The FBI report on the late Senator Edward Kennedy released today under the Freedom of Information Act is receiving significant attention for the number of threats against the late senator’s life. Those of us in Kennedy country aren’t surprised at all: The Kennedy’s have always played hardball. This means they have at least as many enemies as fans.
Ted Kennedy lived by this formula as well, and though many who detested the way the Kennedy weight has always been thrown around were intimidated enough to remain silent, some chose to scheme about ways they might once-and-for-all, “get even.”
Speaker-legend Tip O’Neill always said, “all politics are local.” In Massachusetts, all local politics exist in a statewide shadow cast by relentless political bosses who decide who lives and who dies-- politically, of course.
Many readers of the FBI report may be more interested in section 62-BS-5078, the 77 pages chronicling the Mary Jo Kopechne death in the waters off Chappaquiddick. The young secretary to the then 37-year-old Senator Edward Kennedy was left in a car by the senator after he claims his car veered out of control and sped off the bridge. He eventually swam to safety and, he alleges, to call for help (many hours later.) Help arrived too late: the rest is history.
The 77 Kopechne pages tell us everything we need to know about Ted Kennedy and the power he and his organization wielded. Edgartown Chief of Police Domenic Arena telegraphed the FBI on 7/19/69 saying Kopechne had drowned in a car driven by Senator Kennedy. He also told the bureau that “privately” and clearly implied that no one else was to be told.
The pages also contain news stories of judges bucking the District Attorney on the case, Edmond Dinis. Autopsy requests denied, attempts to have witnesses testify squashed, and even the phone company refusing to verify Kennedy telephone calls made on his credit card between the time he swam ashore and the time the authorities were notified of the accident.
None of this surprises those of us within a foghorn's drone of the Kennedy compound. What does surprise some of us is that a U.S. Senator left a woman to die at the bottom of a bay and went on to be a legend in the highest halls of our government.
Ted Kennedy died as “The last Lion.” All his life he was shielded from pubic scrutiny by circumstances surrounding him that made it “unseemly” or “disrespectful” to challenge his role at Chappaquiddick. The assassinations of both his brothers-- John, the nation’s martyred president, and Robert, a figure of hope at a time when the nation needed hope --always begged the question, “Haven’t the Kennedy’s given and suffered enough?”
But the Kennedy’s have also taken a great deal, and they have received even more than that. They have been elected to offices they were unqualified to serve in (Patrick.)
They bought the presidency-- literally (though patriarch Joe Sr. cautioned JFK he would, "not pay for a landslide.") They had the entire commonwealth of Massachusetts (and a good chunk of Washington DC) at their command.
Mary Jo Kopechne is still dead, and she died abandoned in a watery grave, probably to spare her boss's political career. It is hard to imagine any other politician who could not only walk away from such a fact, but who could go on to become a political icon.
So the FBI files may stun some, but those they stun never really knew the Kennedy clan. In the end, these files only document what it was that so many feared, and what has, finally—with the death of Ted Kennedy—hopefully come to a merciful end.
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Comments
Thought he was more hype than anything. Always struck me as a shady character.
It's a shame what happened to Mary Jo.
Such is the way of politicians.
I am pleased about your reactions. When one writes such hard truths (as I see them) about such iconic figures, there is often the kneejerk defensive reaction of the great "brainwashed" acolytes to deal with...so extra gratitude on your reads and thoughtful comments.
http://open.salon.com/blog/sally_swift/2008/12/17/my_ted_kennedy_chappaquiddick_story
You wouldn't believe how many people on O.S. believe he was innocent.
I shook his hand and he had coffee at my house but I would never vote or support him. He used America like his very own butler.
if america remains in perpetual war, the army will dominate political life as it may do even now. be glad if the generals feel the need to tolerate political front men, elections may be useless but they make the horses happy.
Rich, why do you say what you did? Do you know something the rest of us don't? There's some good reason for what TK did? Or is it a matter of too much time and too many Good Works...that it's now all water under the bridge?
About media scrutiny - we have more of it now. Rand Paul is revealed to be a self-certified opthamologist. Sarah Palin has been revealed to have used her office to pursue a personal vendetta. Many others of both parties. Sexual scandal, because, yah know, THAT's the worst (not that I'm defending sexual misdeeds), produces occasional resignations (esp. gay scandals), but not always...
Winning (or buying) (or being bought for) office is a get-outta-jail-free card...
In any event, I am always grateful for the time people take to read and comment-- whatever their opinions. In the end, the commentary writer's job is to make people think/react to a legitimate opinion-- even if that opinion is not shared by the reader.
Once again, we should all be grateful for the first amendment, and those whose automatic reaction is "this should never be said out loud" miss the whole point of that freedom.
The guy is dead. You have no more power over him. It just makes you look bad.
The reason for the delay in response was that no one knew where she was, and finally surmised that perhaps she was in the car.
