Chappaquiddick | The Weight of the Name
5/26/202636 min
Ted Kennedy spent the rest of his life in the shadow of Chappaquiddick. The accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne effectively ended his chances at the presidency, but raised longlasting questions about whether a less powerful man would have faced far greater consequences. Peter Canellos is a veteran political journalist and editor of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. In this conversation, he examines how the Kennedy machinery closed ranks after the accident, what it meant to be the last surviving Kennedy brother, and how a man defined by his failures ultimately became what many consider...
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[upbeat music] From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal. [upbeat music] In July of nineteen sixty-nine, a car drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. The passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, would die that night, and the driver, Senator Ted Kennedy, would not report the accident for nearly ten hours. He was never charged with a crime. He received a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene, and eight months later, he was reelected to the Senate with sixty-two percent of the vote. To many, it seemed the full weight of one of America's most powerful political families was deployed to ensure the senator's career survived. This scandal raised serious questions, not just about what really happened that night, but how it was handled and whether the outcome would've been the same for someone without Kennedy's name and influence. More than fifty years later, those questions still resonate. My guest today is Peter Canellos. He's a veteran political journalist, author, and editor of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. Our conversation is next.