The Chappaquiddick incident was a single-vehicle car accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, on Friday, July 18, 1969, that was the result of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy's negligence and resulted in the death of his 28-year-old companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped inside the vehicle.
According to Kennedy's own testimony, he accidentally drove his car off the one-lane bridge and into a tidal channel. He swam free, vainly tried to rescue Kopechne, left the scene, and did not report the accident to authorities for ten hours. Meanwhile, Kopechne drowned in the vehicle that was submerged underwater. The next day, Kopechne's body and the car were both recovered by a diver. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash causing personal injury; he later received a two-month suspended jail sentence.
The Chappaquiddick incident became a nationally known scandal of the 1970s and likely influenced Kennedy's decision not to campaign for President in 1972 and 1976.
Video Chappaquiddick incident
Background
On Friday, July 18, 1969 (two days before the Apollo 11 moon landing), US Senator Ted Kennedy hosted a party on Chappaquiddick Island, an isle accessible via ferry from the town of Edgartown on the nearby larger island of Martha's Vineyard. The gathering was a reunion for a group of six unattached women that included Mary Jo Kopechne; they were known as the boiler-room girls, who had served on Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. Also present were Kennedy's cousin Joseph Gargan and Paul F. Markham, a school friend of Gargan who had previously served as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. Attorney Charles Tretter, Raymond La Rosa, Frank Reynolds, and John Crimmins (Kennedy's part-time driver) also attended the party. Kennedy was also competing in the Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta, a sailing competition that was taking place over several days. All six men were married, and all six women were single and 28 or younger.
During the inquest into Kopechne's death, Kennedy testified that he left the party at "approximately 11:15 p.m." When he announced that he was about to leave, Kopechne told him "that she was desirous of leaving, if I would be kind enough to drop her back at her hotel." Kennedy then requested the keys to his mother's car from his chauffeur, Crimmins. Asked why he did not have his chauffeur drive them both, Kennedy explained that Crimmins and some other guests "were concluding their meal, enjoying the fellowship and it didn't appear to me necessary to require him to bring me back to Edgartown." Kopechne told no one that she was leaving with Kennedy, and left her purse and hotel key at the party.
Maps Chappaquiddick incident
Timeline of events
Christopher "Huck" Look was a deputy sheriff who was working that night as a special police officer at the Edgartown regatta dance. At 12:30 a.m., Look left the dance, crossed over to Chappaquiddick in the yacht club's launch boat, got into his parked car and drove toward his home, which was south of the Dike Bridge. He testified that between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m., he saw a dark car approaching the intersection of Dike Road. The car was driven by a man with a female passenger in the front seat. The car first drove onto the private Cemetery Road and stopped there. Thinking that the occupants of the car might be lost, Look got out of his car and walked towards the other vehicle. When he was 25 to 30 ft (7.6 to 9.1 m) away, the car started backing towards him. When Look called out to offer his help, the car moved quickly eastward, towards the ocean, along Dike Road leaving a cloud of dust. Look recalled that the car's license plate began with an "L" and contained two "7"'s, both details true of Kennedy's 1967 four-door Oldsmobile Delmont 88; the license plate on Kennedy's vehicle was "L78-207".
According to Kennedy's inquest testimony, he made a wrong turn onto Dike Road, which was an unlit dirt road that led to Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge). Dike Road was unpaved, but Kennedy, driving at "approximately twenty miles an hour [30 km/h]", took "no particular notice" of that fact, and did not realize that he was no longer headed toward the ferry landing. Dike Bridge was a wooden structure that at the time was not protected by a guardrail and was angled obliquely to the road. A fraction of a second before he reached the bridge, Kennedy applied his brakes and then drove over the side of the bridge. The car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (there a channel) and came to rest, upside down, underwater. Kennedy recalled later that he was able to swim free of the vehicle, but Kopechne was not. At the inquest, Kennedy claimed that he called Kopechne's name several times from the shore and tried to swim down to reach her seven or eight times. Knowing that the woman was still trapped inside the vehicle, Kennedy rested on the bank for around 15 minutes before he returned on foot to Lawrence Cottage, which was the site of the party that was attended by Kopechne and the other "boiler room girls". Kennedy denied seeing any house with a light on during his walk back to Lawrence Cottage.
According to one commentator, Kennedy's foot route back to Lawrence Cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help before he reached the working phone at the cottage; however, he did not attempt to contact the local residents. The first of the houses, referred to as "Dike House", was 150 yards away from the bridge and was occupied by Sylvia Malm and her family at the time of the incident. Malm stated later that she had left a light on at the residence when she retired that evening.
