Posted on 09/04/2009 1:18:13 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
Daily Newser Dave Saltonstall gets an advance copy of Ted Kennedy's posthumously-released memoir "True Compass" -- in which the Massachusetts senator used the platform to defend his inexplicable decision to abandon Mary Jo Kopechne after his car plunged off the bridge.
Among the other revelations: A nine-year-old Teddy hid under the bunk at a private school in the Bronx because he was afraid of being sexually abused by the dorm master -- and the senator claims he was cajoled into cheating on a Spanish test at Harvard by a buddy and didn't hatch the scheme that resulted in his expulsion.
Salty:
"That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life," Kennedy wrote in "True Compass," his much anticipated memoir, published by Twelve. The new book does not go beyond Kennedy's original chronology, which he gave in a 1970 investigation. It's a timeline that begins with a house party hosted by former Robert F. Kennedy campaign staffers, and ends in the murky waters off Chappaquiddick's Dike Bridge.
But Kennedy does open up about his feelings over the night, and he tries to set straight what he calls enduring false speculation about him and Kopechne.
"We had no romantic relationship whatsoever," he wrote flatly. He insists they were getting weepy over RFK's assassination the year before, and both decided to leave the party.
Although he acknowledges some pre-dinner cocktails that night, Kennedy doesn't blame alcohol - just that he was lost on an unfamiliar part of the island.
Kennedy admits that he was not proud of the 10 hours it took him to report the accident - a period during which skeptics believe Kennedy worked feverishly to cover his tracks.
But he concludes that his brain was addled by concussion, exhaustion, shock and panic - as well as the knowledge that the accident would hurt him politically.
Leave it to a Kennedy to lie from the grave while lying in the grave.
Not Drunk, Not Romantic.
I guess that leaves dangerously reckless, coldly calculating, cheating to get ahead, chauvanistic, uncaring for others and without regard for human life.
That’s how I will remember Jack’s baby brother.
I hope you have lots of Ice Water. You will need it.
Has anybody read the story that Mary Jo was asleep in the backseat of the car.Ted left with another woman not knowing Mary Jo was there.Rosemary Keough’s purse was found in the car.
Exactly. Teddy paid someone else to take his Spanish exam.
In wonder if he even attended half his classes while there.
So he would have us believe that he was walking across Harvard Yard one day and stopped out of concern when he saw a poor student holding a sign that said...”will cheat for you for a new offshore bank account”. He was only being a good Kennedy Samaritan, “you know”.
or .....a group of “I like Ike” supporters accosted Teddy on Harvard Yard and threatened to beat him senseless unless he allowed one of them to take his Spanish exam the next day.
I didn’t believe him when he was alive. Why should I believe him after he’s dead?
....and the publishing co. for releasing such teasers
He may have lived 77 years, but he did not live ling enough to become a man.
“as well as the knowledge that the accident would hurt him politically.”
That’s the only true line in this statement.
All the rest is B.S.
It’s possible there was no romantic relationship. If there were, that would tend to cast aspersions on Ms.Kopechne as well as Senator Kennedy.
He does coyly omit any discussion of whether he was pursuing something romantic.
True.
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