Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours.
On the evening of July 18, 1969, while most Americans were home watching television reports on the progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan were hosting a cookout and party at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick Island, an affluent island near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The party was planned as a reunion for Kopechne and five other women, all veterans of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Bobby Kennedy was Ted Kennedy’s older brother, and following Bobby’s assassination in June 1968 Ted took up his family’s political torch. In 1969, Ted Kennedy was elected majority whip in the U.S. Senate, and he seemed an early front-runner for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.
Just after 11 p.m., Kennedy left the party with Kopechne, by his account to drive to the ferry slip where they would catch a boat back to their respective lodgings in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. While driving down the main roadway, Kennedy took a sharp turn onto the unpaved Dike Road, drove for a short distance, and then missed the ramp to a narrow wooden bridge and drove into Poucha Pond. Kennedy, a married man, claimed the Dike Road excursion was a wrong turn. However, both he and Kopechne had previously driven down the same road, which led to a secluded ocean beach just beyond the bridge. In addition, Kopechne had left both her purse and room key at the party.
Kennedy escaped the car and then dove down in an attempt to retrieve Kopechne from the sunken Oldsmobile. Failing, he stumbled back to the cottage, where he enlisted Gargan and another friend in a second attempt to save Kopechne. The three men were unsuccessful; her body was not recovered. The trio then went to the ferry slip, where Kennedy dove into the water and swam back to Edgartown, about a mile away. He returned to his room at the Shiretown Inn, changed his clothes, and at 2:25 a.m. stepped out of his room when he spotted the innkeeper, Russell Peachey. He told Peachey that he been awakened by noise next door and asked what time it was. He then returned to his room.
Was Kennedy trying to establish an alibi? In Leo Damore’s Senatorial Privilege–the Chappaquiddick Cover-up (1988), the author recounts an interview with Joe Gargan in which Gargan claimed that Kennedy had plotted to make Kopechne the driver and sole occupant of the automobile. Whatever Kennedy’s intentions, on the morning of July 19 he went back to Chappaquiddick Island and then returned to Edgartown. At 9:45 a.m., 10 hours after driving off Dike Road bridge, Kennedy reported the accident to Edgartown Police Chief Dominick Arena and admitted that he was the driver.
On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, received a two-month suspended sentence, and had his license suspended for a year. That evening, in a televised statement, he called the delayed reporting of the accident “indefensible” but vehemently denied that he been involved in any improprieties with Kopechne. He also asked his constituents to help him decide whether to continue his political career. Receiving a positive response, he resumed his senatorial duties at the end of a month.
There is speculation that he used his considerable influence to avoid more serious charges that could have resulted from the episode. Although the incident on Chappaquiddick Island helped to derail his presidential hopes, Kennedy continued to serve as a U.S. senator of Massachusetts into the 21st century. He died in 2009.
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Luke 16:19-31 KJB… “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
That tale just seemed to fit this post for some odd reason.
Today would have marked my father’s 97th birthday. He passed in 2014.
So, was Kennedy celebrating the moon landing a little too long?
Good old but dead Doug Kenney.
I thought at the time, and still do, that the wrong one died.
Wonder if they would hire him to be an Uber driver?
If only Mary Jo had purchased a Natlie Wood inflatable nightgown she’d be with us today and so would Natalie if she remembered to wear it.
Robert Wagner killed her – I’m convinced of it.
My mums home next to the (rebuilt)bridge.I have a few timbers from original bridge on her property.
My best guess is Maryjo,could not drink/keep up with those party animals and passed out in rear seat,whether Ted knew she was there or not,don’t know.The dui laws much looser back then,still,I celebrate Teds many years of now sobriety!
He been sober ever since he died 10 years ago.
I have it on good Italian Comforter type of communication that there is a giant kegger in Eternity and an endless supply of wine.
Mary gets the “first” miracle and the “last” one too! Wine in heaven! (It is a Wedding Feast!)
All part of the plan to distract people from paying enough attention to the moon “landing” to figure out that it was all staged.
Or alternatively, he killed her that night, knowing that the public’s obsession with the moon “landing” would be a distraction from HIS story.
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
I thought perhaps he was celebrating the moon landing a little too long with Mary Jo.
Trying to plant his flag you mean.
Admin, with all the bile for John McStain, doesn’t Ted get a few days in the top featured spot?
Very few senators have “sunk this low.”
Edward “Moloch” Kennedy was a first lieutenant of Satan himself. Along with L(Lucifuge Rofocale)B (Belial) Johnson and Jacob “Kasdeya” Javits.
The death of poor unfortunate Mary Jo is one thing – murder.
The ultimate destruction of the United States by this triumvirate of evil is their combined legacy
Wonder how long he sat there looking at the car while doing drunken political calculations before leaving.
Or how many times “oh shit” came out his piehole.
Too bad Mary Jo cannot join #metoo
We suffered through the recent movie “Chappaquiddick” thinking it was going to be historically accurate, but it bent reality sufficiently enough to make Ted almost forgivable. Does anything honest come out of Hollywood?
Is the Pope a Jew?
The current one? Most likely.
Those Kennedy men sure have their issues driving cars boats and planes …?