The Death of Edward Kennedy has produced in some quarters commentary that is describing him in almost Saintly fashion, agreed that Kennedy as a senator did do a lot to change America, he instigated or was involved in up to 300 laws being passed.
Including immigration, cancer research, health insurance, apartheid, disability discrimination, AIDS care,civil rights, mental health benefits, children's health insurance, education.
But there was another side to the youngest brother of the assassinated President, and this was a lying, womanising, pathetic excuse for a man, to hide from his family the fact that he was driving while drunk whilst bringing home a girl for the night, and worried about his political image he left a innocent young girl to die.
On the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy was on Martha's Vineyard at a party for the “ Boiler Room Girls” a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign the year before. Kennedy left the party, driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 with one of the women, 28-year-old Mary jo Kopechne and later accidently drove off Dike Bridge into the Poucha Pond inlet, a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped the overturned vehicle, swam to safety and left the scene. He did not call authorities until after Kopechne's body was discovered the following day.
On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail,suspended. 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. Kennedy asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay in office and, after getting a favourable response, he did so.
In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death took place in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were not true, and that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. A grand jury on Martha's Vineyard staged a two-day investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public Kennedy deemed its conclusions "not justified. Doubts about the Chappaquiddick incident generated a large number of articles and books over the next several years.
Kennedy easily won re-election to another term in the Senate in 1970 with 62 percent of the vote against underfunded Republican candidate Josiah Spaulding, although he received about 500,000 fewer votes than in 1964.
There has not been any mention of this incident in the many tales about Kennedy this week, just what a “Great Guy” he was , tell that to the family of Mary Jo.
Great post. Even I had forgotten about that. Funny how the so called commentators have overlooked the small matter of manslaughter. Easily done I suppose
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