Ted's Side of the Story

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It has been 45 years since Ted Kennedy's car plunged into the waters of Chappaquiddick. A young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned that night. Kennedy himself has been dead for nearly five years, but the event is still capable of provoking passionate debates.

With only a few exceptions, Kennedy spent the seven days immediately following the incident in seclusion. When he was seen, he was wearing a neck brace, a silent reminder of the accident. He emerged 45 years ago today — sans neck brace — to deliver a national address on the matter.

Since Bobby Kennedy's assassination a year earlier, Kennedy was widely regarded as virtually a sure thing if he wanted the Democratic presidential nomination; after the accident, the conventional wisdom was that he was damaged goods — damaged beyond repair.

Before the Chappaquiddick incident, Kennedy was often mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for 1972. Even after Chappaquiddick, his name was still mentioned in connection with the 1976 race. He chose not to seek the nomination in either year, and it seemed his presidential ambitions really were behind him.

Incredibly, he did seek the presidency — in 1980 — but it always seemed to me he did so more out of a sense of personal obligation than anything else.

And he picked a year to run in which it was almost certain that he would not succeed. He ran against an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in a year that was shaping up to be a Republican year. Running against an incumbent from one's own party has almost always been a "Man of La Mancha"–esque proposition — and, predictably, at least in the context of history, Kennedy did not defeat the incumbent.

But there was more to it than that. Early in the campaign for the nomination, Carter benefited from a rally–'round–the–flag mentality following the takeover of the American embassy in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

If Kennedy had beaten Carter, it is far from certain that he would have defeated the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. In hindsight, it really seems the tide was running against all Democrats in 1980.

Before any votes had been cast, Kennedy's commitment was brought into question when he gave a rambling answer to a pretty straight–forward question posed by CBS' Roger Mudd — "Why do you want to be president?"

But on this night in 1969, he didn't speak about the presidency. He spoke about Chappaquiddick. Earlier in the day, he had entered a plea of guilty at the Edgartown, Mass., courthouse; he was given a suspended sentence and his driver's license was taken away.

Thoughts of the presidency probably were part of the equation, though, particularly when you examine the issues he chose to address when he spoke before the cameras:

• His wife, Joan, had not accompanied him that weekend due to "reasons of health." Her absence had been frequently mentioned, and Kennedy apparently felt obliged to say that she was pregnant (she suffered a miscarriage shortly thereafter).
• He denied the "widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" by himself and Kopechne.
• He denied that he had been under the influence of alcohol while he was driving.
• He acknowledged that his actions after the accident "made no sense to [him] at all."
• He said he had been told by his doctors that he had suffered a concussion and shock, but he didn't use that as an excuse for his actions.
• He said it was "indefensible" that he did not contact authorities after the accident.
• He told viewers that he had enlisted the help of two friends at the party to help try to rescue her.
• He said that "all kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his head that, in hindsight, seem like nothing short of denial — including the idea that Kopechne may have saved herself somehow and whether "some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys."

"The speech was not a success," wrote William Manchester. "He answered questions that hadn't been asked ... He also seemed to imply that the damage to his career was more momentous than [Kopechne's] death." That, I suppose, remained to be seen.

The Dawning of a New World

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"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Neil Armstrong
July 20, 1969

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I've heard that astronaut Neil Armstrong, the man who took the first steps on the moon, was a modest man, not prone to hyperbole.

When he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" as he descended the ladder on the lunar module and planted his foot on the moon's surface, I believe he really did understand the huge implications of that single, simple act. Regardless of how educated they were, all people — and it was estimated that half a billion people worldwide were watching — could understand what it meant to put a foot on the ground, and most could probably grasp that it was merely the first step on a journey that would take mankind into an era of unimagined developments and changes.

But all would not be revealed at once. In a manner of speaking, it was the first day of school for the human race. Science continues to build on things that were discovered via NASA's missions to the moon.

I was a small boy at the time, of course, so I didn't understand everything. Nevertheless, for me, the most heart–stopping moment on Apollo 11's historic voyage was the descent of the lunar module to the moon's surface on this day in 1969. I understood enough to know there were risks in that procedure.

Earlier, the lunar module had separated from the command module, which was piloted by Michael Collins, and Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin began their journey to the moon.

As the lunar module descended, computers were reporting lots of errors — which turned out not to be errors, after all, just computer miscalculations — and Armstrong and Aldrin reported back to mission control that they were passing lunar landmarks four seconds earlier than expected and would be "long" — landing west of their intended landing site.

The folks back in Houston would easily adapt their design for later flights — but nobody in the viewing audience knew that. Viewers were told that the lunar module might not have enough fuel to re–connect with the command module if it didn't land within a certain time. Turned out the astronauts were receiving premature low fuel warnings, and there was no crisis after all.

But no one knew that. I remember feeling a genuine concern for the men on board — and a genuine sense of relief when they reported a successful landing with a few seconds to spare.

