Believe it or not, there are still things to be said about Chappaquiddick. One of them is that the real thing that protected Ted Kennedy from the wrath of the crowd after his failure of nerve in that night of dark water was much less his family’s money and power than the strength of the victim mystique.
This began with the death of Joseph Kennedy Jr., in 1944 in a suicide mission, continued with the death of their sister Kathleen Kennedy, and crested with the assassination of Jack Kennedy, which traumatized the whole nation. The unbelievable rerun with the murder of Bobby Kennedy sealed the image of the Kennedys as victims of fate and of horrible things which they bore with nobility. This had been so deeply engraved in the mind of the nation that the idea that one of their number could not be brave, could not be honest, and could be in fact the cause of harm coming to others seemed much too unreal be true.
Kennedys were killed; they didn’t kill people; tragedy sought them out, they didn’t invite it, they ran into danger, not from it.
Images of Ted before Chappaquiddick reinforce this impression of grace under pressure, and trials too great to be borne: his struggles to live when he broke his back in a plane crash, his struggles with pain during months in the hospital, his struggles to walk — slowly, on crutches — then his struggles to speak in St. Patrick’s Cathedral for his second brother to die in five years.
In the years after, Ted and his nephews would burn through much of the moral capital accrued by Jack, Bobby, and Joe Jr., but 1969 — so close to 1968, and to 1963, for that matter — was too early for a recalibration to occur in short order. It would occur later on.
Dynasties tend to play out their lives in an arc of three stages. The first is when the when the money is made, the name is established, and the foundation laid for the lift off. The second is when it comes to fruition, and the third, when it all falls apart. Bobby and Jack (like Jeb and George W. Bush) belonged to the second, where connections and money abound and are useful, but work, wit, and talent are used to survive.
Jack Kennedy and George W. worked hard and took chances: they were distinct underdogs in their breakout elections against Henry Cabot Lodge and Ann Richards; Jeb Bush would lose the first race he ran. By contrast, Ted Kennedy (against the wishes of his two older brothers) would stroll into the Senate at the ripe age of 30, having achieved and done nothing, and boasting little beyond his last name.
The fact that Jack, Bobby, and Ted were brothers together masks the fact that they belonged in reality to two generations, and were ages and eons apart, Jack and Joe Jr. were raised to be leaders, strictly brought up and held to high standards. Ted was the baby, there to amuse.
Jack and Joe Jr., volunteered in the war, and won medals for courage; Ted was kicked out of college for cheating, and spent two stressless years in the army in a pacified Germany many years after the war. The Kennedy legend, which began with PT-109, died at Chappaquiddick, where the script was played backward. One brother saved the rest of his crew, and pulled a shipmate to safety, while the other left a woman to die in his car.
