Posted on 12/01/2007 8:08:36 AM PST by LdSentinal
To this day, only one person truly knows what happened on a lonely Massachusetts bridge on the night of July 18, 1969.
Sometime that evening, a car driven by US senator Ted Kennedy plunged into the icy water below. While the politician survived, his passenger, a 28-year-old aide, was not so lucky.
Mary Jo Kopechne died on the road from Chappaquiddick that Friday night. In the ensuing scandal, the presidential hopes of the last of the Kennedy brothers were destroyed.
Now the senator has signed a £4million deal to write his memoirs, due out in 2010, raising hopes he is about to reveal what really happened.
Advertisement "I hope my reflections can contribute to a deeper understanding of many events in the history of this great country and to a more in-depth picture of an American family," he says.
Yet what the world will be most keenly awaiting is his account of that infamous car accident, not to mention fresh tales of his legendary boozing, womanising and alleged drug taking.
When it comes to scandal and excess, the 75-year-old politician's life rivals that of any rock star.
That fateful weekend at the tail end of the 60s had been quite unlike any other in American history.
As Teddy flew to Martha's Vineyard for an annual boat race, astronauts Neil Armstrong, "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were about to fulfil a promise made by his late brother, John F Kennedy, of placing a man on the Moon.
Teddy, however, had less lofty matters on his mind as his plane touched down at the local airport.
He was at the exclusive New England resort to take part in the annual Edgartown Regatta and planned to party into the night with a select group of friends at a specially-rented waterfront cottage.
Emotionally, the 37-year-old Teddy Kennedy was in a dark place. The 1963 assassination of his oldest brother John, had left him reeling.
The death of his middle brother Bobby by a second assassin's bullet in 1968 had hit him even harder.
With the temperature hitting the 90s and little wind, the boat race had been an anti-climax. Ted, reported to have been sinking beers while commandeering the Victura, finished ninth, knocking back three rum and cokes during an after-race party.
Ted spent the rest of the afternoon drinking either beer or rum before his driver chauffeured him from Edgartown to Chappaquiddick, a journey that involved a short ferry ride across the 150 yards of water that separated the tiny islet from Martha's Vineyard.
The cottage had been hired especially for Ted and his friends to enjoy themselves. Aside from the senator, the party consisted of five male pals - all married but whose wives were absent - and six female political aides. Ted's wife, Joan, wasn't present.
Kicking off at around 8.30pm, neighbours remember the party being a raucous affair, fuelled by huge quantities of vodka, scotch, rum and beer.
Ted later told a court how he and Mary Jo left the party at around 11.15pm so she could catch the last ferry to Edgartown at midnight.
Others claim they left much later, well after the last boat had sailed. Whatever the facts, the pair never made it.
Instead of taking the correct route, Ted turned down an unlit dirt road leading to a narrow bridge over a pond.
Somehow, he managed to drive off the edge, and while Ted was able to get out of the flooded car, his passenger did not.
In a statement to police, he said: "The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom.
"I attempted to open the door and the window, but have no recollection of how I got out.
"I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful. I was exhausted and in a state of shock."
But instead of seeking help at nearby houses, Kennedy walked all the way back to the party and alerted two friends, who rushed to try and save the girl. They did not inform police of the tragedy until eight hours later, a decision that may have cost Mary Jo her life.
Police scuba diver John Farrar, who later recovered her body, said if he'd been alerted in time, he could have saved her.
"She was in a very conscious position," he said. "Her head was on the floorboards where the last bit of air would have been.
"It seems likely she was holding herself in a pocket of air."
At the inquest, District Court judge James A. Boyle concluded: "Negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."
He added that rather than giving Mary Jo an innocent lift to the ferry, Teddy's choice of a secluded, dead-end lane had been intentional.
Teddy received just a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident, but any hopes he had of becoming President were over.
In truth though, it was more the Kennedy clan, with an eye to their legacy, that had pushed him to become a presidential hopeful rather than any lust for power on Ted's part
Cleo O'Donnell - wife of a former JFK campaign aide - put it succinctly: "Teddy Kennedy was the weak kitten in the litter, never able to measure up to his brothers.
"One problem Teddy always had was keeping it in his pants."
Born in 1932, Ted was a poor student who was eventually forced to quit Harvard for paying a friend to take one of his exams.
After a stint in the army, he qualified as a lawyer in 1959, three years later taking the Senate seat vacated when his brother became President.
Despite marrying Joan in 1958, Ted seemed happy to lead the same playboy lifestyle as his brothers, spending much of the 60s with a glass in one hand and a blonde in the other.
This reputation led to rumours that driving Mary Jo to a deserted stretch of a Massachusetts island had little to do with catching a ferry.
Yet as the 60s gave way to the 70s and 80s, Ted's fondness for excess started to catch up with him.
In 1981 the bloated, booze-sodden senator was photographed walking naked along Palm Beach. Soon after, a senior aide claimed his former boss used cocaine.
Infamously, in 1987 he was alleged to have pulled his limo up outside the Capitol building in Washington and offered two 16-year-old girls the chance to have dinner with him.
And just last year a US magazine claimed Ted had paid Caroline Bilodeau-Allen hush money to keep secret the 1985 birth of their love child.
She is now suing over the allegations.
Today, Edward Kennedy is the second longest-serving member of the Senate - a Democrat icon. He has guided through legislation to raise the minimum wage, voted against the invasion of Iraq and been a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage.
Yet for all the good work, the events of that summer of 1969 have always cast a heavy shadow over his career.
There is no statute of limitations on a capital crime.
He lied then and it will not be different today.
As many drinking binges as he’s been on, if he hasn’t confessed by now - he ain’t going to.
- OR - is this going to be another one of those “If I Killed Her, This Is How I Would Have Done It” type books?
Was it Gore Vidal who said “in America, we’re always shooting the wrong damn Kennedy!” ... ?
The British press left to writing stories and asking questions the American press cannot write or ask. In America, journalism is a business of prostitution, and whores cannot go around telling truth about one of their head pimps.
No, he will entitle it how I would have done it if I did it.
Either way Mary Jo Kopechne will be unavailable for comment.
I was going to say...I wonder after all these years and all the alcohol if he actually remembers that night well enough to know what actually happened.
And horsies have wings........
He should just call it “Drunk Like Me.”
[There is no statute of limitations on a capital crime.]
It was hardly a capital crime. But, he was in an alcohol induced stupor then and has been since. He has no clear memory of anything. His handlers do all his thinking.
There is plenty of outrageous fact in this story without making stuff up.
The water at Chappaquiddick in July is NOT "icy".
Like a drunken version of weekend at Bernies.
I’m sure more than one person knows a great deal but they are well-compensated. Teddy will never admit to murder short of a death-bed confession.
Teddy Kennedy is too dumb to write a book, in any case. This one will be written by a ghost writer and a team of assistants chosen from candidates suggested by the publisher. It will be carefully vetted by the family lawyers.
Speculation about Chappaquiddik will help sell the book. The publisher will probably offer at least $10 ahead of the game, which will pay expenses. The Kennedy name and fame are enough to sell it. What the name “Kennedy” has lost in Camelot style glamor over the years it has gained in drooling notoriety.
As with bill clinton’s biography, Teddy doesn’t need to bother with telling the truth. No matter how bad it is, it will sell.
He has also been stridently pro-abortion. Thus he has been complicit in the deaths of millions.
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