I wasn't the only one who responded that way — but I was part of a decidedly smaller subset that may have felt such anxiety for the first time in their lives on that occasion.

"Tranquility, we copy you on the ground," came the reply from Mission Control. "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."

It was the first mission to the moon. The astronauts and the crew on the ground were learning things that would be adjusted on succeeding flights, but, in July 1969, it was all new.

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The astronauts did not step out on the moon right away. NASA had scheduled a five–hour sleep period for them because they had been up since early that morning, but the astronauts apparently did not sleep. With an unexplored frontier waiting just outside their door, I guess that would have been like asking a kid to sleep late on Christmas morning. Anyway, Armstrong and Aldrin spent the downtime preparing for their historic moon walks instead of napping.

While not mentioned publicly at the time, Aldrin also took communion prior to going out on the moon's surface. He did so privately because, at the time, NASA was contending with atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair's lawsuit that demanded that astronauts abstain from religious activities while in space.

I think that originated when the crew of Apollo 8 read passages from the Bible on Christmas Eve.

So Aldrin took communion on the moon with a special kit that had been prepared by his pastor, but he drew no attention to it.

When he returned to earth, Aldrin gave the chalice he used to his church, which still has it. Every year, on the Sunday closest to July 20, the church commemorates his lunar communion.

Once the astronauts were on the moon, I figured the hard part was over. I mean, all they had to do was go out the door of the lunar module, climb down that ladder and walk around on the surface, right? Nothing to it.

I suppose I was much too young to understand that, until someone did get out and walk around, no one really knew what to expect. All kinds of possibilities went through people's minds — and it's safe to say that most, if not all, were not good.

Before Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, there was still a kind of mysterious aura surrounding it. Astronauts had been close enough to the moon to peer at its surface from their space capsules, and they thought they knew what to expect — but no one was really sure.

The moon, Shakespeare said, "comes more nearer earth than she was wont and drives men mad." And there did seem to be a kind of madness settling upon the earth around the time of Apollo 11's journey to the moon.

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Most of the madness at the time was brought on by the space race. At the height of the Cold War, Russia and the United States were driven mad in a desperate race to get to the moon first. America won that race 50 years ago today.

But the madness wasn't confined to space. There were times that summer when it seemed the world was on the brink of spinning out of control.

Less than 48 hours before Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy plunged into the channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass. Kennedy survived, but a young woman who was riding in the car with him, 28–year–old Mary Jo Kopechne, perished.

And about three weeks later, the Manson Family would commit a series of highly publicized (for that pre–cable, pre–internet era) horrific murders in California.

Much of the world watched that night. It is said that more than 500 million people witnessed those first steps on the moon and heard Armstrong say, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

And, from that moment on, it really was a new world — a world in which man could fly to the moon and back if he chose to do so.

The Death of Mary Jo Kopechne

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Mary Jo Kopechne was, by all accounts, a serious and hard–working member of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's staff. Apparently, she seldom drank or got involved with men.

To say she was merely a secretary would belittle her contribution — for she did much more than type letters and fetch coffee. She was an important member of the team, staying up all night once to retype a speech Kennedy was going to give on Vietnam while Kennedy and his advisers made alterations.

A product of parochial schools, she taught for awhile after earning her degree from a Catholic liberal arts college in New Jersey, but her passion was for politics, originally working for a senator from Florida but quickly moving on to Kennedy's staff.

During Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, she was one of the so–called "Boiler Room Girls," an affectionate nickname given to six young women on Kennedy's staff. Perhaps more than any, Kopechne was devastated by Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 and temporarily left political campaign work shortly thereafter, vowing not to return to Washington because "I just feel Bobby's presence everywhere."

But she returned to Washington before the year was out.

Fast forward to Friday, July 18, 1969. It was the weekend of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was also the weekend of a regatta in Edgartown, Mass., in which Sen. Edward Kennedy was competing.

Kennedy hosted a reunion for the "Boiler Room Girls" at Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., that Friday evening.

"Among the many responsibilities Ted had inherited from his brothers," wrote historian William Manchester, "was one for lifting the morale of the family's loyal campaigners." That was the objective of the gathering that night.

Actually, it wasn't as if the girls hadn't seen each other since the assassination. It was the fourth such reunion in a year's time, but the girls all seemed to enjoy being with each other — and a group of men who were there, too. Among them were a Kennedy cousin, one of his school buddies, an attorney and Kennedy's driver.

By 11:15 that night, Kennedy later told authorities, he decided to leave, and Kopechne asked him for a ride to her hotel. Kennedy agreed and told his driver to stay where he was since he seemed to be having a good time.

Kopechne didn't tell anyone she was leaving with Kennedy — and left her purse and hotel key behind. Odd behavior for someone who supposedly wanted to return to her hotel.

Accounts of what happened after that vary.

Kennedy later told local authorities that he made a wrong turn and went off a bridge. He said the car turned over and landed on its roof under water. Kennedy couldn't recall how he got out of the vehicle, only that he did and that he made repeated attempts to rescue Kopechne but was unsuccessful.

