Forty years ago, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island after a party, submerging the car. He managed to get out, but not his companion.
It was here where Kennedy’s true nature came about. He claimed he called out for [Mary Jo] Kopechne several times and rested for fifteen minutes until deciding to walk back to the party. On his walk back to the party, he passed several houses with telephones but he did not summon help.
He eventually fell asleep in a hotel room and later woke up but did not immediately contact the police, but instead had a casual conversation with someone about sailing. It was not until after the dead body of Kopechne had been discovered that Kennedy went to a police station. [Italics added]
A bona fide Kopechne tragedy became in due time a spurious “Kennedy tragedy,” one of many. And whom can we thank for that?
Blithe Spirit 
I stood on the bridge a few years ago and reflected on some of what you say. All true. Somehow I wondered three things: (1) what would I have done? (2) how different would be our history? (3) was it money or something stronger that has allowed the Kopechne family to keep itts peace and silence?
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What you or I would have done is irrelevant. He’s the lion of the senate, protected all his life by wealth and privilege. We should ignore him but don’t. Nor is it relevant how our history would be different, by which I take it you are saying So what? And to lay anything on the Kopechnes, as if to undercut their position, is out of order. In any case, he stayed away from her grave until the parents were dead, visiting it as one doomed by cancer.
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I agree with everything Jim says here. Sadly there are people who raise suspicion about the K. family. What if Mary Jo had been their daughter? I remember my own father’s outrage at the time ( I was about the same age as the victim) and I was quietly rather pleased by his indignation. Women are left increasingly unprotected. That was true then and is now even more.
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