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Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:15 pm
by christs4sale
I am curious what others on this forum think of the Chappaquiddick incident. I have gone through RB Cutler's work on the topic quite a bit. His book is really just a compilation of rare, local newspaper articles, transcripts of the Inquest (there are parts of the Inquest that made my jaw hit the floor) and exhumation hearing, Joachim Joesten's (an early JFK researcher and one of the few other people advocating that Chappaquiddick was an ambush) articles and portions of other books where he finds the author's work useful. Even if you regard Cutler as a kook because of his umbrella man theories with JFK, because Cutler's actual theory is kept to the last three or four pages of a 400+ page volume, I think that it is probably the most useful resource on the Chappaquiddick incident.

Here is a link to Mae Brussell interviewing RB Cutler:

http://www.worldwatchers.info/shows/dia ... -72-03-25/

I have recently read Joseph Cannon's take on Chappaquiddick and he has definitely read some to the books that are very critical of Ted Kennedy, but I do not think that he has really gone into Cutler's book. Cannon does not buy Cutler's ambush theory, but he leaves out certain very important discrepancies that you would only get from the Inquest transcripts.

I should also say that I am not convinced that Cutler has it right, but after going through the Inquest testimony over and over for the last few weeks there are definitely large portions of most of the mainstream theories that are impossible or nearly impossible. I myself am agnostic as to what happened as I do not think that there is enough evidence to conclude what definitely did happen.

Here are a few pieces that I regard as important to the case:

-According to Christopher "Huck" Look's testimony at both the Petition for Exhumation and at the Inquest, he saw Kennedy's Oldsmobile being driven at about 12:45am. Long after it supposedly went into the Poucha Pond according to Kennedy's testimony (about 11:30pm). Here are links to Look's testimony at the Inquest. You can see on the last page of Look's testimony that he admits that he is not sure the car that he sees the night before and the car that he sees the next day are the same. During the exhumation hearing (this was held in Pennsylvania because of where Mary Joe Kopechne was buried), Look gave pretty much the same testimony except that he said that he was completely sure that they were the same car.
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-In Kennedy's Inquest testimony, he said that when he swam the channel between Chappaquiddick and Edgartown, that the tide pulled him towards the Edgartown Light. The only issue is that according to the tides on the night of 7/18/69, he should have been pulled the other way towards Katama Bay. I will say that from personal experience, the tide in the channel between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick can produce a very strong current.
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-Here is Ross Richards testimony at the Inquest. It is significant because Kennedy does not mention anything about what he had been through the night before. Cutler spoke with Richards directly and Richards told Cutler that he (Richards) had the hangover and that he wished that he looked like how Ted did on that morning. He also originally told police that Gargan and Markham were "soaking wet" when they met Kennedy that morning. You can see how the judge does not allow him to say that.
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-In Jack Olson's book The Bridge at Chappaquiddick, he introduces the story of the Shiretown Inn desk clerk where Kennedy's behavior was consistent with Ross Richard's testimony. Kennedy was interested in obtaining several national papers and asked to borrow a dime to use the phone.

If I had to guess, I would say that Kennedy did not report the incident to the police because he did not know what had happened to Mary Joe Kopechne. After speaking with Ross Richards, his wife and Mr. Moore, Gargan and Markham found Kennedy, went to his room and then went back across to Chappaquiddick to supposedly make a phone call on the other side. Cutler speculates, and I agree, that it was most likely to receive a phone call. According to Kennedy's statement to Police Chief Arena that morning, "When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police." I think that he did not know until the phone call.

I have a lot more if you are interested. Let me know if you have problems viewing the graphics.

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:43 pm
by DrVolin
The simplest explanation is that Kennedy got drunk, drove into the water, and left Kopechne to die. It wouldn't be so surprising. That doesn't mean there isn't more to it. That Kennedy didn't know Kopechne died is also a pretty good fit to the facts. Expect for one thing: Why would he then take the blame and claim he was there and even dove for her repeatedly before walking away and sleeping it off? There is one way this makes sense: Wherever he was, and whoever with, was worse than leaving a young woman to drown in his car while he got back to his hotel and had a night's sleep.