According to Kennedy's testimony, Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then returned to the waterway with him to try to rescue Kopechne. Both of the other men also tried multiple times to dive into the water and rescue Kopechne. Kennedy testified that their efforts to rescue Kopechne failed, and Gargan and Markham drove with him to the ferry landing. Both men insisted multiple times that the crash had to be reported to the authorities. According to Markham's testimony, Kennedy was sobbing and on the verge of becoming crazed. Kennedy went on to testify, "[I] had full intention of reporting it. And I mentioned to Gargan and Markham something like, 'You take care of the other girls; I will take care of the accident!'--that is what I said and I dove into the water." Kennedy had already told Gargan and Markham not to tell the other women anything about the incident "[b]ecause I felt strongly that if these girls were notified that an accident had taken place and Mary Jo had, in fact, drowned, that it would only be a matter of seconds before all of those girls, who were long and dear friends of Mary Jo's, would go to the scene of the accident and enter the water with, I felt, a good chance that some serious mishap might have occurred to any one of them."
Gargan and Markam later testified that they assumed that Kennedy was going to inform the authorities once he got back to Edgartown, and they did not do the reporting themselves. According to Kennedy's own testimony, he swam across the 500-foot (150 m) channel, back to Edgartown and returned to his hotel room, where he removed his clothes and collapsed on his bed. Hearing noises, he later put on dry clothes and asked someone what the time was: it was something like 2:30 a.m., the senator recalled. He testified that, as the night went on, "I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room.... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."
Back at his hotel, Kennedy complained at 2:55 a.m. to the hotel owner that he had been awakened by a noisy party. By 7:30 a.m., he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race and gave no indication that anything was amiss. At 8:00 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he had not reported the crash. Kennedy responded by telling them "about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel... that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive." The three men subsequently crossed back to Chappaquiddick Island on the ferry, where Kennedy made a series of telephone calls from a pay telephone near the crossing. He made the phone calls to his friends for advice. Again, Kennedy did not report the crash to authorities.
Recovery of Kopechne's body and Kennedy's statement
Earlier that morning, two fishermen had seen the submerged car in the water and notified the residents of the cottage nearest to the scene, who called the authorities at about 8:20 a.m.
Edgartown Police Chief James Arena arrived at the scene about 10 or 15 minutes later. After attempting unsuccessfully to examine the interior of the submerged vehicle, Arena summoned a commercial diver along with equipment capable of towing or winching the vehicle out of the water. Diver John Farrar arrived at 8:45 equipped with scuba gear and discovered Kopechne's body; he extricated it from the vehicle within 10 minutes. Police checked the car's license plate and saw that it was registered to Kennedy. Kennedy was still at the pay phone by the ferry crossing and heard that his car and Kopechne's body had been discovered; he crossed back to Edgartown and went to the police station. Gargan simultaneously went to the hotel where the "boiler room girls" were staying to inform them about the incident.
At 10 a.m., Kennedy entered the police station in Edgartown, made a couple of telephone calls and then dictated a statement to his aide Paul Markham, which was then given to the police. The statement was as follows:
On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 p.m. in Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile [800 m] on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge. The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary [Kopechne], a former secretary of my brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. 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 of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the backseat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police.
Court appearance
On July 25--seven days after the incident--Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily injury. Kennedy's attorneys suggested that any jail sentence should be suspended, and the prosecutors agreed by citing Kennedy's age (he was 37 years old at the time of the incident), character, and prior reputation. Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months' incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended.
In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy's "unblemished record" and said that he "has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose."
Kennedy's televised statement
At 7:30 that evening, Kennedy made a lengthy prepared statement about the incident that was broadcast live by the television networks. Among other things, he said:
- "Only reasons of health" had prevented his wife from accompanying him to the regatta.
- There was "no truth whatever to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" regarding the behavior of Kennedy and Kopechne that evening.
- He "was not driving under the influence of liquor."
- His conduct during the hours immediately after the accident "made no sense to [him] at all."
- His doctors had informed him that he had suffered cerebral concussion and shock, but he did not seek to use his medical condition to escape responsibility for his actions.
- He "regard[ed] as indefensible that fact that [he] did not report the accident to the police immediately."
- Instead of notifying the authorities immediately, he "requested the help of two friends, Joe Gargan and Paul Markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with [him] (it then being sometime after midnight) in order to undertake a new effort to dive down and locate Miss Kopechne."
- "All kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his mind after the accident, including "whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area..., whether some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys... whether there was some justifiable reason for [him] to doubt what had happened and to delay [his] report"... whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might in some way pass from [his] shoulders."
- He was overcome "by a jumble of emotions--grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion and shock."
- Having instructed Gargan and Markham "not to alarm Mary Jo's friends that night," Kennedy returned to the ferry with the two men and then "suddenly jumped into the water and impulsively swam across, nearly drowning once again in the effort, returning to [his] hotel around 2 a.m. and collapsed in [his] room."
