Death at Chappaquiddick

I still feel a lot of bitterness. It’s been a long time, but to me it was just yesterday. I’ll never forgive him. I don’t believe the truth has been told. I don’t know the truth. None of us knows the truth. It’s still a mystery … . There was just toomuch deception, too much double talk and cover up.– Joseph Kopechne, Women’s News ServiceThis then is the real horror of the case. Mary Jo in thebottom of that upside-down car, wedged in, clawing, clutching and straining forair and for life in the total blackness at the bottom of Poucha Pond with watercreeping higher and higher. Completely terrified, she waited for help fromSenator Kennedy - who was on the phone seeking help not for Mary Jo, but forSenator Kennedy.From Death at ChappaquiddickOn July 19, 1969, Senator Edward Kennedy drove off a bridge onChappaquiddick Island, leading to the death of his young female companion and,the authors contend, an extensive cover up to protect Kennedy’s politicalambitions.The Tedrow recreates the unexplained events of that fateful night, examinethe self-admitted panic of a U. S. senator, and point by point punctureKennedy’s sieve-like account of the tragedy.The authors’ exhaustive investigation produces solid answers to curiousquestions. Most damning of all, they present evidence that Kennedy fled thescene in panic, then spent hours telephoning cronies seeking politicalprotection while a helpless Mary Jo Kapechne slowly suffocated in a pocket ofair inside the submerged auto.Richard L. Tedrow served for 17 years as Chief Commissioner of the U. S.Court of Military Appeal and is the author of the standard reference for U. S.military court martials. Thomas Tedrow is a freelance writer in Houston, Texas.