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.
