WASHINGTON — For those of us who spent much of 1969 and 1970 covering the sensational accident on the tiny island of Chappaquiddick a few yards off Martha’s Vineyard, there are no mysteries about what actually occurred there on that warm June night when the prospect of another Kennedy in the White House came to an abrupt end.
It has been almost 41 years and there has been nothing to change our minds that the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne was anything but a tryst gone awry under the influence of too much sun, drink and sexual anticipation. As the popular expression goes it was what it was — a sad ending for a young lady caught up in the Kennedy mystique and the magic of a beach night.
But for the conspiracy theorists, the speculation of a much deeper, darker motivation not unlike that surrounding the deaths of Edward Kennedy’s two brothers has remained, surfacing throughout those decades in which the youngest member of the clan substituted a career as the liberal lion of the Senate for the tattered hopes of a presidential ascendancy. Even then at times he was unable until his last years to mute the wildness of his nature.
Now the FBI has announced it will release some 3,000 pages of its secret files on the public and private life of Kennedy, who died last August, but not until his family has had an opportunity to peruse them and lodge objections to certain portions. That rare accommodation is almost certain to set off another outcry from the “what really happened at Chappaquiddick” crowd and undoubtedly lead to allegations that the attempted cover up continues even after Kennedy’s death.
“In certain circumstances, (the FBI) may co-ordinate the release of material with the family,” an FBI spokesman noted.
The continuing speculation in this real life drama that seemed almost a pot boiler one would take to the seashore is mainly without foundation: Was there another girl in the car? No. Was Mary Jo pregnant? No. Could she have survived waiting helplessly with her face pressed against a floor well, sucking on a miniscule amount of oxygen as she waited rescue that never came? Disproved. Was Kennedy drunk? Probably.
The elements of the story are a reporter’s dream: the remaining scion of a political dynasty; the death of a young girl; an event that ended presidential aspirations; an initial effort to cover up what soon became obvious; official and unofficial lies and power brokering.
The attempted cover-up that began within minutes after the accident was so flimsy it wouldn’t stand the light of the next day. The senator claimed he inadvertently turned off on a dark road that led to the now famous humped back bridge and a fateful tidal pond where Mary Jo died. Reporters needed only a few minutes to destroy this obvious prevarication. But the lies and efforts to manipulate the story continued for almost a year until the report of a coroner’s inquest made official the motivation that led to the tragedy.
It was simply sex.
Unfortunately for Kennedy, his years of having gotten out of every scrape did not serve him well. He foolishly took nearly half a day trying to figure out how to minimize the fallout before an admonition from a distinguished attorney forced him to report the accident. His efforts to figure out how to dodge the repercussions failed, but not totally. The relatively minor charge, to which he pled guilty, might have been far more severe had his blood alcohol been tested immediately. But 11 hours of delay in the report saved him.
In the midst of the initial investigation, the FBI leaked a report about Kopechne to a Washington journalist that dispelled claims that she was an innocent. She had had an unfortunate brief relationship with a handsome young biker who stole from her roommate and was put in prison in another incident. It was never published and shouldn’t have been.
Dan Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.