BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 34. Ted Kennedy meets his WATERLOO at Chappaquiddick. Rudy is blown half-apart in Vietnam.

<https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/battle-of-waterloo>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident>

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

July 19, 1969

Teddy Kennedy was tired, so tired his bones seemed to ache from the inside. But his wife, Joan, wanted some answers, and he’d have to do more evading before he could hang up and go hide in a bathroom somewhere again and rest.

“Who the hell was that girl?” Joan screamed into the mouthpiece. “Why did you...?”

“Just a worker in the office pool. No one special. She was...just another secretary,” said Teddy, trying to keep his voice even and controlled .

“I hardly knew her,” he added, hoping that his wife wouldn’t dig any deeper. Would the newspapers find out that he and the girl had indeed had sex prior to that night? Who knew? A few of Mary Jo’s close friends surely must have known. Would they keep quiet? He made a mental note to approach them with cash offers as soon as possible.

“Why did you have to go driving at night?
Were you as drunk as they say?”
Joan seemed unable to hit her husband with a question that he couldn’t sidestep. Teddy Kennedy took so long answering (he was still thinking of loose ends...), that she questioned the connection of the phone line.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME OK?” she shouted, at wit’s end. When she was sure he could hear her just fine, she yelled into the mouthpiece so loudly that even their four-year-old down the hall heard the noise.

“DID YOU SCREW HER?”

Sure, he had made love to Mary Jo, but on that particular night it was Sally McBride, another Boiler Room girl, who had caught his eye. She wasn’t as pretty as Mary Jo, but her bubbly energy and full figure began to appeal to him after the fourth Gin Fizz. There was certainly some promise of sex in her gaze. He made some inane remark to her, something like, Fresh air is good for you, as he walked out the door of the cabin, and she had followed. When they’d rounded the few trees in front of the cabin and knew they were out of sight, she moved her face close and planted a strong kiss on his lips, slipping her tongue into his mouth. That was all he needed.

“Wait here,” said Kennedy, and made his way back to the cabin. He knew Special Agent Dwight needed to know he’d be “on a run,” so there wouldn’t be any concern as to his whereabouts. Teddy felt a throb of anticipation as he returned to Sally and walked her over to the rented car. He knew he was pretty high, and though half- drunk still felt capable of driving, so he thought. He knew the roads well enough. Sally had been slamming down tequilas (he’d watched her...), but she was still functional. Mary Jo hadn’t done as well, as far as he could tell She’d disappeared several hours earlier, probably sacked out in someone’s closet somewhere, he figured. Or out making it with the gardener. So he drove a while, parked, kissed, drove, parked and kissed some more, fondled Sally’s young body up one side and down the other. She began panting a few times. Just as he was working up to the score, a car rolled past (remembering those lights still made him nervous...). So he started up the Ford again and drove on. There had to be some place safer, more private, up ahead.

As they rolled along, Sally undid his zipper and reached her hand in, suddenly pulling his attention off the road. He had looked around for a side road, any lane to turn off, and in the midst of desperate-but-pleasurable distraction had spotted it and turned a hard right. Steering the vehicle toward Chappaquiddick, he gripped the wheel tightly, heading for climax.

Just a few more seconds, he’d thought, somewhere to stop...almost...just a place to enjoy his hands on her...SPLASH.

Suddenly all hell broke loose. It had been that quick. The front of the car dropped suddenly, Sally screaming, water pouring in, darkness all around, things spinning over, a dull thud as the car hit the bottom, upside down. The water rushed in through both the driver and passenger’s windows.

Both Kennedy and McBride had grabbed breaths in time and managed to push themselves out through the window openings and swim up from the vehicle. Their heads broke the surface of the salt water pond at just about the same moment. Thank God for Kennedy luck, he had thought, as they paddled to shore and caught their breath.

The evening was typically temperate for mid-July and they just lay there on the banks for a bit. Inevitably, they kissed, petted and had intercourse before picking themselves up off the sand and heading back toward the cabin. They talked and laughed a bit as they strolled along, passing the old Firehouse and whatever little cottages lined the road. Hadn’t they beat old grim reaper? It was probably between 2:30 and 3:00AM when they finally entered through the cabin door and saw Dwight and the others. They had some laughs as people commented on their “mid-night swim.”

More yucks. That’s all. Kennedy luck. Then someone asked if anyone had seen Mary Jo Kopechne. Had anyone? Someone mentioned seeing her slug down some pretty heavy sauce – mainly Irish whiskey – earlier in the evening. One of the other girls said Mary Jo had gotten real tired, and had walked outside sometime around midnight. But counting heads established that none of the gentlemen present had accompanied her anywhere. And there were no rental cars missing.

“Well...maybe one car is slightly... ,” Teddy muttered under his breath to Sally. She winked back. “...slightly submerged.” Their little secret, little escapade. Just some summer fun. Their own Summer of Love, Cape Cod style. His turn to get some. Like every other hippie kid running around.

But what about Mary Jo Kopechne?

“Oh yeah,” said Cindy, another one of the Boiler Room girls, smiling into her beer. “I remember now. Mary said that she was just gonna sack out in one of the cars. Didn’t want to bother anyone. Said she felt a little tired.”

“Did what?” asked Teddy, his voice suddenly jumping a couple octive. To others he seemed unduly concerned.

“What did you say?”

“Sleeping it off outside, in a car,” Cindy repeated, unconsciously cringing from the force of Kennedy’s interrogation.

“Who?”
“Mary Jo...Kopechne...”
“Where?”
“In a car. Said she would take a little nap in a car....”
“When?”
“Midnight I guess, before you left...”
“WHICH CAR!”
“Dunno. I just said I’d see her later. Sleeping it off, that’s all.

