Mary Jo Kopechne
Mary Jo Kopechne | |
---|---|
political campaign worker | |
Known for | Victim of Chappaquiddick incident |
Political party | Democratic |
Parent(s) | Joseph and Gwen Kopechne |
Mary Jo Kopechne (/koʊˈpɛkni/; July 26, 1940 – July 18 or 19, 1969) was an American secretary, and one of the campaign workers for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a close team known as the "Boiler Room Girls". In 1969, she asphyxiated when a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy left a narrow road on Chappaquiddick Island and overturned into Poucha Pond after leaving a party. According to reports, Kennedy left the party at 11:15 p.m. Kopechne's body and the car were not reported until the next morning, approximately nine to ten hours later.
Early life and education
Kopechne was born in
When Kopechne was an infant, her family moved to
Career
Kopechne was inspired by President
"a petite strawberry blonde with pep in her step. She had confidence and a zest for life that was intriguing. ... She was humble and kind, and stood firm in her beliefs. ... Tough, but fun in the classroom, creating speed challenges, expecting accuracy, and rewarding generously."[12]
By 1963, Kopechne relocated to Washington, D.C., to work as secretary for United States Senator George Smathers (D-FL).[3] She joined the secretarial staff of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY), following his election in November 1964.[3] For that office, she worked as a secretary to the senator's speechwriter, and as a legal secretary to one of his legal advisers.[3] Kopechne was a loyal worker. Once, during March 1967, she stayed up all night at Kennedy's Hickory Hill home, to type a major speech against the Vietnam War, while the senator and his aides such as Ted Sorensen made last-minute changes to it.[9][15][16] She enthusiastically played on the Kennedy office softball team, playing catcher.[17]
During the
Kopechne was devastated emotionally by the
She was also assigned to recruit volunteers in Colorado for former Governor Stephen McNichols's run for the Senate against incumbent Senator Peter H. Dominick (R).[20] McNichols lost his run, and Kopechne returned to Washington, D.C. By mid-1969, she had completed work for the eventually successful mayoral campaign of Thomas J. Whelan in Jersey City, New Jersey.[19] She was on her way to a successful professional career;[22] one of the political professionals who worked with her in Jersey City characterized her as "an exceptionally hard-working and skillful professional who knew her craft".[19]
Kopechne lived with three other women in the Washington neighborhood of
Death
On July 18, 1969, Kopechne attended a party on
Assistant Medical examiner Donald Mills signed a death certificate, listing cause of death as accidental drowning. A private funeral for Kopechne was held at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1969.[25][26] The service was attended by Kennedy, his wife Joan, his sister-in-law Ethel, and hundreds of onlookers.[25] Kopechne was buried in St. Vincent's Cemetery in Larksville, Pennsylvania,[1] in the parish cemetery on the side of Larksville Mountain.[5] She was among the fifth generation of her family interred in that cemetery.[5]
The exact time and cause of Kopechne's death is not positively known, due to conflicting witness testimony at the January 1970 inquest, and lack of an autopsy.
- Kennedy claimed the accident occurred shortly after he left the party at 11:15 p.m. on July 18. But part-time Deputy Sheriff Christopher "Huck" Look testified that he saw Kennedy's car, with Kopechne and Kennedy in it, around 12:40 a.m. on July 19.
- John Farrar, the fire rescue captain who retrieved the body on July 19, testified he believed that Kopechne stayed alive for up to half an hour in an air pocket, and ultimately suffocated in the submerged vehicle. A petition to exhume the body for autopsy was denied by a Pennsylvania court.[15]
Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the car and Kopechne's body were discovered the next morning.[15] Kopechne's parents said that they learned of their daughter's death from Kennedy,[3] before he informed authorities of his involvement.[11] They learned that Kennedy had been the driver from wire press releases some time later.[11]
Aftermath
A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a two-month suspended sentence.[15] On a national television broadcast that night, Kennedy said that he had not been driving "under the influence of liquor", nor had he ever had a "private relationship" with Kopechne.[27] Massachusetts officials pressed for weeks to have Kopechne's body exhumed for an autopsy,[28] but in December 1969, a Pennsylvania judge sided with the parents' request not to disturb her burial site.[1]
The Chappaquiddick incident and Kopechne's death became the topic of at least 15 non-fiction books, as well as a novella by Joyce Carol Oates.[29] Even otherwise sympathetic, mainstream biographers believed there were outstanding serious questions about Kennedy's timeline of events that night, specifically his actions following the incident.[30][29] The quality of the investigation has been scrutinized, particularly whether official deference was given to a powerful and influential politician and his family.[30] The events surrounding Kopechne's death damaged Kennedy's reputation, and are regarded as a major reason why he was never able to mount a successful campaign for President of the United States and essentially chose not to pursue the office.[31] Kennedy would eventually overcome this and some lesser personal scandals to have a very long career as a Senator and to achieve a lengthy list of major legislative accomplishments.[29]
