[ExI] Senator from Chappaquiddick

[Lee Corbin]

spike wrote:
>  
> 
>> ...On Behalf Of hkhenson
>> More than 30 years ago, a person I knew who moved in Kennedy 
>> circles told me that Kennedy didn't know Mary Jo was in the back seat.
>> ...He and the woman got out, 
>> and had no idea that Mary Jo was drowning in the back seat...
>> But it makes a lot more sense than the official version.
>>
>> Now that Kennedy is dead, perhaps some of the people who knew 
>> what actually happened will talk about it... Keith

 > [In more detail]
 >>

     According [this account], Mary Jo had gone to sleep
     in the back of the car after too much alcohol. (It
     wouldn't have taken much if she didn't drink often.)

     Kennedy and some other woman took off from the party
     (for the usual reason he thought). Kennedy missed the
     road and went down a boat ramp into the water. He and
     the woman got out, and had no idea that Mary Jo was
     drowning in the back seat. Kennedy didn't think much of
     the silly accident and got someone else to report they
     had driven the car into the water.

     When the car was fished out and the body discovered,
     that story wouldn't work, he obviously could not put
     Mary Jo's death on someone else. But Kennedy could not
     tell the real story (which increases the odds he had a
     married woman with him).

     The actual situation was told to the judge in a closed
     court session. The judge treated it as a tragic accident
     (which if this story is true, it was).

> Keith thanks, this version of the story really does make more sense than the
> traditional one.  I couldn't figure out how even a child of privelege could
> have gotten off with so few consequences.  I could imagine witnesses at the
> party testifying that Mary Jo had too much and had left the party, then some
> time later Kennedy and someone else had left together.  For that matter Mary
> Jo could have even been asleep in the floor behind the front seat, which
> would explain why the carpet back there had her claw marks.  She could have
> awakened only when the car overturned, then been disoriented by alcohol and
> the bizarre circumstance of being upsidedown in a submerged Detroit.

Like John Clark, I can't quite figure it. I put myself
in Kennedy's position upon hearing that they've just
found a dead woman in the back seat. Now what would
be more damaging?  (A) that I had no idea, though I
was with the embarrassing Mrs. X, or (B) I panicked
and didn't seek help, and let a woman drown.

The truth (1) sounds less culpable and even less
embarrassing, and (2) is far less dangerous since
it is the truth (and so no later story can *really*
get me in trouble.

(Of course, it may be relevant that Kennedy was
pretty young at the time, and no telling what he
was thinking.)

Lee