No big deal. No crime in that...”

Why does your face look so weird, Teddy, thought the few men and women there, as Cindy gave her innocent answers to his strangely intense drilling. Some later recalled Teddy’s eyes bulging––bug-eyes (yes, a few of the Boiler Room girls noticed that).

“Maybe you should take it easy too,” someone interrupted, trying to go for a lighter note. “Have another drink.”

“Hey, I think I will!” said Cindy, wandering over toward a counter littered with several bottles, most either empty or at half- mast. She would be sick to her stomach within an hour of relating Mary Jo’s last words.

“WHAT TIME IS IT!” shouted Teddy as he rushed for the front door. “JESUS CHRIST, WHAT FUCKIN’ TIME IS IT?”

Teddy and Dwight drove back to the Chappaquiddick turnoff in less than ten minutes.

“Jesus,” said Dwight, as he spotted a portion of the car’s under- carriage poking up out of the pond. The dark metal was half- invisible, edges reflecting the moonlight. Kennedy waited on shore as Dwight quickly disrobed, kicked off shoes and socks and dove in. It took just a few strokes for him to reach the car. With a big breath he buckled and disappeared.

He’s down there a long time, thought Teddy. Good lungs. Thankful for that. A chance at least. Maybe...

Dwight broke the surface with a big foamy splash and swam back to where Teddy was standing. He stopped to catch his breath before voicing the cruel words. “She’s in there. Pinned somehow. I felt her arm. Has to be dead. Sorry.”

“DID YOU HAVE INTERCOURSE?” repeated an exasperated Joan Kennedy, pressing again for an admission from her husband. Outside, the TV crews remained camped all over the front lawn, still aiming cameras at the house as they had since early dawn. She took offense––couldn’t even look out her own windows anymore! Leaving the house was out of the question. The crowd, the media attention had horrified her. What the hell was happening? She didn’t know. She had seen her own image on TV before breakfast.

“Well, did you?”

“No.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“No.”

“WHAT?”

Well, I screwed her several times. But not last night. Last night I was screwing someone else. You see, I’M A KENNEDY and I can usually have just about any attractive woman I want. And being just a mortal man I have real problems turning down beautiful and sexy women. My brothers had the same problem. Runs in the family. Even my father. He had Gloria Swanson. I just wanted some loving without complications, just some fun sex, you know? And I need that, so I can go on being your husband and putting up with your drinking and fading beauty. Is that so hard to understand?

“What?”

“NO!”

The only thing that connected Kennedy to the car and Mary Jo’s death had been Sally’s purse. It was found that morning as they dredged the car out of the muck. Some at the party knew that he had left with Sally. Did Teddy try for a three-some? Just like him, thought Linda, one of the other Boiler Room girls. I wouldn’t go for it, so he dropped me, thank God!”

“Boiler Room Girls can be trusted,” said Dwight. “Just remember that.”

Did you screw her?

William Sullivan had heard the question several times before he clicked off the tape. He had great admiration for his FBI boss. That Hoover had managed to get a tap on Kennedy’s home phone was just pure genius in his book.

“What do you want to do with this now?’

Hoover just sat there, cat-ate-the-canary smile, and took another pull on his cigar.

“Check the passport offices. See if you can get a fix on whether anyone has a record of Mary Jo Kopechne traveling with Kennedy out of the country...Anywhere for that matter. Say it’s top priority...from Kleindienst at the White House. They may have been an item.”

As Sullivan left the office, a smile of satisfaction spread across Hoover’s puffy face. It was a smug, gratified look, like the presence of a tenacious fighter who had just outlasted his opponent. The Kennedys would never get rid of him now.

***

August 24, 1969

When the village just outside of LoDuc was called up on the screen, Rahar’s Op was told to “terminate with extreme prejudice.” Given the need for body count and the presence of suspected VC, the order wasn’t unusual. The fog hung low in the air that morning, a tunnel of vision below a pillowy, off-white overcast. Three re-cons crawled forward and scoped out the turf that was in the proximity of the rice fields, while Rahar, Frank and Dandy-D eased into position, rifles, grenades and knives at hand. They figured on a messy assault and needed to be ready. Besides, Dandy-D had a good collection of scalps to maintain, so a sharp knife was a must.

At 0800 the first strafing jets laid down a tidy line of napalm behind the village along the treeline. Some good scorching there, thought Rudy as he hoisted up his M-16 and moved in quickly with his buddies. Rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. Chu-chu-chu. The sound of rifles firing and explosives detonating was heard in all directions. What a rush, thought Rudy. Better than any other drug.

Kill anything that moved. That was the order of the day. Click them out. That’s all it was. Patoo-patoo and an old man to the left was nearly cut in half by Rahar’s happy fire. But no time to inspect.

“Move in! Move in! ” someone yelled, and they did, clicking out the old, young, male and female – no prejudice. Rahar ducked into a hooch and started firing before he looked. Good safety measure. No time to draw and shoot like the old west. If there was someone inside, then they were, by definition, VC. So click them out.

The old woman twitched as she fell against the straw wall, dropping something from her hands as she went down. A sack of rice or something hit the floor and Rahar kicked it out of his way. The bag bounced against the central hearth of the hooch, then stopped. Rahar focused down and spotted a baby, there in the dirt near where it landed. Some kind of human feeling emerged, from way back in the recesses his mind, and made him reach out to test for life. But he never reached the bundle. The excruciating pain in his side spun him around, firing wildly as he dropped. His rounds caught the baby’s father across the face, as Rahar slammed unconscious into the hard-pack.

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