Kennedy expressed his remorse over his role in Kopechne's death in his posthumously published memoir, True Compass (2009).[32] But the disparity of the outcomes remained; Kennedy biographer Peter Canellos has written of the aftermath: "Every day that he lived was one that Kopechne – a talented woman with political interests of her own – would not. It seemed cosmically unfair that he should have a second act when she couldn't even complete her first."[29]
Kopechne's parents received a $141,000 settlement from Kennedy's insurance company.[4] They subsequently moved to Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.[4] On the 25th anniversary of her death, in 1994, they said that Kennedy had never apologized directly to them over his role in it, but that other members of the Kennedy family had written letters to them.[4] With their only child gone, they never felt that justice had really been done in the case.[5]
Kopechne's father died in a nursing home in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2003.[4] Her mother died in a nursing home in Plains Township, Pennsylvania, in 2007.[4]
Legacy
In 2015, two cousins of Kopechne's in Pennsylvania self-published the book Our Mary Jo, which sought to emphasize the influence of her life, rather than discuss Kennedy or Chappaquiddick.[5] It also includes some of the hundreds of condolence letters that Kopechne's parents received.[33] Because Kopechne had been a strong believer in education and was deeply Catholic, family members started a scholarship fund in Kopechne's name at nearby Misericordia University.[5][33]
In 2017, Kopechne was portrayed by actress Kate Mara in John Curran's film Chappaquiddick. Mara gives Kopechne a sympathetic interpretation, although much of the film takes place after her death.[34]
A full biography, Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of Mary Jo Kopechne (2020), was written by William C. Kashatus and published by
"where the people have a strong work ethic, very strongly Catholic at that period of time, and they raised their kids to respect themselves, respect other people, and work hard. And she really represented that to me."[12]
References
- ^ a b c d "Judge Rules Mary Jo Will Not Be Exhumed For Autopsy". Lodi News-Sentinel. United Press International. December 11, 1969. p. 1.
- ^ Legal ruling, but there was no autopsy. Fire rescue diver John Farrar testified he believed Kopechne died of suffocation, Inquest into the Death of Mary Jo Kopechne, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Edgartown District Court. New York: EVR Productions, 1970
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j McFadden, Robert D. (July 20, 1969). "Victim Drawn to Politics" (PDF). The New York Times.
- ^ a b c d e f g King, Larry (August 27, 2009). "Pa. woman at center of Kennedy's Chappaquiddick scandal". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
- ^ Standard-Speaker. Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
- ^ Olsen, Jack (1980). The Bridge at Chappaquiddick (revised ed.). Ace Books. p. 178.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4391-3817-5.
- ^ Santiago, Katherine (August 26, 2009). "U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's career connected to N.J." The Star-Ledger.
- ^ ISBN 0-312-95600-2.
- Newspapers.com. "She and Mary Jo, the Washington secretary who died July 18 when a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge near Martha's Vineyard, had attended Our Lady of the Valley High School in Orange."
- ^ ISBN 0-89526-564-8.
- ^ a b c d e Cason, Mike (July 19, 2019). "Before Chappaquiddick, Mary Jo Kopechne inspired students in Alabama". The Birmingham News.
- ^ ISBN 0-944007-64-3.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Russell, Jenna (February 17, 2009). "Chapter 3: Chappaquiddick: Conflicted ambitions, then, Chappaquiddick". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on February 19, 2009.
- ^ Kappel, Chappaquiddick Revealed, p. 189.
- ^ ISBN 0-393-07501-X.
- ^ a b c d Damore, Senatorial Privilege, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Newspapers.com.
- ^ Newspapers.com.
- ^ ISBN 0-688-14285-0.
- ^ ISBN 0-06-620965-X.
- ^ Damore, Senatorial Privilege, p. 154.
- ^ Dangremond, Sam (April 5, 2018). "What Really Happened During Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick Incident". Town & Country.
- ^ The Fort Scott Tribune. Associated Press. July 22, 1969. p. 1.
- ^ Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography, p. 150.
- ^ Fenton, John H. (October 31, 1969). "Kennedy Granted a Closed Inquest in Kopechne Case" (PDF). The New York Times.
- ^ "What Did the Autopsy of Mary Jo Kopechne Reveal?". Medscape. Retrieved May 23, 2018.
- ^ a b c d Canellos, Peter (April 1, 2018). "'Chappaquiddick': The Trial of Ted Kennedy". Politico.
- ^ a b Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography, pp. 152–154.
- ISBN 978-0-89234-116-0.
- ^ "Kennedy memoir reveals remorse over Chappaquiddick". The Detroit News. Associated Press. September 9, 2009.
- ^ a b "In Focus: Mary Jo Kopechne before and beyond Chappaquiddick". Times Leader. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. March 25, 2015.
- ^ McCarthy, Todd (September 10, 2017). "'Chappaquiddick' Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
Further reading
- Kashatus, William C. Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of Mary Jo Kopechne and the Kennedy Brothers, Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2020.