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 12:08 am
by lupercal
DrVolin wrote:The simplest explanation is that Kennedy got drunk, drove into the water, and left Kopechne to die. It wouldn't be so surprising. That doesn't mean there isn't more to it. That Kennedy didn't know Kopechne died is also a pretty good fit to the facts. Expect for one thing: Why would he then take the blame and claim he was there and even dove for her repeatedly before walking away and sleeping it off? There is one way this makes sense: Wherever he was, and whoever with, was worse than leaving a young woman to drown in his car while he got back to his hotel and had a night's sleep.


Yes, and a lone gunman named Oswald and another named Sirhan Sirhan are also simple explanations, but the devil is the details and there are points raised in the inquest and subsequent behavior of seemingly accidental witnesses that complicate the simple explanations. I will say though that if Chappaquiddick was a honey trap, and to me it shows all the signs of a set up, it was diabolically clever. And Teddy stepped right into it, ironically bringing Camelot to its tragic conclusion with a dead lady in a lake.

A couple of interesting links: the first is to an RI thread from 2005, reporting testimony from a Charles Schlund, posted by Martin F Abernathy, later M F Abernathy whom I believe is still a member, in two differnt versions, the second link being much more legible. The Chappaquidick section is item #3 of the second post, labeled "Affidavit Of Charles Schlund -- Part 2":

Who Is Charles Schlund -- And Why Does He Matter? 10/19/05

"They believed that if they killed him it would look like the CIA had assassinated all three brothers so the CIA decided to allow him to live and to embarrass and discredit him to stop him from being reelected to the Senate by framing him at Chappaquiddick for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. . . . The following is how the CIA framed Ted Kennedy for the death of Mary Joe Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. . . . "

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1216&p=12446 <-- RI EZ-Board archive, which is very hard to read;
http://rigorousintuition.yuku.com/forum ... _JhXM2JRIG <-- Yuku archive, which is much more legible, but removes the poster's name


The second is by a Bob Ellis and offers a plausible alternative tale with a crucial revelation:

Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, the true story
Thursday, 27 August 2009

" The dreadful truth of that night is well-known among Kennedy staffers and his surviving family, and it is that Teddy was nowhere near the car when the accident occurred. . . . "

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/27/ted ... rue-story/


Good reads both, but as to the authenticity of either I can't say.

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:41 am
by Joe Hillshoist
Bob Ellis ... he wrote and directed the Nostradamus kid and lots of other fiction over the years.

He also wrote a book called The Capitalism Delusion - How global capitalism wrecked everything and what to do about it. Which seems reasonable enough on the face of it, tho I've never read it properly. I glanced at it.

I think in that story Ellis is basically repeating hearsay - whether that hearsay is worth repeating is another matter, but he didn't source it from anywhere that hasn't been covered here beforehand.

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:30 am
by MinM
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Soon after he took office Nixon established Operation Sandwedge. Organized by H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, the two main field officers were Jack Caulfield and Anthony Ulasewicz. Operation Sandwedge involved a secret investigation of Edward Kennedy. Caulfield later admitted that Ulasewicz’s reports on Kennedy went to three people: Nixon, Chotiner and Bebe Rebozo...
John Simkin wrote:Posted 23 June 2012 - 07:57 AM

Jack Caulfield died last week. Unlike most of the other figures in the story, he never wrote his account of the Watergate Scandal. I suspect he was behind setting up Edward Kennedy at Chappaquiddick.

In April, 1969, Caulfield was appointed as Staff Assistant to Richard Nixon. Soon afterwards Nixon decided that the White House should establish an in-house investigative capability that could be used to obtain sensitive political information. After consulting John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman the job was given to Caulfield.

Caulfield now appointed an old friend, Tony Ulasewicz, to carry out this investigative work. Ulasewicz's first task was to investigate the links between Bobby Baker and leading Democratic Party politicians. Was this the way Nixon discovered who was behind the assassination of JFK?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index ... opic=19222

Context of 'July 18, 1969: Nixon Sees Chappaquiddick Tragedy Damages Kennedy'

The Taking of America, 1-2-3 by Richard E. Sprague

Jack Anderson obit and info

Chappaquiddick

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:36 am
by Marie Laveau
Honestly, I think it's as simple as this:

"They were careless people....they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kep them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ The Great Gatsby


I have the misfortune to have spent the last fifteen years of my life knowing these very people.

