Word: chappaquiddick
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Another book about the overanalyzed and all too familiar Nixon Administration? Yes. But this time two CBS television newsmen have sliced through conventional explanations with some offbeat conclusions about what went wrong. The most provocative: the single event that did most to ruin Nixon was, of all things, Chappaquiddick...
Kennedy claimed that his withdrawal was chiefly motivated by concern for his family. But the Chappaquiddick affair, in which Mary Jo Kopechne died some time during the night of July 18-19, 1969, obviously was a crucial factor. Anticipating his candidacy and spurred by an effective New York Times Magazine piece by Robert Sherrill last July re-examining the case, several major news organizations had sent reporters to the tiny island across from Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. TIME'S own preliminary probe turned up facts that contradicted key points in Kennedy's version of what happened...
...about 8:30 p.m., the Senator and the others had taken the ferry from Edgartown to Chappaquiddick and driven three miles in an Oldsmobile or a rented 1968 white Valiant to a small cottage for an evening cookout. Between 11:15 and 11:30 p.m., Kennedy told Crimmins-but no one else-that he was tired and was returning to his room at the Shiretown Inn in Edgartown. Mary Jo left too, telling the Senator that she wanted to be driven back to her motel, some two miles from the Shiretown. But Mary Jo told none of the others...
From the beginning, Kennedy's story inspired skepticism. His account was contradicted by the testimony of Deputy Sheriff Christopher F. ("Huck") Look Jr., who lived on Chappaquiddick. Driving home that night, Look saw a car cross in front of. him at about 12:45 a.m., stop in a lane called Cemetery Road, back up and go down Dike Road. Look noted that the car carried Massachusetts license L7-7; he forgot the middle numbers. Farther along the road, he came upon a man and two women who declined his offer of a ride...
...still another, Kennedy got out after running into Look and, fearful that Look was following, sent Mary Jo on alone in the car. The facts may well be far different from any of these theories. For five years, Kennedy kept silent, apparently hoping that the public memory of Chappaquiddick would fade...