Editor’s Note: In November 1979, Senator Edward Kennedy seemed poised to seize the Democratic nomination for president from incumbent Jimmy Carter. But the aura of inevitability was dispelled when questions were once again raised about the fatal car crash at Chappaquiddick ten years before that left long-time Kennedy-clan campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne dead in a submerged car off a one-lane bridge near Martha’s Vineyard. Kennedy, who had been behind the wheel of the car, escaped to safety and, for reasons never convincingly explained, waited ten hours to report the incident.