The Kennedy Boys' Night Out

(2 of 2)

On Friday the cops finally broke their silence, naming William Smith as a suspect. The son of Jean Kennedy and the late Stephen Smith, William is described as one of the least spoiled and least arrogant of the young Kennedys. Instead of entering a profession where family connections make a difference, he went to Georgetown University Medical School after graduating from Duke. He helped his mother in her arts program for the handicapped, and gave a eulogy so moving at his father's funeral earlier this year that he outshone Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

But after the story surfaced, Smith virtually disappeared, failing to show up for the second half of his medical-board exam on Wednesday. However, he did issue a statement through a family holding company, declaring, "Any suggestion that I was involved in any offense is erroneous." When the Senator was stopped by reporters outside a hearing in Boston on Wednesday, he said he was "obviously distressed" but to comment further would "not be appropriate." Patrick Kennedy claimed he did not learn of the woman's accusation until he read about it in the Florida papers as he was flying home Monday, but that was a day before the first news accounts were published. For days, although they pledged cooperation, no Kennedy stepped forward to provide the authorities with any information.

So far, police handling of the case brings to mind the botched investigation of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, when the Senator did not notify the police until 10 hours later that he had driven off the bridge. The first reports about the case were inaccurate, yet the police did not provide an accurate one. By the end of the week, police still had not questioned any of the Kennedys. Nor did they interrogate bartenders, parking-lot attendants or other potential witnesses until a week after the alleged crime. They delayed naming a suspect until Friday because, they said, they could not get a picture of Smith to show the victim for a definite identification -- even ) though his visage had been splashed across newspaper front pages for days.