competent. Attacked by historians of the British
royal family, Kelley’s book nevertheless typified
much of the negative press surrounding the royal
family in the 1990’s.
Impact Although Kelley’s brand of biography was
frequently deplored in the 1990’s, a minority of crit-
ics—chiefly journalists—admired her tenacity and
campaigns to reveal in more candid form the lives of
public figures.
Further Reading
Carpozi, George.Poison Pen: The Unauthorized Biogra-
phy of Kitty Kelley. Fort Lee, N.J.: Barricade Books,
1991.
Rollyson, Carl.A Higher Form of Cannibalism? Adven-
tures in the Art and Politics of Biography. Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee, 2005.
Carl Rollyson
See also Journalism; Literature in the United
States; Publishing; Scandals.
Kemp, Jack
Identification U.S. secretary of housing and
urban development, 1989-1993, and vice
presidential candidate, 1996
Born July 13, 1935; Los Angeles, California
Kemp’s passion and insight for economic growth through
tax relief and balanced budgets, as well as his compassion
for the poor, appealed to moderates and centrist Republi-
cans during the 1990’s.
Jack Kemp was born to a middle-class family headed
by a father who owned his own trucking company.
Kemp received his undergraduate degree from Occi-
dental College in 1957 and did postgraduate work at
Long Beach State and California Western Univer-
sities. In 1958, he married Joanne Main, and together
they had four children: Jeffrey, Jennifer, Judith, and
James. From 1958 to 1962, Kemp served in the U.S.
Army Reserve. Kemp simultaneously began an
eleven-year career as a National Football League
(NFL) quarterback in 1958, first for the Chargers in
Los Angeles and San Diego, then for the Buffalo Bills
in New York. Kemp retired from football in 1969.
During the latter years of his NFL career, Kemp
became involved in Republican politics. After his re-
tirement from football, he ran for office and, in
1970, was elected to serve as a representative from
New York. He remained a congressman from 1971 to- While in Congress, Kemp urged party col-
leagues to reach out to minorities and to bring them
into the Republican fold.
Kemp was truly concerned about the plight of the
poor in the United States. This concern suited him
well for his work in urban improvement during the
early 1990’s: Under President George H. W. Bush,
Kemp served as the secretary of housing and urban
development from 1989 to 1993. Kemp was a Repub-
lican, not a conservative ideologue; his positions of-
ten sprang from his heart rather than a mind con-
strained by a conservative tenacity. Thus, in 1994,
while weighing options as to whether he should seek
the Republican nomination for the presidency in
1996, Kemp opposed Proposition 187, which denied
various government benefits to illegal immigrants in
California and was supported by 80 percent of that
state’s Republicans.
Kemp ran as Bob Dole’s vice presidential candi-
date in the 1996 election. Consequently, the Dole-
Kemp ticket proposed tax relief and government re-
bate plans, which were exclusively directed toward
the lower and middle classes. While these proposed
policies were not symbolic of conservatism, they ac-
curately portrayed Kemp’s centrism.
Impact Kemp authoredAn American Renaissance: A
Strategy for the 1980’s(1979), in which he expounded
his theory of economics. This work is an enduring
part of the free market and tax-reduction policies
that marked the 1994 “Republican Revolution.” In
1993, he cofounded Empower America, a private or-
ganization devoted to free market economics and
the promotion of individual freedoms and personal
responsibility.
Further Reading
Dole, Bob, and Jack Kemp.Trusting the People: The
Dole-Kemp Plan to Free the Economy and Create a Better
America. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Kemp, Jack F.An American Renaissance: A Strategy for
the 1980’s. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
AWR Hawkins III
See also Bush, George H. W.; Business and the
economy in the United States; Dole, Bob; Elections
in the United States, midterm; Elections in the
United States, 1996; Illegal immigration; Immigra-
tion to the United States; Republican Revolution.The Nineties in America Kemp, Jack 477