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Senator Ted Kennedy drives car off bridge at Chappaquiddick Island
History.com ^ | 02/09/2010 | History.com Editors

Posted on 07/18/2024 2:54:53 PM PDT by DFG

Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours.

On the evening of July 18, 1969, while most Americans were home watching television reports on the progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan were hosting a cookout and party at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick Island, an affluent island near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The party was planned as a reunion for Kopechne and five other women, all veterans of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Bobby Kennedy was Ted Kennedy’s older brother, and following Bobby’s assassination in June 1968 Ted took up his family’s political torch. In 1969, Ted Kennedy was elected majority whip in the U.S. Senate, and he seemed an early front-runner for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.

Just after 11 p.m., according to Kennedy, he left the party with Kopechne to drive to the ferry slip where they would catch a boat back to their respective lodgings in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. While driving down the main roadway, Kennedy took a sharp turn onto the unpaved Dike Road, drove for a short distance, and then missed the ramp to a narrow wooden bridge and drove into Poucha Pond. Kennedy, a married man, claimed the Dike Road excursion was a wrong turn.

(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: andourtopstory; chappaquiddick; kennedy; libertarianparty; massachusetts; rfkjr; robertkennedyjr; swimmer
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To: DFG
Mary Jo was an only child.

Nixon had invited Teddy to Cape Canaveral for the events there associated with the first moon walk (after all, JFK had made the moon race a top priority and the US had managed to meet his deadline of the end of the decade). Nice gesture by Nixon--Teddy probably turned it down out of hatred for Nixon. But if he had been there the party at Chappaquiddick would not have happened.

Teddy waited hours before reporting the accident...maybe so his blood alcohol level would go down. Possibly Mary Jo could have been saved if he had sought help immediately.

21 posted on 07/18/2024 3:45:08 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: DFG

Back in 1980s there was real fear Teddy Kennedy might take the nomination from Jimmy carter. I received a book on this accident from someone through the mail. The way Kennedy lied and lied about what happened was horrible.


22 posted on 07/18/2024 3:45:27 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force!--G. Washington)
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To: pghbjugop

I believe that add was in National Lampoon or one of the other spoof magazines back then.


23 posted on 07/18/2024 3:46:30 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force!--G. Washington)
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To: DFG

Teddy’s trial was a hum-dinger.
No wait, I forgot, there was no trial.
No indictment.
No accusations of leaving the scene of the crime.
No blood checks to see if Fat Boy’s blood had alcohol? Oh, forgot, that’s why the little turd left the scene and hid out.
Oh well, he had the “I’m a rich corrupt DemocRAT” card.


24 posted on 07/18/2024 4:00:25 PM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: DFG

25 posted on 07/18/2024 4:00:38 PM PDT by nicollo (Remember when we had to close tags?)
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To: Robwin

The MA coverup was paid for with cold hard cash.


26 posted on 07/18/2024 4:01:55 PM PDT by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: DFG

Never forget that forensics showed that MaryJo may have been able to remain alive in the back of the car for half an hour. While this drunken punk wandered around playing CYA. And then her parents bowed to the Kennedy Cult and had her buried very quickly. And then a Cult judge refused to allow the body to be exhumed for autopsy.

Her parents betrayed their own daughter to protect Camelot. Disgusting. Just like Hollywood parents who let their children be abused so they can get in the movies and TV. Monsters.


27 posted on 07/18/2024 4:25:13 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: pghbjugop

The VW picture is from an actual VW ad. They did float. You had to cracks a window open the close the doors easily, they were so airtight


28 posted on 07/18/2024 4:28:03 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: DFG

Parts one and two of a good Documentary of the incident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRsL5Kc4rww

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcvtdexJcGs


29 posted on 07/18/2024 4:46:40 PM PDT by moreisee (The Media is the enemy.)
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To: moreisee

Bfl


30 posted on 07/18/2024 6:15:03 PM PDT by katykelly
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To: raccoonradio

OK, so it wasn’t a real VW add put out by VW, just satire by others. VW has always had edgy, weird or just off ads for their cars. I just couldnt imagine a major company would run such a thing.


31 posted on 07/18/2024 6:58:02 PM PDT by pghbjugop
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To: pghbjugop

It was real.


32 posted on 07/18/2024 7:00:47 PM PDT by OKSooner (FREE BANNON!!!)
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To: MayflowerMadam

Totally forgot that factoid, thanks.


33 posted on 07/18/2024 8:58:36 PM PDT by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC)
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To: DFG
There is reason to think that Ted Kennedy was not in the car but was caught in a web of lies due to improvisation by his pals at the party on the island. The Kennedy family's more capable and experienced lawyers, investigators, and coverup artists would never have let things get so out of hand.
34 posted on 07/19/2024 12:29:27 AM PDT by Rockingham
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