[N.S.: If this review sounds more like a crime report than a movie review, that’s no accident. David in TN has spent years studying Ted Kennedy’s killing of Mary Jo Kopechne.]
By David in TN
First, about Mary Jo Kopechne. The key was there was no autopsy. Which meant they couldn't tell if she drowned or suffocated, whether she lived for an hour or two. An autopsy would have shown if she had sexual intercourse or was pregnant. Had she lived for a time, prompt reporting by Ted could have saved her.
The Kennedy people did NOT want an autopsy. If they thought it would have helped Ted, there would have been one. There wasn't.
There was a blood test of Mary Jo's remains. It showed alcohol above the legal limit, indicating she was drunk and may have lost her usual inhibition. Mary Jo had no panties. Had they come off while alone with Ted? Or had she not worn them that night? Shades of Lee Remick in Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
Ted (and fixers) claimed he was driving Mary Jo to the ferry so she could go back to her hotel. Well, she left behind at the cottage her purse, money, room key, credit cards and airplane ticket. She obviously intended to return after the interlude with Ted.
She and Ted were alone for an hour and a half. They got in the car. Ted saw a deputy sheriff, hit the accelerator heading toward the narrow bridge. Ted never admitted to the hour or so alone with her.
The Fixers and the Cousin
The Kennedy handlers, who considered him an idiot, were worried about a manslaughter indictment. William vanden Heuvel (Nation editor Katrina’s father) babysat Mary Jo's parents, whom the handlers were worried about. What if the parents demanded, “We want justice for Mary Jo! He killed our girl, and must be punished!” Van den Heuvel kept the press away, preventing her parents from learning what happened, assuring them Ted had suffered another tragedy and was badly hurt. This was a big part of the Kennedy strategy.
The movie Ted addresses reporters
The political muscle preventing a prosecution took place in the period after the movie ends. Local prosecutor Edmund Denis called an inquest, which he hoped would “help Ted.” He lobbed softball questions, didn't follow up when he should have. The surviving boiler room girls had their stories (lies?) straight. So did the local doctor (not a medical examiner or coroner) who inspected the body.
The real Ted addresses reporters
To this day it suits the Kennedy cultists/mythologizers to keep people guessing as to what happened. A favorite for Kennedy apologists has been “Ted wasn't in the car.” Well, if he wasn't in the car, that would have been the story told.
Mary Jo Kopechne died a horrible death. The movie gets this right without overdoing it.
Addendum, by David in TN
You'll recall that Ted Kennedy kept telling his cousin Joe Gargan (and family retainer and former U.S. Attorney Paul Markham) "Mary Jo was driving." He was going to say this as late as the next morning.
The real Ted arrives at the Dukes County Court House, on Martha's Vineyard Island
But Gargan and Markham, in the end, wouldn't go along with it. Had they done so, that would have been the story told.
Movie Ted wearing a completely unnecessary brace, with his newest "Boiler Room Girl"
Ted went back to the Edgartown hotel and made sure to ask someone the time. "2:25" (a.m.), he answered. That way Ted could say he wasn't at the death scene. Ted intended to tell the authorities:
“Mary Jo and I drove back to the ferry. She let me out and told me I should drive the car back to the cottage. Mary Jo missed the turn and drove off the bridge.”By the way, old Joe Kennedy was non compos mentis. Ted would have thought this story up himself. Again, Gargan and Markham wouldn't go this far, and insisted Ted report the accident.
(If Ted had gone along with that, he might have gotten off scot-free.
Gargan and Markham wouldn’t lie for him. They wouldn’t back up this phony story; he had to admit he was driving.)
Movie Ted reading a thoroughly dishonest speech prepared by family ghostwriter Ted (Profiles in Courage) Sorensen on national TV
Anyway, that appears to have been Ted Kennedy's strategy. Say Mary Jo drove the car after Ted got out at the ferry, and drove off the bridge, after missing the turn back to the cottage.
They didn't tell the Boiler Room Girls what happened (until the morning) because one of them might have immediately called the police. They probably wouldn't have, though.
One of the big controversies, is whether Mary Jo could have been saved.
What Ted and his people said all along, was Mary Jo was killed instantaneously.
But that won’t wash. You’re supposed to call the police immediately.
He should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
The fixers were making sure Ted stayed in the Senate. They were worried about a manslaughter charge.
