At or around 8 p.m. on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The entire nation was transfixed. Actually, the entire world was.
Watching it was communal. I don’t know anyone who was alone when the Eagle landed. Neighborhoods, extended families, strangers all gathered around whatever TV sets were available. We all applauded furiously when Armstrong made it official, some of us with tears in our eyes. We did it all over again when Armstrong, and then Aldrin, stepped onto the moon.
“That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” Those were Neil Armstrong’s words for posterity.
The times we are united in this country, for whatever reason, are joltingly powerful, and this was definitely one of them. We haven’t had many opportunities to feel that way, and the only other time, since the moon landing, I can honestly say our national unity swept us off our feet came on one of the darkest days in our history: Sept. 11, 2001.
On July 20, 1969, even as we fought among ourselves over Vietnam and civil rights, the United States reached the apogee of “The American Century.”
Yet something happened two days earlier that cut into that feeling of boundless optimism. This wasn’t an incident that anybody saw on national television. There weren’t watch parties. It came at us in dribs and drabs, but when you put it all together, it was enormous in its scope. And it can be easily argued that it had far more significant long-term ramifications than the moon landing.
I speak, of course, of the auto accident at Chappaquiddick that cost Mary Jo Kopechne her life — and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s conduct in its aftermath.
What happened at Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969, very likely changed the course of history in the United States. Kennedy was hosting a party at a cottage on Chappaquiddick with all six of the “Boiler Room Girls” present, including Kopechne, who worked for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign. When Ted Kennedy left the party, he offered to take Kopechne back to her hotel.
This would have involved making the last ferry to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard (this was Chappaquiddick’s only accessibility to the island).
But Ted took a wrong turn and ended up at Poucha Pond, an inlet driven by the tides in Massachusetts Bay. The very small, and rickety (at the time) Dike Bridge crosses Poucha Pond toward a narrow finger of land.
Either Kennedy realized he was going the wrong way and tried to turn around, or he tried to cross the bridge (draw your own conclusions). Either way, he lost control and the car went off the bridge and into the deep water.
He managed to get out, but Kopechne didn’t. The more serious issue is that he walked away and left her there to die (after he said he’d dove repeatedly to where the car was in attempts to save her).
Kennedy did not report the accident until the next day, by which time authorities had already discovered Kopechne’s body, still in the car.
In the immediate aftermath, Kennedy was charged with leaving the scene of an accident. And because of the moon landing, nobody really paid much attention to it. All eyes and ears were on the Eagle as it descended to the moon’s surface.
But once it landed, and once Armstrong and Aldrin streamed toward pilot Michael Collins and the mother ship Columbia, the country had more time to pay attention.
In 1969, Kennedy had the nation’s sympathy. His two brothers had been assassinated. The Democrats actually wanted him to run for president in 1968, but the convention was only two months after Bobby’s death, and Ted declined.
We all know what happened. The Democrats ran an extremely contentious convention (they stand a good chance of doing that again!!) and Richard Nixon won the election.
The 1972 nomination was Ted Kennedy’s for the asking, but he declined. Who knows what a stronger candidate with broader appeal than George McGovern (not to mention a still-deep reservoir of sympathy) would have done against Nixon.
Kennedy chose not to run in 1976 too, ostensibly because his family needed him. That paved the way for the rise of Jimmy Carter.
He finally consented to run in 1980, but it was obvious his heart was not really in it. He couldn’t articulate a sound reason for running during an interview with broadcaster Roger Mudd. Carter won the nomination easily, only to be shredded by Ronald Reagan.
Absent Chappaquiddick and its baggage, Ted Kennedy would have won the presidency, and the country would have taken a different turn. The visceral effect of raw emotion that comes from a national tragedy supersedes politics, and Kennedy would have benefited greatly from it.
But whatever cachet Kennedy may have had, he lost at Chappaquiddick. You couldn’t escape the feeling he put himself and his political aspirations above Kopechne, and that at a time of clear moral certainty, he came up very small.
He had to know that, or at least sense it. And that is why what happened on July 18, 1969, had deeper ramifications for this country than the moon landing, as uplifting and inspirational as it may well have been.