The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister is a biography of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, by writer and former Mulroney confidant Peter C. Newman. The book was released by Random House Canada on September 12, 2005. Content and controversies of the book The book is based on hours of taped interviews, amounting to more than 7400 pages of transcripts, with Mulroney himself, family, friends, colleagues and contemporaries. In the book, Mulroney opens up his darkest secrets and his innermost thoughts. In the interviews, he proclaimed himself the greatest Prime Minister since John A. Macdonald, and claimed that Pierre Trudeau opposed the Meech Lake Accord to try to destroy him. Mulroney claims that "Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in to save it." Mulroney describes his successor Kim Campbell as a "very vain person who blew the 1993 election because she was too busy screwing around with her Russian boyfriend" (Gregory Lekhtman), resulting in "the most incompetent campaign I've seen in my life." Campbell responded to the news by saying that Mulroney just wanted a "scapegoat who would bear the burden of his unpopularity". Mulroney's reaction Via a spokesman, Mulroney said he was "devastated" and "betrayed" by Newman. He went further, saying "I was reckless in talking with Peter C. Newman... This was my mistake and I'm going to have to live with it." Mulroney also said that most of the time he was not aware that his conversations were being recorded. The reality states the contrary: "Senator Pat Carney also disputed comments made by Mr. Mulroney’s spokesman, Luc Lavoie, on Monday that many of the remarks were made in late-night conversations and the former prime minister was unaware he was being taped. Mr. Lavoie told reporters Mr. Mulroney felt betrayed by Mr. Newman. 'He told his colleagues he was doing the taping with Peter Newman,' Senator Carney said yesterday. 'We were all aware. We may have thought he was crazy, but we were all aware.' This view (Mulroney's) is disputed by Newman, who claims that an agreement was struck between the two men in 1976, shortly before Mulroney's first run at the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. Newman claims that Mulroney agreed to grant him privileged access on a regular basis should Mulroney become Prime Minister. According to Newman, Mulroney wanted someone to write