Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person Mary Jo Kopechne (Template:IPAc-en; July 26, 1940 – July 18 or 19, 1969) was an American secretary, and one of the campaign workers for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a close team known as the "Boiler Room Girls". In 1969, she asphyxiated when a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy left a narrow road on Chappaquiddick Island and overturned into Poucha Pond after they had left a party. According to reports, Kennedy left the party at 11:15 p.m. Kopechne's body and the car were not reported until the next morning, approximately nine to ten hours later.
Early life and educationEdit
Kopechne was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,<ref name="nyt-profile"/> although she is sometimes described as being from nearby Forty Fort, Pennsylvania.<ref name="pi-center"/><ref name="our"/> She was the only child of homemaker Gwen (née Jennings) and insurance salesman Joseph Kopechne.<ref name="nyt-profile"/><ref name="pi-center"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kopechne was of part-Polish heritage through her father.<ref name="bg-book">Template:Cite book</ref> Her grandfathers both worked as coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Her family history in the Wyoming Valley area of northeastern Pennsylvania traces back 250 years on her maternal side.<ref name="our"/>
When Kopechne was an infant, her family moved to Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.<ref name="nyt-profile"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She was raised Catholic and attended parochial schools,<ref name="oppo"/> graduating in 1958 from Our Lady of the Valley High School in Orange, New Jersey.<ref>"School Friend Remembers Quiet Mary Jo Kopechne", Asbury Park Press, September 7, 1969. Accessed March 12, 2024, via Newspapers.com. "She and Mary Jo, the Washington secretary who died July 18 when a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge near Martha's Vineyard, had attended Our Lady of the Valley High School in Orange."</ref> She graduated with a degree in business administration from Caldwell College for Women in 1962.<ref name="nyt-profile">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="damore-59">Template:Cite book</ref>
CareerEdit
Kopechne was inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural command "Ask what you can do for your country".<ref name="al-2019"/> After graduation, Kopechne moved to Montgomery, Alabama, for a year at the Mission of St. Jude,<ref name="nyt-profile"/> which participated in the Civil Rights Movement.<ref name="kappel-16">Template:Cite book</ref> She also taught business classes in typing and shorthand at Montgomery Catholic High School,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and was an advisor to the school newspaper.<ref name="al-2019"/> One former student recalled her as
"a petite strawberry blonde with pep in her step. She had confidence and a zest for life that was intriguing. ... She was humble and kind, and stood firm in her beliefs. ... Tough, but fun in the classroom, creating speed challenges, expecting accuracy, and rewarding generously."<ref name="al-2019"/>
By 1963, Kopechne relocated to Washington, D.C., to work as secretary for United States Senator George Smathers (D-FL).<ref name="nyt-profile"/> She joined the secretarial staff of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY), following his election in November 1964.<ref name="nyt-profile"/> For that office, she worked as a secretary to the senator's speechwriter, and as a legal secretary to one of his legal advisers.<ref name="nyt-profile"/> 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 Sorensen made last-minute changes to it.<ref name="oppo"/><ref name="bg-series-3"/><ref>Kappel, Chappaquiddick Revealed, p. 189.</ref> She enthusiastically played on the Kennedy office softball team, playing catcher.<ref name="burns-164">Template:Cite book</ref>
During the 1968 U.S. presidential election, Kopechne helped with the wording of Kennedy's March speech that announced his presidential candidacy.<ref name="oppo">Template:Cite book</ref> During his campaign, she worked as one of the Boiler Room Girls; the affectionate nickname given to six young women whose office area was in a hot, loud, windowless location in Kennedy's Washington campaign headquarters.<ref name="bg-book"/><ref name="oppo"/><ref name="bg-series-3">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="damore-118">Damore, Senatorial Privilege, pp. 118–119.</ref> 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.<ref name="bg-series-3"/><ref name="damore-118"/> Kopechne and the other staffers were knowledgeable politically,<ref name="damore-118"/> and were chosen for their ability to work skillfully for long, hectic hours on sensitive matters.<ref name="bg-book"/> They talked daily with field managers, and also helped distribute policy statements to strategic newspapers.<ref name="damore-118"/> She has been described as hero-worshiping the senator.<ref name="burns-164"/>
