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Chappaquiddick incident
The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, United States, sometime around midnight, between July 18 and 19, 1969, when Mary Jo Kopechne died inside the car driven by United States Senator Ted Kennedy after he accidentally drove off a narrow bridge, causing it to overturn in Poucha Pond.
Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard, at 11:15 p.m. on July 18. He stated that his intent was to immediately take Kopechne to a ferry landing and return to a hotel in Edgartown, but that he made a wrong turn onto a dirt road leading to a one-lane bridge. After his car skidded off the bridge into the pond, Kennedy swam free and maintained that he tried to rescue Kopechne from the submerged car, but he could not. Kopechne's death could have happened any time between about 11:30 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday, as an off-duty deputy sheriff stated he saw a car matching Kennedy's license plate at 12:40 a.m. Kennedy departed from the crash site and failed to report the incident to the police until after 10 a.m. on Saturday. In the meantime, a diver retrieved Kopechne's body from Kennedy's car shortly before 9 a.m. that same day.
At a court hearing on July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended jail sentence. In a televised statement, that same evening, Kennedy said that his conduct immediately after the crash had "made no sense to me at all" and that he regarded his failure to report the crash, immediately, as "indefensible.” A January 5, 1970, judicial inquest concluded that Kennedy and Kopechne had not intended to take the ferry and that Kennedy had intentionally turned toward the bridge, operating his vehicle negligently, if not recklessly, and at too high a speed for the hazard which the bridge posed in the dark. The judge stopped short of recommending charges, and a grand jury convened on April 6, returning no indictments. On May 27, a Registry of Motor Vehicles hearing resulted in Kennedy's driver's license being suspended for sixteen months, after the crash.
The Chappaquiddick incident became a national news item and influenced Kennedy's decision not to run for president in 1972 and 1976. Later, it was said to have undermined his chances of ever becoming president. Kennedy ultimately decided to enter the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries but earned only 37.6% of the vote, losing the nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, aged 37, and his cousin, Joseph Gargan, aged 39, planned to race Kennedy's sailboat, Victura, in the 1969 Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta on Friday and Saturday, July 18 and 19, 1969, after having forgone the previous year's Regatta, because of the assassination of Kennedy's brother, Robert, that June. Gargan rented the secluded Lawrence Cottage for the weekend on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, a tiny island accessible by ferry from Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and Gargan hosted a cookout party at the cottage at 8:30 p.m that evening, as a reunion for the "Boiler Room Girls,” women who had served on Robert's 1968 presidential campaign. Six of these attended the party: Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Keough, Esther Newberg, sisters Nance Lyons and Mary Ellen Lyons, and Susan Tannenbaum. All were in their twenties and single.[citation needed]
The men at the party included the crew of Kennedy's sailboat: Gargan; Paul Markham, a school friend of Gargan who had previously served as the United States Attorney for Massachusetts; and John B. Crimmins, aged 63, a long-time political associate of Kennedy who served as his chauffeur for the weekend. Others in attendance were attorney Charles Tretter, a Kennedy advisor; and Raymond LaRosa, who had worked on Kennedy's Senate campaigns. All the men were married, except Crimmins; wives were not invited to the Chappaquiddick weekend. Other friends and campaign workers, male and female, had been invited, but they did not attend, for various reasons. Markham and Crimmins intended to spend the night at the cottage, while the others were booked at hotels on Martha's Vineyard—the men at the Shiretown Inn, one block from the Edgartown ferry slip, and the women at the Katama Shores motor inn, about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the ferry slip.
According to Kennedy, Kopechne asked him to give her a ride back to her hotel in Katama. Kennedy requested the keys to his car (which he did not usually drive) from his chauffeur, Crimmins. Kennedy put this time at "approximately 11:15 p.m.,” although he was not wearing a watch and the time came from Crimmins' watch. Returning to Edgartown and Katama required making the last ferry, which left the island at midnight, or else calling to arrange a later ferry. Kopechne told no one else that she was leaving for the night with Kennedy, and, in fact, she left her purse and hotel key at the party.
The exact time the crash occurred is unknown, due to a conflict between the testimony of Kennedy and a deputy sheriff who said that he had seen Kennedy's car at a later time. Kennedy said that, as soon as he left the party, he immediately drove one-half mile (0.8 km) north on Chappaquiddick Road headed for the ferry landing and mistakenly made a wrong turn, right, onto the unpaved Dike Road, instead of bearing left, to stay on the paved Chappaquiddick Road, for another two and a half miles (4.0 km). There was also a northbound unpaved Cemetery Road at this intersection.[citation needed]
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Chappaquiddick incident
The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, United States, sometime around midnight, between July 18 and 19, 1969, when Mary Jo Kopechne died inside the car driven by United States Senator Ted Kennedy after he accidentally drove off a narrow bridge, causing it to overturn in Poucha Pond.
Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard, at 11:15 p.m. on July 18. He stated that his intent was to immediately take Kopechne to a ferry landing and return to a hotel in Edgartown, but that he made a wrong turn onto a dirt road leading to a one-lane bridge. After his car skidded off the bridge into the pond, Kennedy swam free and maintained that he tried to rescue Kopechne from the submerged car, but he could not. Kopechne's death could have happened any time between about 11:30 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday, as an off-duty deputy sheriff stated he saw a car matching Kennedy's license plate at 12:40 a.m. Kennedy departed from the crash site and failed to report the incident to the police until after 10 a.m. on Saturday. In the meantime, a diver retrieved Kopechne's body from Kennedy's car shortly before 9 a.m. that same day.
At a court hearing on July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended jail sentence. In a televised statement, that same evening, Kennedy said that his conduct immediately after the crash had "made no sense to me at all" and that he regarded his failure to report the crash, immediately, as "indefensible.” A January 5, 1970, judicial inquest concluded that Kennedy and Kopechne had not intended to take the ferry and that Kennedy had intentionally turned toward the bridge, operating his vehicle negligently, if not recklessly, and at too high a speed for the hazard which the bridge posed in the dark. The judge stopped short of recommending charges, and a grand jury convened on April 6, returning no indictments. On May 27, a Registry of Motor Vehicles hearing resulted in Kennedy's driver's license being suspended for sixteen months, after the crash.
The Chappaquiddick incident became a national news item and influenced Kennedy's decision not to run for president in 1972 and 1976. Later, it was said to have undermined his chances of ever becoming president. Kennedy ultimately decided to enter the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries but earned only 37.6% of the vote, losing the nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter.
U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, aged 37, and his cousin, Joseph Gargan, aged 39, planned to race Kennedy's sailboat, Victura, in the 1969 Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta on Friday and Saturday, July 18 and 19, 1969, after having forgone the previous year's Regatta, because of the assassination of Kennedy's brother, Robert, that June. Gargan rented the secluded Lawrence Cottage for the weekend on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, a tiny island accessible by ferry from Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and Gargan hosted a cookout party at the cottage at 8:30 p.m that evening, as a reunion for the "Boiler Room Girls,” women who had served on Robert's 1968 presidential campaign. Six of these attended the party: Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Keough, Esther Newberg, sisters Nance Lyons and Mary Ellen Lyons, and Susan Tannenbaum. All were in their twenties and single.[citation needed]
The men at the party included the crew of Kennedy's sailboat: Gargan; Paul Markham, a school friend of Gargan who had previously served as the United States Attorney for Massachusetts; and John B. Crimmins, aged 63, a long-time political associate of Kennedy who served as his chauffeur for the weekend. Others in attendance were attorney Charles Tretter, a Kennedy advisor; and Raymond LaRosa, who had worked on Kennedy's Senate campaigns. All the men were married, except Crimmins; wives were not invited to the Chappaquiddick weekend. Other friends and campaign workers, male and female, had been invited, but they did not attend, for various reasons. Markham and Crimmins intended to spend the night at the cottage, while the others were booked at hotels on Martha's Vineyard—the men at the Shiretown Inn, one block from the Edgartown ferry slip, and the women at the Katama Shores motor inn, about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the ferry slip.
According to Kennedy, Kopechne asked him to give her a ride back to her hotel in Katama. Kennedy requested the keys to his car (which he did not usually drive) from his chauffeur, Crimmins. Kennedy put this time at "approximately 11:15 p.m.,” although he was not wearing a watch and the time came from Crimmins' watch. Returning to Edgartown and Katama required making the last ferry, which left the island at midnight, or else calling to arrange a later ferry. Kopechne told no one else that she was leaving for the night with Kennedy, and, in fact, she left her purse and hotel key at the party.
The exact time the crash occurred is unknown, due to a conflict between the testimony of Kennedy and a deputy sheriff who said that he had seen Kennedy's car at a later time. Kennedy said that, as soon as he left the party, he immediately drove one-half mile (0.8 km) north on Chappaquiddick Road headed for the ferry landing and mistakenly made a wrong turn, right, onto the unpaved Dike Road, instead of bearing left, to stay on the paved Chappaquiddick Road, for another two and a half miles (4.0 km). There was also a northbound unpaved Cemetery Road at this intersection.[citation needed]