Chappaquiddick in the Movies

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:01 pm
by MinM

Brian De Palma's "Blow Out" (1981)

The film alludes to elements of the Watergate scandal and the JFK assassination. The film also recalls elements of the Chappaquiddick incident, although De Palma intentionally tried to downplay the similarities...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blow_Out

Deleted scene from Nixon...

Context of 'July 18, 1969: Nixon Sees Chappaquiddick Tragedy Damages Kennedy'

April 2, 1969: Nixon Begins Secret Political Intelligence Operations
Edit event


Former New York Police Department detective Jack Caulfield begins his new job as a White House aide. Caulfield was added to the White House by Nixon aide John Ehrlichman after President Nixon’s decision to use private, secretly held funds for political intelligence operations (see January 30, 1969). Caulfield is to conduct various political intelligence operations without being noticed by the CIA, the FBI, or the Republican National Committee. Originally, the idea was to pay Caulfield out of unspent campaign funds from the 1968 elections (see November 5, 1968), but Caufield insisted on being given a White House position. [Reeves, 2001, pp. 67]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard M. Nixon, John Ehrlichman, John J. ‘Jack’ Caulfield

Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate

http://www.historycommons.org/context.j ... ixonchappa

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:32 pm
by Iamwhomiam
I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:14 pm
by Marie Laveau
Wow. Well, that puts a whole new twist on. And it's entirely plausible.

And who would believe it?

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:56 pm
by whipstitch
Iamwhomiam wrote:I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents
Great thread! It got me curious about this story and while I was looking at some related books on amazon, this review for the book "Death at Chappaquiddick", caught my eye...

3.0 out of 5 stars Was Ted in the car?;, May 12, 2006
By Robert Washburn "BobRI" (Portsmouth, RI)
This review is from: Death at Chappaquiddick (Paperback)

I attended a Haloween party in 1969, and a fellow guest told me this story, that he heard from Kenny O'Donnell, aide to the late President Kennedy: Ted was in the car with another woman (not one of the boiler room girls). When Ted saw a police car, he stopped, got out of the car to hide, and told the woman to drive the car over the Dike Bridge and he would meet her on the other side. Neither knew that Mary Jo was passed out in the back seat. When the woman drove the car into Poucha Pond (due the bend in the bridge), she escaped, was taken off Chappy and left the Island.

Ted established his alibi at about 2 am, and didn't find out about Mary Jo's death until the car was pulled from the water around 10 am the next day.

This story has always made more sense than the diving heroics tale. The coverup was to prevent the public knowing about "the other woman". And wasn't a wooden purse, not Mary Jo's, found in the front seat floor?

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:16 pm
by whipstitch
christs4sale - I ordered a copy of that Cutler book on your recommendation. Looking forward to reading it. I must say the "passed out in the back of the car" story makes as much sense as any theory I've heard. Not that hard to believe she wouldn't be noticed if Kennedy and that other woman were both drunk and fooling around.

I keep thinking about this bit from All The President's Men...

Did you know Howard Hunt? Didn't he work in the office?

Yeah, I knew Howard. -Nice? -He's a nice person. He's secretive, he is secretive, but a decent man.

Do you have any idea what he did?

The White House said he was doing some investigative work.

What do you say?

[Sharon chuckling] -He was doing investigative work.

On what?

Different things.

Like what?

She warned me.

I'm not going to take my book out. I'm just asking you.

The scuttlebutt for a while was that he was investigating Kennedy.

Go on.

The White House was real paranoid about Teddy Kennedy. I remember seeing a book about Chappaquiddick on his desk. And he was always getting material out of the White House Library... and the Library of Congress, and anything he could find.

RECEPTIONIST: White House Library.

Hi, this is Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post... and I was just wondering if you can remember... any books that a Howard Hunt checked out on Senator Kennedy?

Howard Hunt?

