Will a powerful man ever have to face justice? Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne & Chap­paquiddick 1969

Back in July 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy’s car drove off a bridge at midnight, killing a young passenger. Mary Jo Kopechne was 28 when she was partying on Chap­paquiddick Island near Martha’s Vine­­­yard Mass. Joined by her friends from Sen Robert Kenn­edy’s pres­id­ential camp­aign, Kopechne was becoming known in Dem­o­cr­at­ic circ­les, working for a Florida senator bef­ore moving to Kennedy’s staff.

As host, Ted brought the women together with a Kennedy cousin, Joseph Gargan and ex-U.S Att­orney for Mass., Paul Markham. But by late that night, the fest­ivities became tragic: Kenn­edy’s car over­turned on a sm­all bridge and landed in the water after midnight. While Kennedy sur­v­iv­ed, his pas­senger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. 

Deputy Sherriff Christopher Look was driving back to his Chappa­qu­id­dick home when he saw a dark car with a confused looking driv­er. Look parked his car to see if the driver needed help, but the driver took off and went down Dike Road to the bridge. Next morning, when he went to see the accident on Dike Bridge and saw Ted’s car overturned in the water, Look knew it was the same car he saw last night. The 90-minute time diff­er­ence between 11:15 PM, when Ted said the accident occurred, and 12:45 AM, when Look said he saw the senator’s car, was never explained.

The Senator said he tried desperately to pull Mary Jo out of the submerged car, but when he failed, he walked back to the party at 1.30 AM. Was Kennedy drink-driv­ing? What were he and Kopechne doing together at midnight? 

What Mary Jo’s parents didn’t under­st­and were how Gargan and Mark­ham, Kennedy’s aides who also tried to retrieve Mary Jo from the car after the accident, also didn’t report the accident. Not only that; these aides let the senator return to his hotel at 2.30 AM to sleep. A parental nightmare.

Why did Kennedy contact the local police only after 10 hours, to re­port the accident? He claimed he was suf­f­ering from physical pain and emotional shock, and not thinking clearly. Did he have concuss­ion? There was talk of a cover-up, of Kennedy and his press team silencing the incident so as not to harm his political life.  Edgartown Police Chief Dominick Arena wrote up Ted’s statement the next morning and charged him with "leaving the scene of the ac­c­id­ent". He too wondered why the Senator left Mary Jo in the car for 10 long hours.

An already divert­ed news media provided Ted’s team with time for damage control, and further obscured the events. Still, the Kennedy-Kopechne story event­ually burst out. The media’s desperation for more details grew, particularly details about parties with successful married men and gifted single women. Kop­ech­ne was an intell­ig­ent, strong woman who worked for the Bobby Ken­nedy campaign in a signif­icant role. So why did Dukes County Dis­trict Attorney Edmund Dinis not go ahead with the autopsy he wanted? A young healthy woman dying in horrid circumstances with no witness DEMANDED an autopsy.

Deputy Sherriff Christopher Look was driving back to his Chappa­qu­iddick home when he saw a dark car with a confused driv­er. Look parked his car, to see if the driver needed help, but the car quickly took off and went on Dike Rd toward the bridge. Next morning, when he went to see the car accident on Dike Bridge and saw Ted’s car overturned in the water, Look knew it was the same car he'd seen at night. The 90-minute time diff­er­ence between 11:15 PM, when Ted said the accident occurred, and 12:45 AM, when Look said he saw the senator’s car, was never explained.

Kennedy eventually appeared in court and pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving an accident scene. Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to the minimum punishment for the offence, 2 months’ gaol. The judge said Kennedy would be punished forever, far beyond anything the court could impose, so justice would be satis­fied by the imp­osition and suspens­ion of the minimum gaol sentence. Plus he lost his driv­er’s licence for six months!!

The inquest was closed to the press and public by order of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court on a petition by Kennedy's lawyers. The state high court also decreed that the records of the inquest could not be made public as long as Kennedy faced any danger of criminal charg­es. Kennedy later made a televised speech about the accident but since then, the Chappaquiddick drowning was used often as a moral whip by conserv­at­ives. Kennedy had served as a U.S senator from Mass.­ since 1962 (until his death in 2009), but was it the end of his hop­es for the presid­ency forever?

Film director John Curran attemp­ted to capture the media coverage by mixing ar­ch­iv­al news footage and newspaper headlines. His film also emphasised the strain it put on Joan Kennedy who was pregnant then, eventually suf­fering a mis­carriage which she blamed on the crisis. Yet she believ­ed her husband and paid no att­ention to allegations that Kennedy & Mary Jo weren’t merely swimming. Really? 

Many decades later, Mary Joe’s cousins received a letter in 2018 about Ch­ap­paquiddick. The author got the information years earlier from a wom­an who was at the party when Mary Jo died. Mary Jo drank too much the night of the accident and felt poorly, so “Betty” laid her down in the back seat. Then “Betty” went back to the cabin. When Ted went for a drive with an­other woman, neither of them realised who was in the back seat. When the car went off the brid­ge, Ted and his companion esc­aped and returned to the party in all innocence. Only once they all real­ised what had happened was Ted was informed about Mary Jo.

Ted still decided to run as Demo­cr­atic presidential candidate in 1980 against Jimmy Carter. Yet the drowning tragedy became a lasting blot on Kennedy’s political car­eer, scandal haunt­ing him and the Dem­­ocr­at­s for decades. In his auto­biography True Comp­ass2009, Ken­n­edy said HE had let himself, his family and the country down in Chap­paquid­dick.

  

Thank you Lorraine Boissoneault in Smithsonian.