Anniversary Ted Kennedy Dreads
26 years ago, today, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquidduck become permanently link.....
Read:
Chappaquiddick
During a party on Chappaquiddick Island on July 18, 1969, Senator Kennedy drove his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge), a wooden bridge that is angled obliquely to an unlit road onto which he claimed to have made a wrong turn. The car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (at that location a channel) and landed upside down under the water. There is speculation about whether Mary Jo Kopechne drowned or suffocated. Kennedy returned on foot to the Lawrence Cottage where a party was in progress. Two other men, his cousin Joseph Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then assisted him in trying to reach rescue Kopechne. All involved failed to use the telephone at the Lawrence Cottage to call the police for help. Kennedy discussed the accident with several people, including his lawyer, before he was contacted by the police. The next morning July 19, 1969 Police Chief Dominick Arena called the Senator from the closest house to the Dike Bridge rented at the time by the Malms. Senator Kennedy was given the news that his mother's car had been involved in a fatal accident. Kennedy had never reported the accident, a science teacher and 15 year old boy fishing discovered Kennedy's car the morning where the incident occurred. Kopechne's body was discovered by diver John Farrar. John Farrar observed that a large amout of air was released from the car when it was righted in the water, he also noted that the trunk when opened was remarkably dry. These observations and others lead many to believe that Mary Jo Kopechne had not drowned but suffocated in an air pocket within the Delmont 88. The diver John Farrar has stated that he was on call and available at the time of the accident.
The incident quickly blossomed into a scandal. Kennedy was criticized for failing to come to Kopechne's aid, for failing to summon help, for contacting not the police but his lawyer first, and for not reporting the accident to authorities. Due to a lack of evidence other than Kennedy's own word, allegations persist that he was drunk, that he did not try to save Kopechne, and that he intentionally turned onto the road crossing the bridge going to the beach in order to have sex with her. Mary Jo Kopechne and the other "boiler room" girls had been at that beach on the other side of the Dike Bridge earlier in the day.
The Senator was married to Joan Bennett Kennedy at the time who was pregnant but would later miscarry. Kennedy pled guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended. An Edgartown grand jury later reopened the investigation but did not return an indictment.
The accident has haunted his reputation and has hampered his political career through the decades since it transpired he withdrew in 1974 from the presidential race for 1976 and failed in a 1980 primary challenge to Jimmy Carter.
Kennedy's political opponents question whether justice was served in this case, though their motives may be political, and not based on any evidence. Rumors still circulate of a conspiracy by Kennedy and his family to alter his driving record to obviate charges of negligent homicide, and to influence the Edgartown grand jury. Some people question his description of his escape from the car, because of his back troubles remaining from his 1964 airplane accident. Though claiming to be injured Kennedy, swam a second larger body of water after the accident to return to his hotel room as the ferry was closed for the night.
The Joyce Carol Oates novel Black Water is a fictionalized account of the events at Chappaquiddick. Set in the early 1990's, it chronicles the story of a twenty-six-year-old woman named Kelly Kellher who meets a character called "The Senator" at a Fourth of July party, leading to her inevitable and tragic demise.
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy#Chappaquiddick
Read:
Chappaquiddick
During a party on Chappaquiddick Island on July 18, 1969, Senator Kennedy drove his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge), a wooden bridge that is angled obliquely to an unlit road onto which he claimed to have made a wrong turn. The car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (at that location a channel) and landed upside down under the water. There is speculation about whether Mary Jo Kopechne drowned or suffocated. Kennedy returned on foot to the Lawrence Cottage where a party was in progress. Two other men, his cousin Joseph Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then assisted him in trying to reach rescue Kopechne. All involved failed to use the telephone at the Lawrence Cottage to call the police for help. Kennedy discussed the accident with several people, including his lawyer, before he was contacted by the police. The next morning July 19, 1969 Police Chief Dominick Arena called the Senator from the closest house to the Dike Bridge rented at the time by the Malms. Senator Kennedy was given the news that his mother's car had been involved in a fatal accident. Kennedy had never reported the accident, a science teacher and 15 year old boy fishing discovered Kennedy's car the morning where the incident occurred. Kopechne's body was discovered by diver John Farrar. John Farrar observed that a large amout of air was released from the car when it was righted in the water, he also noted that the trunk when opened was remarkably dry. These observations and others lead many to believe that Mary Jo Kopechne had not drowned but suffocated in an air pocket within the Delmont 88. The diver John Farrar has stated that he was on call and available at the time of the accident.
The incident quickly blossomed into a scandal. Kennedy was criticized for failing to come to Kopechne's aid, for failing to summon help, for contacting not the police but his lawyer first, and for not reporting the accident to authorities. Due to a lack of evidence other than Kennedy's own word, allegations persist that he was drunk, that he did not try to save Kopechne, and that he intentionally turned onto the road crossing the bridge going to the beach in order to have sex with her. Mary Jo Kopechne and the other "boiler room" girls had been at that beach on the other side of the Dike Bridge earlier in the day.
The Senator was married to Joan Bennett Kennedy at the time who was pregnant but would later miscarry. Kennedy pled guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended. An Edgartown grand jury later reopened the investigation but did not return an indictment.
The accident has haunted his reputation and has hampered his political career through the decades since it transpired he withdrew in 1974 from the presidential race for 1976 and failed in a 1980 primary challenge to Jimmy Carter.
Kennedy's political opponents question whether justice was served in this case, though their motives may be political, and not based on any evidence. Rumors still circulate of a conspiracy by Kennedy and his family to alter his driving record to obviate charges of negligent homicide, and to influence the Edgartown grand jury. Some people question his description of his escape from the car, because of his back troubles remaining from his 1964 airplane accident. Though claiming to be injured Kennedy, swam a second larger body of water after the accident to return to his hotel room as the ferry was closed for the night.
The Joyce Carol Oates novel Black Water is a fictionalized account of the events at Chappaquiddick. Set in the early 1990's, it chronicles the story of a twenty-six-year-old woman named Kelly Kellher who meets a character called "The Senator" at a Fourth of July party, leading to her inevitable and tragic demise.
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy#Chappaquiddick
posted by NDwalters @ 10:47 AM
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