Revisiting Chappaquiddick After 35 Years

Human Events ^ | July 19, 2004 | Joseph Calandra, Jr

[pilgrim]

 

 

Revisiting Chappaquiddick After 35 Years

Posted Jul 19, 2004Thirty-five years after the night of July 18, 1969, when Ted Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile sedan off the side of a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and left for dead Mary Jo Kopechne, the 28-year-old former secretary of his brother Robert F. Kennedy, in his submerged car, unanswered questions linger over the events of that fatal evening. Kennedy escaped the wreckage with a concussion and waited nine hours before reporting the incident to the police shortly after a young boy noticed the sunken car.

Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, but no other charges were filed against the Massachusetts senator. Edgartown Police Chief Dominick J. Arena said that an examination of the evidence, shortly after the incident, showed that Kennedy could not be held legally responsible for Kopechne’s death.

Leo Damore, author of the best-selling 1988 book Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up (published by Regnery, a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS), described Chappaquiddick as “the most famous traffic fatality in the history of American politics. . . . The mysteries of the case continue to haunt Sen. Edward Kennedy’s [D.-Mass.] career. For many, Chappaquiddick stands as the single obstacle in his path to the Presidency.”

HUMAN EVENTS covered the aftermath of the fatal drowning in the weeks that followed the incident and concluded at the time that “the available evidence, in fact, suggests that Teddy, aside from his own statement that he dove repeatedly into the waters to retrieve Mary Jo Kopechne, did nothing else during this mysterious nine-hour interval to see that she received help. . . .

“While Kennedy has said he was ‘exhausted and in a state of shock’ after the accident, local officials found that he was not too shocked or exhausted to immediately call for his lawyer, Paul Markham, when he returned to the party at the Chappaquiddick cottage after the accident. The receptionist at his motel in Edgartown has also claimed the senator appeared ‘natural’ when he borrowed a dime from her to make a phone call two and half hours before he reported the accident to the police.”

The facts relating to the incident are as follows:

• Kennedy participated in the 46th Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta Friday afternoon, July 18, finishing a dismal ninth place in the contest.
  
  
• Kennedy’s cousin Joe Gargan, a Boston lawyer, arranged a party on Chappaquiddick with his friends that included a group of young women, primarily friends and Kennedy-family political staffers, who joined Kennedy, Gargan and the entourage for cocktails at a cottage on Chappaquiddick Island. A USMC veteran and lifelong townsman, John Sylvia, recounted the Shiretown “cocktail party” as one where “there was yelling, music, and general sounds of hell raising.”
  
  
• Around 11:15 p.m. on the evening of July 18, Kennedy left the party with Kopechne and, Kennedy claims, decided to take her back to the ferry and to Kopechne’s motel about three miles south of Edgartown.
  
  
• Sometime after 11:15 p.m. Friday, Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile sedan off Dike bridge and into Poucha Pond where Kopechne drowned.
  
  Kennedy’s explanation of his actions immediately after the incident is strange to say the least. He couldn’t remember any details of the accident. Kennedy claimed he was in a state of shock, but made 17 phone calls although not a single call to reach police, fire, Coast Guard officials or nearby residents to summon help to assist in the rescue of Miss Kopechne.
  
  Kennedy also claimed he was confused and turned the wrong way on the dirt road toward Dike bridge despite the fact that he had been on this stretch of road several times and was in fact on it earlier that day.
  
  Shortly after the accident, Kennedy addressed the nation in a televised broadcast after spending several days in seclusion at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port and admitted that his actions were “indefensible.”
  
  One troubling aspect is how the authorities handled the case, including the inquest into Kopechne’s death, subsequent investigation and release of information pertaining to the case. The assistant DA Jimmy Smith, according to author Damore, avoided prosecuting Kennedy.
  
  As HUMAN EVENTS pointed out in the issue of Aug. 2, 1969, “The inconsistencies and the unanswered questions proliferate…quot;not only because of Sen. Kennedy but because of the police investigation into the incident. Why, for instance, did Police Chief Arena fail to interrogate Kennedy when the senator handed Arena his prepared statement some nine hours after the fatal accident? Why was it that neither Arena nor County Prosecutor Walter Steele has questioned any of the party participants, at least one of whom has given statements to reporters? Why is it that Dr. Donald R. Mills, the medical examiner, was so reluctant to reveal the exact alcoholic content of Miss Kopechne’s blood?”
  
  For that matter, why did the family refuse an autopsy?
  