The local prosecutor, Edmund Denis, called an inquest. It wasn’t done, but he called one.
He had ambitions to be running for Cong on same ticket with Ted in 1970.
But the irony is the prosecutor, Edmund Denis, lost anyway! He made the Kennedy-lovers mad, because he called an inquest, and the Kennedy-haters mad, because he didn’t charge him.
At the end of his life, Denis expressed regret that he hadn’t charged Ted.
The Kennedys were so powerful, that they could make any elected official lose their job, or even a law practice fail in the state of Massachusetts.
The worst Kennedy brother lived the longest.
ReplyDeleteJust the fact of four married and middle-aged men partying on a mostly deserted island with four younger and unmarried women ought to raise the proverbial eyebrows. And did as I recall. But I guess it has all been explained away somehow.
ReplyDeletePowerful or not,any citizen with a brain,would not have voted for Teddy again,even with just the bare facts given then,but especially over the next 3 decade's elections--as more facts came out.Just verifies the old saying,"You can fool most of the people most of the time,some of the people all the time..."
ReplyDeleteBringing that theory to today,some of the white people are being fooled some of the time (though they focused enough to elect Trump).Still,the constant anti-Trump drumbeat is trying to create a situation where most of the whites get fooled THIS TIME (November elections).The Dems are taking it one election at a time,at this point.With demographics in their favor,Dems know that without a Civil War episode,future elections are in their favor.
--GR Anonymous--I am a white man
The Kennedy brothers and the Kennedy cousins treated women as bad as muslims treat their own women
ReplyDeleteThe Fox News Channel has a series (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/fox-news-promises-new-evidence-in-kennedy-chappaquiddick-series) called "Scandalous." It debuted last year with the various Bill Clinton scandals.
ReplyDeleteThe program airs over four weeks (one episode a week) and begins Sunday December 2, at 8 pm ET, repeating at 11 pm ET. The narrator is actor Bruce McGill.
"Questions about what happened that night in 1969 when Kennedy's car drove off a tiny bridge and into the ocean have hung over the family for decades. Kennedy left the scene and was criticized for not doing anything to save Kopechne."
ABC has a program on Mary Jo Kopechne Tuesday Night, May 7, at 10 pm ET. The London Daily Mail has a story (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6989245/New-looks-Chappaquiddick-scandal-thwarted-Ted-Kennedys-ambitions.html). It has a 31-second promo.
ReplyDeleteThere are still some facts in Miss Kopechne's life undetermined. Some say she had just broken up with a long-term boyfriend. Other accounts have her about to announce her engagement.
This weekend is the 52nd anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. She was killed by Ted Kennedy, apparently drunk, who drove a car off Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick island and left her to die.
ReplyDeleteIn commemoration I again watched the 2018 film, Chappaquiddick, which I reviewed for NSU/WEJB three years ago. A good thing about the movie is you get more out of it with repeated viewings.
The Boiler Room Girl Ted Kennedy is shown repeatedly talking to is a semi-fictional character named "Rachel Schiff," played by Olivia Thirlby, who is a composite of Esther Newberg and Susan Tannenbaum. She is more concerned with helping "The Senator" than what happened to her colleague.
In 2020 a writer named William C. Kashatus wrote a biography of Mary Jo Kopechne. It was mostly reminisces of friends and relatives. We know what jobs she had, but little else.
No letters by Mary Jo have survived. She never wrote an article or column, nor was ever interviewed by the press. She wouldn't have been permitted to working for the Kennedys.
Her first job in politics was as secretary for Florida Senator George Smathers, a good friend of John F. Kennedy. The two shared the avocation of enjoying female company. Mary Jo got the job with Bobby Kennedy after he was elected New York Senator in 1964. Smathers recommended her to Bobby. Mary Jo would have learned to be discrete.
By the Way, Senator George Smathers voted against Civil Rights bills.
Kashatus put out a podcast after the book in which he said Mary Jo wasn't especially close to the other Boiler Room Girls. She had worked for Bobby the longest and was slightly older than the rest. Also, their families were more well to do than Mary Jo's. Kashatus didn't say it directly, but is this why the others cared more about Ted Kennedy's political career than Mary Jo Kopechne's life?
For over 50 years the surviving Boiler Room girls have refused to talk about what happened at and right after the party on Chappaquiddick island.
A thing to do this week is to watch Chappaquiddick (2018).