Kennedy then asked the people of Massachusetts to decide whether he should resign:
If at any time, the citizens of Massachusetts should lack confidence in their Senator's character or his ability, with or without justification, he could not in my opinion adequately perform his duties, and should not continue in office. The opportunity to work with you and serve Massachusetts has made my life worthwhile. So I ask you tonight, the people of Massachusetts, to think this through with me. In facing this decision, I seek your advice and opinion. In making it I seek your prayers. For this is a decision that I will have finally to make on my own.
He concluded by quoting a passage from a book by his brother, John, Profiles in Courage.
Testimony and cause of death
John Farrar was the captain of the Edgartown Fire Rescue unit and diver who recovered Kopechne's body. He alleged that Kopechne died from suffocation rather than from drowning or from the impact of the overturned vehicle. This hypothesis was based upon the posture in which he found the body and the body's relative position to the area of an ultimate air pocket in the overturned vehicle. Farrar also asserted that Kopechne would have likely survived if a more timely rescue attempt had been conducted. Farrar located Kopechne's body in the well of the backseat of the overturned submerged car. Rigor mortis was apparent, her hands were clasping the backseat, and her face was turned upward. Farrar testified at the Inquest:
It looked as if she were holding herself up to get a last breath of air. It was a consciously assumed position.... She didn't drown. She died of suffocation in her own air void. It took her at least three or four hours to die. I could have had her out of that car twenty-five minutes after I got the call. But he [Ted Kennedy] didn't call.
Later at the inquest, Farrar testified that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted that to mean that Kopechne had survived in the air bubble after the crash, and he concluded that
Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.
Farrar believed that Kopechne "lived for at least two hours down there."
The victim wore a blouse, bra, and slacks but no underwear bottoms. The medical examiner, Dr. Donald Mills, was satisfied that the cause of death was accidental drowning. He signed a death certificate to that effect and released Kopechne's body to her family without ordering an autopsy; Kopechne was buried the day after she died. Later, on September 18, District Attorney Edmund Dinis attempted to secure an exhumation of Kopechne's body to perform a belated autopsy, citing blood found on Kopechne's long-sleeved blouse and in her mouth and nose, "which may or may not be consistent with death by drowning." The reported discovery of the blood was made when her clothes were given to authorities by the funeral director.
Judge Bernard Brominski, of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, had a hearing on the request on October 20-21. The request was opposed by Kopechne's parents. Forensic pathologist Werner Spitz testified on behalf of Joseph and Gwen Kopechne that the autopsy was unnecessary and the available evidence was sufficient to conclude that Kopechne died from drowning. Eventually, Judge Brominski ruled against the exhumation on December 10, saying that there was "no evidence" that "anything other than drowning had caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."
Inquest
The inquest into Kopechne's death convened in Edgartown in January 1970. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered it to be performed secretly. The 763-page transcript of the inquest was released four months later. Judge James A. Boyle presided at the inquest. The following conclusions were released in his inquest report:
- The accident occurred "between 11:30 p.m. on July 18 and 1:00 a.m. on July 19."
- "Kopechne and Kennedy did not intend to drive to the ferry slip and his turn onto Dike Road had been intentional."
- "A speed of twenty miles per hour as Kennedy testified to operating the car as large as his Oldsmobile would be at least negligent and possibly reckless."
- "For some reason not apparent from [Kennedy's] testimony, he failed to exercise due care as he approached the bridge."
- "There is probable cause to believe that Edward M. Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently... and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."
Under Massachusetts law, Boyle found "probable cause" that Kennedy had committed a crime and could have issued a warrant for his arrest, but he did not do so. Despite Boyle's conclusions, Dinis chose not to prosecute Kennedy for manslaughter.
The Kopechne family did not bring any legal action against Kennedy but did receive a payment of $90,904 from him personally and $50,000 from his insurance company. The Kopechnes later explained their decision to not take legal action by saying, "We figured that people would think we were looking for blood money."
Grand jury
On April 6, 1970, a Dukes County grand jury assembled in special session to investigate Kopechne's death. Judge Wilfred Paquet instructed the members of the grand jury that they could consider only matters brought to their attention by the superior court, the district attorney, or their own personal knowledge. Citing the orders of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Paquet told the grand jury that it could not see the evidence or Boyle's report from the inquest, which were still impounded. Dinis, who had attended the inquest and seen Boyle's report, told the grand jury that there was not enough evidence to indict Kennedy on potential charges of manslaughter, perjury or driving to endanger. The grand jury called four witnesses who had not testified at the inquest: they testified for a total of 20 minutes, but no indictments were issued.
Fatal accident hearing
On July 23, 1969, the registrar of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informed Kennedy that his license would be suspended until a statutory hearing could be held concerning the accident. The suspension was required by Massachusetts law for any fatal motor accident if there were no witnesses. The in camera hearing was held May 18, 1970. It found that "operation was too fast for existing conditions." On May 27 the registrar informed Kennedy in a letter that "I am unable to find that the fatal accident in which a motor vehicle operated by you was involved, was without serious fault on your part" and so his driver's license was suspended for a further six months.