Kopechne was devastated emotionally by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.<ref name="cp-upi"/> After working briefly for the Kennedy proxy campaign of George McGovern, she said that 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."<ref name="bg-book"/><ref name="bg-series-3"/> But as her father later said, "Politics was her life".<ref name="bg-series-3"/> In September 1968, she was hired by Matt Reese Associates,<ref name="talladem">Template:Cite news</ref> a Washington, D.C., firm that helped establish campaign headquarters and field offices for politicians, and was one of the first political consulting companies.<ref name="kappel-16"/><ref name="clymer-bio">Template:Cite book</ref> In the fall elections of 1968, Kopechne did work on the re-election campaign of Senator Joseph S. Clark, Jr. (D-PA), who eventually lost.<ref name="cp-upi"/>
She was also assigned to recruit volunteers in Colorado for former Governor Stephen McNichols's run for the Senate against incumbent Senator Peter H. Dominick (R).<ref name="talladem"/> McNichols lost his run, and Kopechne returned to Washington, D.C. By mid-1969, she had completed work for the eventually successful mayoral campaign of Thomas J. Whelan in Jersey City, New Jersey.<ref name="cp-upi"/> She was on her way to a successful professional career;<ref name="leamer">Template:Cite book</ref> one of the political professionals who worked with her in Jersey City characterized her as "an exceptionally hard-working and skillful professional who knew her craft".<ref name="cp-upi">Template:Cite news</ref>
Kopechne lived with three other women in the Washington neighborhood of Georgetown.<ref name="nyt-profile"/> She was a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and of fellow Polish American Carl Yastrzemski.<ref name="bg-book"/> She was a devout Roman Catholic, with a demure, serious, "convent school" demeanor, and rarely drank much.<ref name="bg-book"/><ref name="clymer-bio"/><ref name="leamer"/>
DeathEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} On July 18, 1969, Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the east 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 Robert Kennedy campaign workers.<ref>Damore, Senatorial Privilege, p. 154.</ref> Robert's surviving brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, was there.<ref name="burns-164"/> Kopechne reportedly left the party with Kennedy at 11:15 p.m.; according to his account, he had offered to drive her to catch the last ferry back to Edgartown, where she was staying.<ref name="bg-series-3"/> She did not tell her close friends at the party that she was leaving, and she left her purse and keys behind.<ref name="bg-series-3"/> Kennedy drove the 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> off a narrow, unlit bridge, which lacked guardrails and was not on the route to Edgartown.<ref name="bg-series-3"/> The vehicle landed on its roof in Poucha Pond. Kennedy extricated himself from the vehicle and survived, but neglected to inform authorities of the accident until the next day.
Assistant Medical examiner Donald Mills signed a death certificate, listing cause of death as accidental drowning. A private funeral for Kopechne was held at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1969.<ref name="ap-funeral">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography, p. 150.</ref> The service was attended by Kennedy, his wife Joan, his sister-in-law Ethel, and hundreds of onlookers.<ref name="ap-funeral"/> Kopechne was buried in St. Vincent's Cemetery in Larksville, Pennsylvania,<ref name="upi-buried">Template:Cite news</ref> in the parish cemetery on the side of Larksville Mountain.<ref name="our"/> She was among the fifth generation of her family interred in that cemetery.<ref name="our"/>
The exact time and cause of Kopechne's death is not positively known, due to conflicting witness testimony at the January 1970 inquest, and lack of an autopsy.
- Kennedy claimed the accident occurred shortly after he left the party at 11:15Template:Nbspp.m. on July 18. But part-time Deputy Sheriff Christopher "Huck" Look testified that he saw Kennedy's car, with Kopechne and Kennedy in it, around 12:40Template:Nbspa.m. on July 19.
