Chappaquiddick: Suspicions Renewed

(4 of 3)

"Moral Strength."
Kennedy did not report the accident on reaching Edgartown. Instead, he returned to his hotel, changed his clothes and, after a brief conversation with Innkeeper Russell Peachey in which he pointedly asked the time (2:25 a.m.), paced the floor of his room until daylight. Then occurred one of the more bizarre events in an already fantastic case. Rhode Island Businessman Ross Richards, who had won the previous day's sailing race, testified that he ran into Kennedy outside the hotel around 7:30 a.m. Giving no indication in manner or appearance that anything out of the ordinary had happened, Kennedy calmly discussed boating, even said that he might accept Richards' invitation to join him and his friends for breakfast.

Related

Specials

Appreciation: Ted Kennedy 1932-2009

Specials

Kennedy's Top 10 Legislative Battles

Photos

A Kennedy Family Album

Photos

Intimate Moments with the Kennedy Family

He was still chatting with Richards and others when Gargan and Markham arrived at the hotel and asked him what he had done about the accident. He had done nothing. As Kennedy explained at the inquest: "I just couldn't gain the strength within me, the moral strength, to call Mrs. Kopechne at 2 in the morning and tell her that her daughter was dead." It was 9 before Kennedy notified the police. It was still later—around 11 a.m.—that Gargan told the five women who had been at the party that Mary Jo was dead. (See the most memorable quotes by Senator Kennedy.)

The release of the transcript and Justice Boyle's report seemed to preclude any further criminal action against Kennedy, though a new grand jury investigation is theoretically possible. But it did nothing to solve the mysteries that still surround the case or to resolve the doubts about Kennedy's veracity. It also failed to account for local officials' inept handling of the case from beginning to end. Police Chief Dominick Arena never asked Kennedy why he had not reported the accident for nine hours. District Attorney Edmund Dinis seemed noticeably reluctant to enter the case at all, then pressed belatedly—and vainly—for court permission to exhume Mary Jo's body so that an autopsy could be performed. His questions throughout the inquest were somewhat less than probing. Justice Boyle's handling of the inquest findings was inconclusive. He was empowered to bring charges, such as negligent driving or perjury, against Kennedy if he felt that they were warranted; instead, he merely wrote a report implying negligence and questioning Kennedy's credibility. Last week Boyle, 63, retired after 36 years of court service.

No one is more disturbed by these loose ends than Kennedy himself. He knew for weeks that Boyle's report was coming; he was predictably infuriated by it. "I responded as completely and as truthfully as I could to the questions that were put to me by the judge as well as the district attorney," Kennedy said. "It's my own personal view that the inferences and ultimate conclusions are not satisfactory, and I reject those."

There is little Kennedy can do to ameliorate his situation, and he realizes this only too well. Asked last week if he would have anything further to say about Chappaquiddick, Kennedy answered firmly: "No, never." But he did speak out on other matters. Continuing his re-emergence into public life, he appeared on his first broadcast interview program in two years, using the occasion to reiterate his claim that he will not be a presidential candidate in 1972. He addressed a group of Boston advertising people and branded as "madness" President Nixon's decision to carry the Viet Nam War across the border into Cambodia. He also kept his promise to the Boston Pops Orchestra to narrate Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait. The occasion was not without a touch of irony. The opening lines of the narrative quote Lincoln: "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We . . . will be remembered in spite of ourselves."

See TIME's complete Ted Kennedy coverage.

See Ted Kennedy's top 10 legislative battles.