Joan Kennedy miscarriage
Kennedy's wife Joan was pregnant at the time of the incident. Though she was confined to bed because of two previous miscarriages, she attended the funeral of Kopechne and stood beside Ted in court three days later. She suffered a third miscarriage soon thereafter, which she blamed on the Chappaquiddick incident.
Other interpretations of evidence
A BBC Inside Story episode, "Chappaquiddick," broadcast on the 25th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, advanced a theory that Kennedy and Kopechne had gone out from the party in Kennedy's car, but when Kennedy saw an off-duty policeman in his patrol car, he got out of the car, fearing the political consequences of being discovered by the police late at night with an attractive woman. According to the theory, Kennedy then returned to the party, and Kopechne, unfamiliar both with the large car and the local area, drove the wrong way and crashed off the bridge. The episode argued that the explanation would account for Kennedy's lack of concern the next morning, as he was unaware of the crash, and for the forensic evidence of the injuries to Kopechne being inconsistent with her sitting in the passenger seat.
Writer Jack Olsen had earlier advanced a similar theory in his book The Bridge at Chappaquiddick, published early in 1970. Olsen's book was the first full-length examination of the case. Olsen wrote that Kopechne's shorter height (she was 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m), a foot (30 cm) shorter than Kennedy) could have accounted for her possibly not even seeing the bridge, as she drove Kennedy's car over unfamiliar roads, at night, with no external lighting, after she had had several alcoholic drinks at the party both had attended. Olsen wrote that Kopechne normally drove a smaller Volkswagen model car, which was much lighter and easier to handle than Kennedy's larger Oldsmobile.
Legacy
The case resulted in much satire of Kennedy. Time reported immediately after the incident that "One sick joke already visualizes a Democrat asking about Nixon during the 1972 presidential campaign: "Would you let this man sell you a used car?" Answer: "Yes, but I sure wouldn't let that Teddy drive it." A mock advertisement in National Lampoon magazine showed a floating Volkswagen Beetle with the remark that Kennedy would have been elected president had he been driving a Beetle that night; the satire resulted in legal action by Volkswagen, claiming unauthorized use of its trademark.
After Kennedy gave his July 25, 1969 televised speech regarding the incident, supporters responded with telephone calls and telegrams to newspapers and to the Kennedy family. They were heavily in favor of his remaining in office, and he was re-elected in 1970, with 62% of the vote, a margin of nearly a half million votes. Nonetheless, the incident severely damaged his national reputation and reputation for judgment; one analyst asked, "Can we really trust him if the Russians come over the ice cap? Can he make the kind of split-second decisions the astronauts had to make in their landing on the moon?" Before Chappaquiddick, public polls showed that a large majority expected Kennedy to run for the presidency in 1972. After the incident, he pledged not to run in 1972 and declined to serve as George McGovern's running mate that year. In 1974, he pledged not to run in 1976, in part because of the renewed media interest in Chappaquiddick.
In late 1979, Kennedy finally announced his candidacy for the presidency when he challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination for the 1980 election. On November 4, 1979, CBS broadcast a one-hour television special, presented by Roger Mudd titled Teddy. The program consisted of an interview with Kennedy, interspersed with visual materials. Much of the show was devoted to the Chappaquiddick incident. During the interview, Mudd questioned Kennedy repeatedly about the incident and at one point directly accused him of lying. During the interview, Kennedy also gave what one author described as an "incoherent and repetitive" answer to the question "Why do you want to be President?" He called the American-supported Shah of Iran "one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind." The program inflicted serious political damage on Kennedy. Carter alluded to the Chappaquiddick incident twice in five days, once declaring that he had not "panicked in the crisis." Kennedy lost the Democratic nomination to Carter, who lost the general election to Ronald Reagan in a landslide, but he remained a senator until his death in 2009. He won all seven elections for the US Senate after the incident.
After Kennedy's death, Ed Klein, an editor for The New York Times Magazine and an American author, tabloid writer and gossip columnist who has written about the Kennedys, stated that Kennedy asked people he met, "Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?" Klein also said, "It's not that he didn't feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too."
The Dike Bridge became an unwanted tourist attraction and the object of souvenir hunters.
In season two, episode ten "The Baby Shower" of the sitcom Seinfeld, Jerry references meeting a distant Kennedy relative at a wedding who blamed the Chappaquiddick incident on bad directions.
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
- FBI Chappaquiddick investigation files
- Ted Kennedy's speech following Chappaquiddick incident
- Mary Jo photos and rescue diver audio
- John Farrar interview on the Howie Carr Show
- New Haven Register: photo gallery - Chappaquiddick
0 Comments