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, I think I do remember. He took out a whole lot of material. Why don't you hold on and I'll see?

I sure will. Thank you very much.

Mr. Bernstein?

Yes, ma'am?

I was wrong.

I beg your pardon?

The truth is, I don't have a card that says Mr. Hunt took any material. I don't remember getting material for.... I do remember getting material for somebody, but it wasn't for Mr. Hunt.

All right.

The truth is, I didn't have any requests at all from Mr. Hunt. The truth is, I don't know any Mr. Hunt.

I was just wondering if you have any books.... Hello?

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:22 pm
by 8bitagent
DrVolin wrote:The simplest explanation is that Kennedy got drunk, drove into the water, and left Kopechne to die. It wouldn't be so surprising. That doesn't mean there isn't more to it. That Kennedy didn't know Kopechne died is also a pretty good fit to the facts. Expect for one thing: Why would he then take the blame and claim he was there and even dove for her repeatedly before walking away and sleeping it off? There is one way this makes sense: Wherever he was, and whoever with, was worse than leaving a young woman to drown in his car while he got back to his hotel and had a night's sleep.



Well Ted, even til the moments before death, claimed he never believed in any conspiracies involving the death of JFK or RFK. Like the hanging of RFK Jr's wife recently, I guess it's just 'one of those things'

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:28 pm
by 8bitagent
Iamwhomiam wrote:I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents


Interesting, interesting. Reminds me of the plot of the upcoming Richard Gere film "Arbitrage", where he plays a high end hedge fund manager to a multi billion dollar corporation, but an important merger is thrown into chaos when he accidentally crashes the car in a fit of carelessness killing his girlfriend. Yet, he moves to bring in 'cleaners' to cover it all up

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:29 pm
by stoneonstone
Iamwhomiam wrote:I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents



It would explain why she left her purse in the cottage...which was both unlikely and troublesome. But I think I also read that her blood alcohol was CLOSE to the legal limit, not in excess of it.

Re: Chappaquiddick

PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:34 am
by christs4sale
stoneonstone wrote:
Iamwhomiam wrote:I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents



It would explain why she left her purse in the cottage...which was both unlikely and troublesome. But I think I also read that her blood alcohol was CLOSE to the legal limit, not in excess of it.


I have heard many people say that Mary Jo left her purse at the Lawrence Cottage, but I have never found a primary source for this. Can anyone provide one? Ferrar did recover a purse from the car after he recovered Mary Jo.

stoneonstone wrote:
Iamwhomiam wrote:I really have no idea what the truth is in this matter but I can share with you what I was told by someone who attended the party that night. The fellow said Mary Jo had gotten drunk and crawled into the backseat of a car, not know or caring whose it was, and passed out. Supposedly Kennedy was entirely unaware of her presence.

Who knows? Maybe she made some noise and scared the shit out of him just before he drove off the bridge?

Narrow inlets with fast currents often have shoreline counter-currents



It would explain why she left her purse in the cottage...which was both unlikely and troublesome. But I think I also read that her blood alcohol was CLOSE to the legal limit, not in excess of it.


Her blood alcohol level was .09 and legally drunk in Massachusetts at the time was .10. It translated to about 5 drinks according to one of the doctors (I do not have the Inquest transcripts in front of me). All of the women who stayed at the cottage said that Mary Jo was either a very moderate drinker or a non-drinker and no one saw her intoxicated. I remember that at least one person said that she was drinking though. I believe that multiple people testified that Kennedy and Kopechne left together with the intention of them going back to their respective hotels. There is also the issue of the blood found on Mary Jo's blouse found later only through forensic analysis. It washed out in the salt water and Ferrar, Mills and everyone else who saw the body on the morning of the 19th all said that they saw no blood when the body was retrieved. Plus, most of the authors who are detractors of Kennedy and Cutler as well have provided excellent evidence that the car was in some type of separate crash before it went into the water. There are very good photographs concerning this issue in Chappaquiddick Revealed, but the author very anti-Kennedy. And to everyone that thinks Kennedy knew about the car going in Poucha Pond before 8-9am on the 19th, how did he get back to the Edgartown side and can you explain the Richards testimony?