the most blatantly sexist and chauvinistic terms; the defeat of the party was, in fact, unarguably the result of his own massive unpopularity at the time. His stepping down as PM could do nothing to prevent the chastening at the polls that was to come and, unfortunately, in searching for a sacrifical lamb replacement, the PC Party decided to elect a token female as their leader, quite clearly as Mulroney himself elucidates in this book, because it would easier for the old boys club to hang the ensuing blame for the historic defeat on a woman than a man. The Meech Lake Accord, his views on Ottawa and the media, and his focused, vitriolic detestation of the visionary and nation-building Pierre Trudeau, what Mulroney has to say on these subjects speaks volumes about his personality, revealing endemic traits that, unlike other reviewers here, I refuse to chalk up to ephemeral moods and casual comments generated over an after-work beer.

Mulroney was undone by his own hubris and his failure to listen to the Canadian people and their views during the 1980's. He brought in a GST, something not in and of itself a necessarily bad idea, but at a rate of 7 percent when the studied case of New Zealand's rate was 2 while at the same time racking up a massive national debt that he continued to blame on previous governments, something which "fiscal conservatives" conveniently forget. He brought in Free Trade which later became NAFTA and Canadian softwood lumber producers, at last check, have been fleeced some few billion dollars in tariffs in spite of several WTO rulings in their favour. For Canadian conservatives reading this book in the hopes of being able to affirm that Mulroney is their Reagan, I dare say as much as may be evident by now if you have read my review thus far, that although I am not a conservative and thus was not a fan of Reagan's policies, I don't think Mulroney, as revealed by this book, could hold a candle to Reagan for at least being a gentleman.

Mulroney the greatest Prime Minister in Canadian history? Mulroney saves the universe? A legend in his own mind, I'm afraid.

Unlike the previous review where the person did not even read the book, I thought it was an interesting look at the real thoughts of a prime minister, warts and all. It is far better than the sanitized self congratulating piece Trudeau put together for Memoirs, this book offers more insight. While I think Mulroney would have opted out of publishing off colour comments about people, this book actually lets you into his mind to see what he really thought about the issues and those around him. A good read for any political junkie.

The Secret Mulroney Tapes is a fascinating look into the private thoughts of Brian Mulroney and other politicians of the Mulroney era, but its personal insights only partially make up for a lack of honest analysis of Mulroney’s reign as prime minister of Canada.

The book uses a topical format (with chapters like “Scandals, Retreats, and Flip-Flops”) in a roughly chronological order. Most chapters start with an overview of the topic by the author, Peter C. Newman, followed by a series of extended quotes from Mulroney. There are a surprising number of observations from other people, too, and these sometimes provide an interesting contrast and context to the discussion.

Though I’m not a fan of Brian Mulroney, I do think Newman’s book does a good job of showing Mulroney as a sincere man who takes things to heart (and often too much to heart). The repeated examples of his personal thoughts, and insights from close friends, co-workers and even opponents, allow us to see a real person with deep, sincere feelings. This alone is a useful antidote to the pop culture nostrums that politicians are just corrupt, manipulative con artists, who view politics as merely a plaything. Sure, people can say things to make themselves seem more sincere, but the weight of (often very unflattering) evidence that Newman provides makes most of what we read sound quite genuine.

This is not to say that the book rehabilitates Mulroney. There is enough here to ensure critics will not change their minds. Newman should be lauded for showing us Mulroney’s hubris and persecution complex. Mulroney’s unguarded comments repeatedly demonstrate his arrogance, desire to be liked and his feelings of being unfairly attacked by the Ottawa press corp. As Newman also demonstrates, Mulroney displays colossally poor judgment about his friends and party loyalists. Mulroney’s decisions to give them cabinet or patronage posts, which Newman shows are usually genuine acts of loyalty, don’t make up for these peoples’ eventual acts of stupidity, graft, or - in Lucien Bouchard’s case - malicious duplicity. Sincerity, while a political virtue, does not necessarily work in tandem with intelligence and prudence. Just look at George W. Bush.

Unfortunately, The Secret Mulroney Tapes often exposes the biases of both its principal subject and the author. Mulroney makes repeated references to the free spending ways of the Trudeau Liberals, and how the Conservatives had to clean up the mess, but Newman, a well-known conservative, never challenges this old chestnut. The assumption is that the Liberals were free spenders, while the Conservatives were fiscally responsible. Well, the record clearly shows that BOTH were poor economic managers, and Newman doesn’t even come close to properly acknowledging this. For example, all the serious studies of the causes of Canada’s debt, from Statistics Canada to private sector analysts like the TD Bank, have shown that (social) spending did not cause Canada’s debt; corporate tax cuts and extraordinarily high interest rates, especially in relation to the U.S., were the big culprits. Newman never talks about this, which is telling because these were crucial elements in both Trudeau’s and Mulroney’s economic agenda. I suppose this book isn’t meant to be a definitive analysis of Mulroney’s tenure as PM, but the repetition of unchallenged right wing myths is ultimately tiresome.

I was surprised that Newman’s book doesn’t satisfactorily address some of Mulroney’s most spectacular failures. Given Mulroney’s desire for rehabilitation, one wonders if these issues were edited out by Newman, or if Mulroney never talked about them. For example, the Airbus scandal is glossed over, and no mention is made of Mulroney’s receipt of $300,000. The CF-18 debacle, one of the main causes of the Reform Party, ranks a quick mention… about how ungrateful Montrealers were for getting the contract! And, of course, the opposition leaders to the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords are given the straw man treatment, and you never get a sense of how Mulroney responded to their arguments.

In the end, The Secret Mulroney Tapes allows you to hear some intimate thoughts with a prime minister, but without a fuller context it’s hard to a make decent judgment about Brian Mulroney based on these thoughts alone. This is a book for students of Canadian politics who are willing to use this book along with many other sources.