A Night That Haunts Him

"Irrational and indefensible and inexcusable and inexplicable." That was Ted Kennedy's own assessment of his behavior ten years ago at Chappaquiddick Island after the automobile accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne died.

Ever since, he has been burdened by the events of that night. It was the chief issue that kept Kennedy out of the 1972 presidential race and that caused him to abandon plans to run in 1976. Now Chappaquiddick is again an issue, and one that is already being used against him. Twice Jimmy Carter has alluded to it. Republican John Connally has been blunter. "I never drowned anybody," Connally retorted when asked by a reporter about scandals in his own past.

Events on that night of July 18-19, 1969, began with a cookout at a rented cottage on the island, which lies just across the channel from Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard.

The partygoers were Kennedy, five other men and six women. The women were all in their 20s and veterans of Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. After several hours over drinks, snacks and charcoal-broiled steaks, Kennedy and Kopechne, 28, left in his black Oldsmobile sedan. He claimed later that they intended to return to their separate hotels in Edgartown for the night. However, he headed in the opposite direction, toward a deserted beach. He drove down a bumpy dirt road and plunged off narrow, humpbacked Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond. Kennedy managed to extricate himself from the car, which lay upside down in about six feet of water; Kopechne did not.

The Senator said that he dived several times in an attempt to rescue her but the current was too strong. Giving up, he walked more than a mile back to the cottage and told two old friends, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham, about the accident. All three drove back to the bridge in another car. Gargan and Markham dived unsuccessfully after Kopechne and then drove Kennedy to the harbor.

Because the ferry to Edgartown had been shut down at midnight, the Senator swam across the 500-ft.-wide channel and walked to his inn. He changed into dry clothes and spoke briefly to the innkeeper. Gargan and Markham, meanwhile, returned to the cottage for the night. Following Kennedy's instructions, they told no one about the accident.

Next morning, Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at the inn. They returned to Chappaquiddick at about 9 a.m. and entered a shack near the ferry slip, where Kennedy tried in vain to phone a family friend, Attorney Burke Marshall. At that point, Ferryman Richard Hewitt asked if they knew about the wrecked car, which had been discovered by some fishermen. Hewitt later testified that Markham replied, "Yes. We just heard about it." Only then did Kennedy go to the police station and report the accident.

Kopechne's death and Kennedy's actions that night have been the subject of a police inquiry, court inquest, at least five books and countless investigations by magazine, newspaper and TV reporters. Almost everything in Kennedy's description of the night's events has been challenged; even the judge who presided at the inquest was skeptical. But Kennedy has steadfastly stuck by his account, which he first related on TV a week after the accident, and after he had consulted with at least seven old Kennedy hands. He has denied that he was drunk, that he and Kopechne were intentionally heading toward the beach or that he spent the hours after the accident trying to find a way to escape blame for it. Kennedy acknowledges that he was "irresponsible" in not phoning police

promptly but insists that he had struck bis head when the car plunged off the bridge and was suffering from shock and confusion.

Ten years afterward, he argues that his actions that night do not reflect on his judgment today. Somewhat stoically, he told TIME: "People may not believe me or accept some of my answers. But the idea that the people who were there that night are holding back some secret is just all wrong. The essence of the event for me is that the girl is dead. There is nothing else for me to say."

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