- John Farrar, the fire rescue captain who retrieved the body on July 19, testified he believed that Kopechne stayed alive for up to half an hour in an air pocket, and ultimately suffocated in the submerged vehicle. A petition to exhume the body for autopsy was denied by a Pennsylvania court.<ref name="bg-series-3"/>
Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the car and Kopechne's body were discovered the next morning.<ref name="bg-series-3"/> Kopechne's parents said that they learned of their daughter's death from Kennedy,<ref name="nyt-profile"/> before he informed authorities of his involvement.<ref name="damore-59"/> They learned that Kennedy had been the driver from wire press releases some time later.<ref name="damore-59"/>
AftermathEdit
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.<ref name="bg-series-3"/> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Massachusetts officials pressed for weeks to have Kopechne's body exhumed for an autopsy,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but in December 1969, a Pennsylvania judge sided with the parents' request not to disturb her burial site.<ref name="upi-buried"/>
The Chappaquiddick incident and Kopechne's death became the topic of at least 15 non-fiction books, as well as a novella by Joyce Carol Oates.<ref name="pol-2018"/> Even otherwise sympathetic, mainstream biographers believed there were outstanding serious questions about Kennedy's timeline of events that night, specifically his actions following the incident.<ref name="pol-2018"/><ref name="clymer-152">Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography, pp. 152–154.</ref> The quality of the investigation has been scrutinized, particularly whether official deference was given to a powerful and influential politician and his family.<ref name="clymer-152"/> The events surrounding Kopechne's death damaged Kennedy's reputation, and are regarded as a major reason why he was never able to mount a successful campaign for President of the United States and essentially chose not to pursue the office.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kennedy would eventually overcome this and some lesser personal scandals to have a very long career as a Senator and to achieve a lengthy list of major legislative accomplishments.<ref name="pol-2018"/>
Kennedy expressed his remorse over his role in Kopechne's death in his posthumously published memoir, True Compass (2009).<ref>Template:Cite news </ref> But the disparity of the outcomes remained; Kennedy biographer Peter Canellos has written of the aftermath: "Every day that he lived was one that Kopechne – a talented woman with political interests of her own – would not. It seemed cosmically unfair that he should have a second act when she couldn't even complete her first."<ref name="pol-2018">Template:Cite news</ref>
Kopechne's parents received a $141,000 settlement from Kennedy's insurance company.<ref name="pi-center"/> They subsequently moved to Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.<ref name="pi-center"/> On the 25th anniversary of her death, in 1994, they said that Kennedy had never apologized directly to them over his role in it, but that other members of the Kennedy family had written letters to them.<ref name="pi-center"/> With their only child gone, they never felt that justice had really been done in the case.<ref name="our"/>
Kopechne's father died in a nursing home in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2003.<ref name="pi-center"/> Her mother died in a nursing home in Plains Township, Pennsylvania, in 2007.<ref name="pi-center">Template:Cite news</ref>
LegacyEdit
In 2015, two cousins of Kopechne's in Pennsylvania self-published the book Our Mary Jo, which sought to emphasize the influence of her life, rather than discuss Kennedy or Chappaquiddick.<ref name="our">Template:Cite news</ref> It also includes some of the hundreds of condolence letters that Kopechne's parents received.<ref name="tl-our">Template:Cite news</ref> Because Kopechne had been a strong believer in education and was deeply Catholic, family members started a scholarship fund in Kopechne's name at nearby Misericordia University.<ref name="our"/><ref name="tl-our"/>
In 2017, Kopechne was portrayed by actress Kate Mara in John Curran's film Chappaquiddick. Mara gives Kopechne a sympathetic interpretation, although much of the film takes place after her death.<ref name="hollywoodreporter1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
A full biography, Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of Mary Jo Kopechne (2020), was written by William C. Kashatus and published by Potomac Books.<ref name="al-2019">Template:Cite news</ref> Kashatus has said that he spent more than a decade researching the work, inspired by Kopechne as an exemplar of the culture of the Wyoming Valley area,
"where the people have a strong work ethic, very strongly Catholic at that period of time, and they raised their kids to respect themselves, respect other people, and work hard. And she really represented that to me."<ref name="al-2019"/>
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Kashatus, William C. Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of Mary Jo Kopechne and the Kennedy Brothers, Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2020.