Kennedy Memoir Tells of Chappaquiddick Guilt

Summary

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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in a new book that he was not romantically involved with young Mary Jo Kopechne and that he never escaped the despair he felt after she died in the 1969 car crash that has been seared into the national consciousness as "Chappaquiddick."

He acknowledged that he enjoyed women and drink -- sometimes too much so -- but said reports of wild Kennedy excesses were exaggerated. He said he always has accepted the conclusion that a lone assassin killed his brother John and that Kennedy family members had worried about the emotional health of his brother Robert following John's death in Dallas in 1963. He said it "veered close to being a tragedy within a tragedy."

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Extract

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Kennedy Memoir Tells of Chappaquiddick Guilt

Yet it was the specter of Chappaquiddick that Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother, never could shake.

"That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life," Ke...

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