Mary Jo Kopechne (/kɵˈpɛkni/; July 26, 1940 – July 18, 1969) was anAmerican teacher, secretary, andpolitical campaign specialist who died in a car accident in Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts on July 18, 1969, while a passenger in a car
being driven by U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy.
Kopechne, born in Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania,[1] was the daughter and only child
of insurance salesman Joseph Kopechne and his wife, Gwen.[1] She was of Polish-Americanheritage.[2] Her family moved toBerkeley
Heights, New Jersey when Kopechne was an infant.[1][3] She attended parochial schools growing up.[4] After graduating with a degree
inbusiness
administration from Caldwell College
for Women in 1962,[1][5] Kopechne moved to Montgomery, Alabama,
to teach for a year at the Mission of St. Jude,[1] an activity that was part of
the Civil Rights Movement.[6] By 1963, Kopechne relocated to Washington, D.C., to work as secretary for Florida Senator George Smathers.[1] She joined New York SenatorRobert F. Kennedy's secretarial staff
following his election in November 1964.[1] For that office she worked as a
secretary to the senator's speechwriters and as a legal secretary to one of his
legal advisers.[1] Kopechne was a loyal worker.
Once, during March 1967, she stayed up all night at Kennedy's Hickory
Hill home to type a major speech against the Vietnam War, while the senator and his aides
such as Ted Sorenson and C.Richard
Semple II[7] made last-minute changes to it.[4][8][9]
During the 1968
U.S. presidential election, Kopechne helped with the wording of
Kennedy's speech of March 1968 announcing his presidential candidacy.[4] Duringhis
campaign, she worked as one of the "Boiler Room Girls". This was an
affectionate nickname given to six young women whose office area was in a hot,
loud, windowless location in Kennedy's Washington campaign headquarters.[2][4][8][10]They were vital in tracking and
compiling data and intelligence on how Democratic delegates from various states
were intending to vote; Kopechne's responsibilities included Pennsylvania.[8][10] Kopechne and the other
staffers were knowledgeable politically,[10] and were chosen for their
ability to work skillfully for long, hectic hours on sensitive matters.[2] They talked daily with field
managers and also helped distribute policy statements to strategic newspapers.[10]
Kopechne was devastated emotionally by the assassination
of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968. After working briefly for
the Kennedy proxy campaign of George McGovern, she stated she could not
return to work on Capitol Hill,
saying "I just feel Bobby's presence everywhere. I can't go back because
it will never be the same again."[2][8] But as her father later said,
"Politics was her life,"[8] and in December 1968 she used
her experience to gain a job with Matt Reese Associates, a Washington, D.C.,
firm that helped establish campaign headquarters and field offices for
politicians and was one of the first political consulting companies.[1][6][11] By mid-1969 she had completed
work for a mayoral campaign in Jersey City, New
Jersey.[2]She was on her way to a successful
professional career.[12] Kopechne lived in the
Washington neighborhood of Georgetown with
three other women.[1] She was a fan of the Boston Red Sox and of fellow
Polish-American Carl Yastrzemski.[2] She was a devout Roman Catholic with a demure, serious,
"convent school" demeanor, rarely drank much, and had no reputation
for extramarital activities with men.[2][11][12]
[edit]Death
Main article: Chappaquiddick
incident
On July 18, 1969, Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island,
off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The celebration was in honor of
the dedicated work of the Boiler Room Girls, and was the fourth such reunion of
the Robert F. Kennedy campaign workers.[13] Kopechne reportedly left the
party at 11:15 p.m. with Robert's brother Ted, after he — according to his own account —
offered to drive her to catch the last ferry back to Edgartown, where she was staying.[8] She did not tell her close
friends at the party that she was leaving, and she left her purse and keys
behind.[8] Kennedy drove the 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off
a narrow, unlit bridge, which was without guardrails and was not on the route
to Edgartown.[8] The Oldsmobile landed in Poucha
Pond and overturned in the water; Kennedy extricated himself from the vehicle
and survived, but Kopechne did not.[8]
Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the
car and Kopechne's body were discovered the next morning.[8] Kopechne's parents said that
they learned of their daughter's death from Kennedy himself,[1] before he informed authorities
of his involvement.[5] However, they learned Kennedy
had been the driver from wire press releases some time later.[5] A private funeral for Kopechne
was held on July 22, 1969, at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth,
Pennsylvania, attended by Kennedy.[14] She is buried in the parish
cemetery on the side of Larksville Mountain.
[edit]Aftermath
A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the
scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a two-month suspended sentence.[8] On a national television
broadcast that night, Kennedy said that he had not been driving "under the
influence of liquor" nor had he ever had a "private
relationship" with Kopechne.[15]The Chappaquiddick incident and
Kopechne's death became the topic of at leastfifteen books,
as well as a fictionalized treatment by Joyce Carol Oates. Questions remained about
Kennedy's timeline of events that night, specifically his actions following the
incident.[16] The quality of the
investigation has been scrutinized, particularly whether official deference was
given to a powerful and influential politician, and his family.[16] The events surrounding
Kopechne's death damaged Kennedy's reputation and are regarded as a major
reason that he was never able to mount a successful campaign for President of
the United States.[17] Kennedy expressed remorse over
his role in her death, in his posthumously-published memoir,True Compass.[18]
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