Chappaquiddick

Even now, after half a century, most people still believe that Teddy Kennedy drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick because he was unfamiliar with the local roads. Yet there are only three roads on the island, and his family had been visiting Martha's Vineyard for twenty years. The car was indeed driven off the bridge by someone unfamiliar with the roads, but that person was not Kennedy.

At breakfast next morning at his hotel in Edgartown, he was chatting to fellow-guests in a cheerful mood as he looked forward to watching the regatta. Suddenly two lawyers arrived and took him to his room, where a lot of shouting could be heard, and soon afterwards they all left in a hurry, Kennedy looking totally devastated. It was obviously the first he'd heard of the death of the young secretary Mary Jo Kopechne, whom he had escorted away from a party at a nearby cottage the night before.

In a state of panic, the lawyers unwisely coached him to make a damage-limiting claim that he had caused the accident, and then gallantly struggled to save the girl. But there was never a less convincing liar than Kennedy, and he would have been wiser to stick to the truth - that he had parked in the forest, to be alone with Mary Jo, but was approached by the local cop who wondered if he was lost. He then roared off at high speed, so as not to be caught in a compromising position, before handing the car over to Mary Jo. And it was that normally teetotal secretary, after a few drinks, who found the large Oldsmobile hard to handle, and made the fatal wrong turn.

The subsequent cover-up, and Kennedy's various changes of story, are as transparent as they are nauseating. How could Kennedy not have reported the accident for ten hours if he had caused it? Why did Mary Jo leave her handbag at the party, if she was off to catch the ferry? At that rate, after drinking on-and-off through the day, why did Kennedy not get his chauffeur to do the driving, as he was present at the party? Was Mary Jo not due to spend the night at the cottage anyway? Even the tides in the bay do not tally with some of the timings given by the Kennedy team. His loyal wife Joan miscarried when she heard the news. His ailing father no longer wanted to live, and turned his face to the wall. Yet incredibly Teddy was voted back as senator for Massachusetts for the rest of his life.

If anyone can present this case with force and conviction, it is Ian Holm, a narrator so engaging and involving that you could believe he was the investigator who uncovered the plot single-handed.

The Kennedy family may have been American royalty, but they were cursed: two brothers assassinated, and Edward, who might have followed in JFK's footsteps, saw any hope of a future presidency trashed one fateful night in July 1969 when his car jumped a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island leaving a young woman passenger dead. Or was Mary Jo Kopechne the driver rather than the passenger?

Those of us who were alive at this time and who had the slightest interest in American politics remember this bizarre affair well. The only thing on which all pundits and observers seem to agree is that Kennedy did not tell the truth, the whole truth, or anything like the truth. This documentary speaks to many of those involved including local law enforcement and the bloke who embalmed the poor girl, but not the pathologist because would you believe no autopsy was performed?

The explanation given by one lawman - which appears to be supported by forensics - is that Kennedy was not in the car at the time. Having been spotted by a police officer, and almost certainly over the legal driving limit, he got out, told Mary Jo to take the wheel, and walked off alone remaining blissfully ignorant of what had happened until the next morning. That means he wasn't quite the lowlife some would have us believe, that he left her to drown while doing the damnedest to protect his reputation, but it damages his reputation in other ways, namely the married senator was playing away with a younger woman. Alas, the one man who knows for certain what really happened took his lies with him to the grave, but the story advanced here sounds the most plausible.