  In terms of a settlement, the Kopechnes eventually received $140,904 ($90,904 from Kennedy and $50,000 from his insurance coverage).
  
  Since the fatal accident 35 years ago, Kennedy has claimed that he has told the full story of what happened that night, but reporters and authors have raised numerous questions over the years that suggest otherwise.
  
  
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  HUMAN EVENTS intern Joseph Calandra, Jr., with the National Journalism Center, worked on the preparation of this story.

[Wolfstar]

...he is probably haunted by what he has done.

I sincerely doubt it. He didn't care about Mary Jo immediately after the accident. Why would he care 35 years later?

[Wolfstar]

Kennedy was guilty of manslaughter...

At least.

[Nasty McPhilthy]

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/downloads-pdfs/twentyquestions.pdf

[johnny7]

I doubt he is haunted at all.

Of course he isn't. But the excessive boozing shows it does bother him 'subconsciously'.

[Chieftain]

Too bad someone doesn't have the ambition to buy a '68 Olds just like the car Teddy was driving and then drove it around the streets of Boston during the convention. They could put some seaweed and fish on and about the car just for effect.

Attention Mass FReepers great idea for an enterprizing FReeper in the New England area!

[pilgrim]

"http://www.humaneventsonline.com/downloads-pdfs/twentyquestions.pdf"

 

This makes the event more questionable!  I had not heard about the bloodstains of Mary Jo's shirt. 

 

Hmmmmmmmmm.....pilgrim  .

[pilgrim]

"http://www.humaneventsonline.com/downloads-pdfs/twentyquestions.pdf"

 

This makes the event more questionable!  I had not heard about the bloodstains of Mary Jo's shirt. 

 

Hmmmmmmmmm.....pilgrim  .

[vanmorrison]

"...he is probably haunted by what he has done."

"I sincerely doubt it. He didn't care about Mary Jo immediately after the accident. Why would he care 35 years later?"

And why should he care, when the people of Taxachusetts, home of JohnEffinKerry, continued to re-elect this monster from that day to this? He's a hero! He beat the rap! Just like OJ!

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Huh? When has he every been lying sober on his pillow?

Because he lies best when he isn't drunk.

[Wolfstar]

And why should he care, when the people of Taxachusetts, home of JohnEffinKerry, continued to re-elect this monster from that day to this? He's a hero! He beat the rap! Just like OJ!

That's the hard truth which tells the tale, doesn't it. That's why I have no faith or trust in the American electorate. Hope, yes. But trust, no.

[1Old Pro]

Photo of car:

[El Gran Salseron]

Yes, Kennedy is a low-down, mudering dog. There is no question about that.

It is also sad that this young woman lost her life.

BUT, that isn't the saddest part of the whole process.

The saddest part is that despite his obvious criminality.....the good people of Massachusetts have continued to "overlook" this incident and elect him over and over again.

That says so very much about the electorate in that state. Very sad, indeed.

[weegee]

What are the politics of Scott Peterson? No one would be interested, indeed.

[weegee]

There is no statute of limitations on murder. Perhaps Ted Kennedy will eventually be brought to trial for his crimes. Another Kennedy was brought to trial over a murder case from decades past.

Political connections can't betray justice forever.

[Cicero]

If Kennedy went into the water because he was drunk, he was as you say guilty of manslaughter or accidental death, and anyone but a Kennedy would have been tried on such a charge.

But it's worse than that. He waited 9 hours to inform the police, whereas if he had called them from the first house near the bridge they might very likely have gotten her out before she died. There was a substantial pocket of air in the car, and she probably lived for some time before it ran out.

That's worse than manslaughter. And there's more. His motivation was almost certainly to figure out a way to cover up his involvement and preserve his political career, not that he was too drunk or incompetent to make the right decisions in an emergency.

That's murder, in my book. He didn't deliberately kill her, but he did deliberately let her die after putting her into a situation where she was certain to die.

[Christian4Bush]

BUMP

[Mike Bates]

Teddy's real legacy:

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp

[weegee]

Same as the case where the woman on X hit a pedestrian and drove him into her garage where she left him to die in her windshield.

[weegee]

The "good people" of Massachusetts continue to overlook this horrible bit of Ted Kennedy's past but so does Big Media that sees Teddy as the last viable Kennedy (no JFK, RFK, John-John/JFK Jr.... although the media has tried to spin John Kerry as "John F. Kerry" and Kerry/Edwards as "John-John"). Why should we care to hear his take on Iraq?

[Dead Dog]

I thought it was a Lincoln (rhyms with sinkin'). What model of Olds was it?