Now however, both HarperCollins and Dr Day have blinked, "unreservedly" apologising to Mr Keating, agreeing to meet his legal costs, destroy remaining stocks of the hardcover's 8000-copy print run, and substantially amend any future editions, should it be reprinted. Fairfax Media has obtained copies of frank and colourful correspondence between the parties and between lawyers acting for both, as well as Mr Keating's notes of conversations. The central claim in the unauthorised biography is that Mr Keating concealed his dyslexia since childhood and that it had rendered him unable to undertake some of the core tasks required of a treasurer and a prime minister. The claim, which Dr Day conceded was his deduction and had never been put to Mr Keating himself, appeared multiple times throughout the 576-page book which retailed for $49.99. Mr Keating said it had been based not on "a number of sources" but on the views of just two men, both of whom bore "personal spite" towards him. One of those, former finance minister Peter Walsh, died last month.

The dyslexia hypothesis was further used to corroborate the unsupported claim that in office Mr Keating had relied inordinately on staff and senior public servants, requiring them to brief him orally rather than in written form, as well as to apprise him of matters they deemed important because his reading capacities were limited. Despite initially defending the dyslexia claim on the grounds that it was not in any way defamatory, the author and publisher eventually caved in, paying legal costs of $27,500 and "sincerely" apologising to Mr Keating "for the hurt an embarrassment suffered and the damage caused to your reputation as a result". "The book asserts that you suffer from dyslexia and as a result have a reading disability such that you became over reliant on the advice of Treasury officials and were incapable of reading the substantial volume of material provided to you as Treasurer and then as Prime Minister," the private apology by HarperCollins chief executive James Kellow states. "Since publication, you have informed us that this is absolutely not true. HarperCollins Australia and David Day accept your statement and acknowledge that those assertions in the book are false and we withdraw them unreservedly." Mr Keating said it was a "calculatedly wicked thing to say of somebody holding the highest offices in the country, that they had some sort of comprehension disability, when the author had no experience of me ever in public life, has never met me, and had no experience of the Canberra policy years". He said it was "a bald-faced lie" which had ignored the fact that he had been "a conscientious treasurer and prime minister".

"I read and understood everything that mattered," he said. "We find there are no sources, because the claim is fundamentally false and untrue ... so it's written out of a desire to try to write a book which had a new element to it ... its sole insight is this great lie." In email correspondence dated February 2, just days after Fairfax Media reported on the biography's publication, Dr Day writes "It was good to speak to you. I am sorry that I was unable to change your view of the book ... it will reinforce your reputation rather than erode it." "It was not good speaking to you. You are a humbug," Mr Keating wrote in his uncompromising same-day response. "Your text in the bottom half of page 369 paints me as some sort of Reagan figure, who can't read a brief to save himself but needed to be alerted by a departmental official to anything the official believed the Prime Minister should know.

"The worst of it is you have not a shred of credible evidence for the claims you have made ... the book puts you in the 'also-ran' category, where you well and truly belong." In the biography, Dr Day had argued the "dyslexia" explained other things. "He could convince sceptical voters with his explanations of complex ideas. And despite the paucity of his formal education, he could hold audiences in his thrall. Yet he could only read with difficulty. Had he been tested, it is likely that he would have been found to be afflicted with dyslexia. On one hand, this made his success in public life even more impressive. But it also may help explain why he was so successful as a political communicator," he wrote. However, Mr Keating said the author had deliberately not put the dyslexia theory to anyone close to him for fear of having it denied and the one former adviser to whom it was addressed, Simon Balderstone​, had comprehensively dismissed it as without any foundation. His comments were then omitted.