He returned to the party on foot and told authorities he saw no houses with lights on between the accident scene and the party, but it was established that Kennedy's route back to the party would have taken him past four houses, at least one of which had a light on all night.

Kennedy would have found a working phone at that house, as well as the one where the party was being held, but he didn't contact authorities until the next morning. Instead, he and two of the men at the party returned to the accident scene, where both of the men reportedly made several attempts to reach Kopechne.

When those attempts also failed, the men parted company. Kennedy's companions later said they assumed Kennedy would contact authorities, but he did not. Instead, he returned to his hotel, where he nursed the fantasy that Kopechne had, somehow, managed to escape the vehicle — and that he would learn she was all right the next day.

The next morning, however, two fishermen found the submerged vehicle, and the authorities were summoned. A scuba diver was dispatched, and he was the one who located the body. Upon hearing that a corpse had been found, Kennedy turned himself in to the local police.

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The diver who found the body said she did not drown but, rather, died of suffocation. The position of the body suggested she had found an air pocket and had been trying to breathe. It was estimated that it took her three or four hours to die.

The diver was convinced she could have been saved. "I could have had her out of that car 25 minutes after I got the call," the diver said. "But he [Kennedy] didn't call."

A week later — and only a couple of days after Kennedy (wearing a neck brace) and his wife attended Kopechne's funeral — Kennedy spoke on national television. Of that I will have more to say next week.

There was considerable uncertainty about the timing of the accident. Based on Kennedy's version of events, it could have happened any time after 11:15 p.m. on July 18, but a deputy sheriff who had been working at a regatta dance that night said he encountered a dark car containing a man and a woman that appeared to be lost between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. on July 19. He said he got out of his car and approached the other vehicle, intending to offer assistance, and the car drove off.

The inquest report only said the accident happened sometime between 11:30 p.m. on July 18 and 1 a.m. on July 19.

All That You Can't Leave Behind

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I found this on YouTube today.

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Tonight, mourners have gathered in Boston to pay homage to Ted Kennedy.

It is closed to the public, but it is still being televised on CNN and C–Span. It has been alternately moving and amusing to listen to the eulogies from both Democrats and Republicans. As vilified as Kennedy was in life for his liberal leanings, it has been enlightening to listen to people like Orrin Hatch and John McCain speak with genuine affection for a friend.

But, as I have been reading the articles on the internet — and viewing videos like the one I have posted — it has occurred to me that Ted Kennedy, like Richard Nixon, has one Achilles' heel that will be with him as long as there is an American history that is chronicled in the history books.

For Nixon, it was Watergate. For Kennedy, it was Chappaquiddick.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that Kennedy's death would bring another round of discussions about that incident.

The Week reported that "Kennedy's name was Google's top search term the day after his death, but Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick were Nos. 2 and 3."

And some writers, like Michael Scherer in TIME, mentioned it only in passing. Scherer referred to it as one of Kennedy's "darkest moments."

Howie Carr of the Boston Herald briefly brought up Chappaquiddick in a general article that recites all of Kennedy's shortcomings.

There has been much talk in tonight's memorial for Kennedy of the late senator's love of humor. Tom Blumer writes, for NewsBusters, that Chappaquiddick was one of his favorite topics.

To be sure, some people defended Kennedy. Melissa Lafsky speculated at The Huffington Post that Kopechne, "a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future," might have "felt it was worth it" to trade her life for Kennedy's career.

Boy, that sparked a debate.

Rick Moran responded, in American Thinker, that it was "maybe the most amazingly shallow, myopic, and ultimately self–centered sentence ever written."

Perhaps that is unduly harsh. Personally, I believe that, unless one possesses the selflessness of a soldier, who knows he might at any moment have to sacrifice his life for others, no one is ever prepared to die at the age of 28.

So I thought Lafsky's article was interesting but a little preposterous.

Especially when I consider Eliott C. McLaughlin's survey of media experts for CNN.com, asking if Kennedy's political career could survive a Chappaquiddick in the 21st century — "in the era of blogs, talk radio and 24–hour news cycles."

It's a fair question. The media has changed considerably in 40 years.

I remember, at the time, that Chappaquiddick was overshadowed, to a great extent, by Apollo 11 and its historic trip to the moon. If we could return to July 1969 and everything else was the same — but talk radio, blogs and 24–hour news were part of the media mix — I agree that Chappaquiddick would be a source of continuing discussion — even as the lunar module was descending to the moon's surface.

Heck, with split–screen technology, both stories could be covered simultaneously.

And I think Kennedy's career might well have been over. But I'm thinking from the perspective of one who has just been through an election year in which reverence for political dynasties was brought into question. In 1969, Kennedy, I believe, benefited from a reservoir of affection that Massachusetts had for John and Robert Kennedy and the Kennedy family.

We may find out in the months to come whether that reservoir still exits as Massachusetts chooses a replacement.