A different slant on the mess if it is true. There may even have been some effort to protect her name; " Secretary drowns after feeble attempt to rescue her", rather than, "Secretary gets so loaded she doesn't know where she is, decides to sleep it off in Senator's back seat and tragically drowns becasue nobody knew she was there."
The story was spun by the Kennedy power, no doubt, but maybe a different kind of spin.
Sorry, I'm just so busy with today.
Later.
re Bonnie Russel's comment - recently my accelerator stuck in traffic, the only accident I've ever had. I absolutely panicked - before I even crashed - causing me to do everything wrong and thus, crash. I wasn't hurt or even in shock, a guard rail saved me from going over the edge of an overpass and yet, all I could do after dialing 911 was sit and babble to the dispatcher, grateful for the camera on the light pole above me as she watched and comforted me while I waited for the state trooper to arrive. I don't know that if I had gone into water, if I'd even reflexively been able to save myself, or if I 'd have just sat on the side of stream and taken a week to remember I hadn't been alone. That crash made me less willing than before to judge.
Not to go on and on ... a sure sign I'm about to ... Mary Ann, I know you have experience with the Kennedy's that I don't, they are people who 1) didn't have to work a day in their lives and 2) often worked politically against their own obvious interests. When I lived in the DC area, I was always struck by the fact that anyone I knew who worked in or around the Senate admired Ted Kennedy wholeheartedly.
I'd be very interested in your reaction to Sally's post.
Was Ted Kennedy at fault for his actions that night? Yes, but a moment's poor, and relatively youthful, judgment should not negate a lifetime career of helping millions of others who didn't have the advantages in life into which Senator Kennedy was born.
If you're opposed to national health-care reform, Mary Ann, why don't you just come out and say so?
What's the next breaking news? Martin Luther King was the 'Tiger Woods' of his day?
I hope Mary Joe's family sues those assholes into oblivion.
Mary Ann, excellent post. We're on the same page.
What happened that night at Chappaquiddick was never widely known and is unknowable now. I don't know whether Ted Kennedy was a great guy or a dick. Reviews were mixed. But I support many of the same ideas, issues and causes that he spent the better part of his life fighting for. Certainly, that's plenty of reason to come to his defense now.
"When Scoundrels Die, Must People Stop Calling Them Scoundrels?"
or perhaps
"Does the Act of Dying Wash Away All the Crimes of One's Lifetime?
Interesting concepts....
I have followed the Kennedy family for, most of my life, taking up where my mother left off. Being a big Kennedy follower, honestly it still would not be shocked me to learn what is in the FBI files. I have always thought that there was something much better, that happened and was going on with the assassinations John and Bobby, all the deaths, and bad things that happened to the Kennedy family members. I have always thought that there was more to the stories, and that our government knew about it all.
It would be VERY INTERESTING reading of those FBI documents.
I do have to add that I am one who doesn't trust the government much at all, and I believe that they have the ability to cover up anything and that they take full advantage of that power.
Thank you very much for this interesting and very insightful post.
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/kennedy.htm
No, the "sins" of the father do not die upon death, but what can be accomplished by revealing them? Does it change ANYTHING in history? It does not.
But it always sells copy.
"Kennedy escaped the overturned vehicle, and, by his description, dove below the surface seven or eight times, vainly attempting to reach Kopechne. Ultimately, he swam to shore and left the scene. He contacted authorities the next morning, but Kopechne's body had already been discovered.[47]
On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail, suspended.[47] That night, he gave a national broadcast in which he said, "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately", but denied driving under the influence of alcohol and denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne."
It's obvious you despise Mr. Kennedy, but stop making up nonsense.
Your central thesis that Mr. Kennedy got an extraordinary "free ride" that no ordinary citizen would get (a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of a fatal accident) ... happens to be one I agree with, and I think it is indeed disgusting. But there is no reason beyond vindictiveness and partisan paranoia to assert or imply that she was intentionally murdered, and that further this murder was because she was pregnant by Mr. Kennedy.
I assume (FWIW) that Mr. Kennedy was drunk or had enough alcohol that he feared being tagged as drunk -- I have no evidence for this but it seems far more probable given the circumstances than your "theory." Had there been evidence that he was drunk, one would think he could not have avoided much more serious charges .... even in Mass.
To be frank, politicians & rich people of any stripe always seem to receive far lighter punishments ... sadly our justice system is endlessly disequitable in this regard.
You might consider the punishment a well-known right-wing commentator got for large-scale forgery of Oxycontin prescriptions (and one of the strange things here is that he forged and passed far more of this than he possibly could have consumed himself ... where was the rest going???)
You might also consider the eventual outcomes of those tried for "Iran Contra."
I too think that Kennedy got away with what would have likely been a manslaughter charge, and that would surely have ended his political career ... but I don't have any evidence for it ... and I don't spend my time spewing made-up trash.