Unlike his brothers John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy, Edward Kennedy may have survived assassination - but the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 did scupper any hopes he ever had of following in JFK's footsteps and becoming President of the United States. Senator for Massachusetts from November 1962 right through until his death in August 2009, Ted Kennedy did try and challenge incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic candidacy in 1980 but failed. However, Ted Kennedy is most famous for his part in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne - who died on Martha's Vineyard's Chappadquiddick Island on July 18, 1969. Kennedy left a party on the island with 28-year-old Kopechne in his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 - and drove off Dike Bridge into the Poucha Pond inlet. Although Kennedy escaped when the vehicle overturned, Kopechne was unable to get out. Kennedy claimed he dove under the water at least seven times to try and get Kopehcne out, but he could not, and he swam away and left the lake. It was not until the next day that he contacted police, after the body had been discovered, and Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. He was sentenced to a two-month suspended jail term. An inquest into the death - which was conducted in secret at Kennedy's request - concluded that negligent driving "appeared to have contributed" to Kopechne's death, something the Senator denied. Ted Kennedy had been expected to run in the 1972 presidential election but this incident tarnished his reputation - and he failed to ever fully recover from it politically.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
