The Kennedys: Back to Chappaquiddick

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The Olsen Theory. One writer has raised an intriguing doubt that Kennedy was even in the car when it sank in Poucha Pond. Jack Olsen, who is a senior editor of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, argues in The Bridge at Chappaquiddick that the Senator stopped the car on the dirt road leading to the bridge and got out. His motive, says Olsen, was to avoid being recognized—alone with a young woman late at night—by Deputy Sheriff Christopher Look, who had spotted the car a moment earlier at the intersection of the dirt road and the paved road leading to the Edgartown ferry. "It would have been a very logical step," writes Olsen, "for Kennedy to stop the car between the high walls of underbrush and tell Mary Jo to circle back and pick him up in a few minutes if the policeman did not give chase." According to Olsen's theory, Mary Jo, a foot shorter than Kennedy and barely able to see over the steering wheel, continued down the dirt road, unable to see that the humpbacked Dike Bridge veered to the left as she approached. Kennedy, speculates Olsen, returned on foot to the cottage. According to Olsen's conclusion, Kennedy did not learn of Mary Jo's death until morning. Unanswered is the question why Kennedy would have gone on television to speak of "some awful curse" afflicting the Kennedys if he had not even been near the car when Mary Jo died.