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Kennedy memoirs reveal regret at ‘terrible decisions at Chappaquiddick’
Anger as New York papers leak details of late senator’s memoir ahead of publication
In a memoir to be published posthumously on September 14, but already leaked to two New York newspapers, Edward Kennedy reveals no new facts about the 1969 incident at Chappaquiddick that coloured his life, but does make fresh revelations about his state of mind that day.
Referring to the accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne (above, right) drowned, and his failure to report the accident to police for ten hours, he calls his behaviour "inexcusable" and admits that he made "terrible decisions".
"That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life," Senator Kennedy says in True Compass, the book he and his co-writer finished only shortly before his death from a brain tumour on August 25.
Both the New York Times and the New York Daily News have, to the fury of publishers Twelve Books, carried reports of the content of True Compass.
According to these reports, Kennedy says he hardly knew Mary Jo Kopechne, who had been an aide to his late brother Robert Kennedy, and there was "no romantic relationship whatsoever" between them.
The party at which they met that night was a get-together for people who had worked on Robert's election campaign before his assassination the previous year. Both he and Kopechne were "getting weepy" over their memories of Robert and decided to leave the party.
Although he had drunk cocktails before dinner, alcohol was not to blame. Instead he claims he was simply lost on an unfamiliar part of the island when he accidentally drove his Oldsmobile off Dike Bridge, which links Chappaquiddick to Martha's Vineyard.
Of the controversial ten-hour "gap" during which he failed to notify the police of the accident, the Daily News reports that Kennedy says "his brain was addled by concussion, exhaustion, shock and panic - as well as the knowledge that the accident would hurt him politically".
According the New York Times, Kennedy writes that "atonement is a process that never ends," and that he had to live every day with the consequences of the accident.
Kennedy collaborated on True Compass with Ron Powers, co-author of the bestseller Flags of Our Fathers and author of Mark Twain: A Life. A spokesman for Twelve Books said they were dismayed at the leaks. ·
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As an American who remembers the aftermath and this event well, what truly astounded most was not that the accident happened at all since it was clear that this event was a party situation and also was a short year after the brutal killing of the Senator's brother under which there were still much question as to the motivation in and of itself. Since political deaths of that nature and in that manner have involved much more than surface appearances.
But was incredible was that even in that state, since a woman's life was brutally ended no matter what the circumstances, he was simply charged with leaving the scene, rather than involuntary manslaughter which is what truly was the crime involved.
And the punishment did not at all fit the crime committed, whether accidental or through negligence, since it would not appear that intentional murder would be involved at all. And the fact that she died at all in shallow water does appear to also be somewhat unbelieveable to this day.
THAT is what has remained in most Americans memories. Some of the details that never were fully explained and the lesser charges then that also were the result.