Book Unflattering to Bush Draws His Campaign's Fire

Anticipating a barrage of unflattering accusations and innuendo about President Bush's personal life in a soon-to-be-published book by the celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley, the Bush campaign has opened a wave of advance counterstrikes intended to undermine her credibility

A representative of the White House recently called Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News, to discourage that network from broadcasting interviews with Ms. Kelley about the book on its "Today'' program and on its MSNBC cable program "Hardball With Chris Matthews,'' a network executive said.