Chappaquiddick should have finished Kennedy

IT is interesting to note your coverage of Ted Kennedy’s life glosses over Chappaquiddick which quite rightly ended his presidential ambitions and should also have ended his political career in disgrace. It wasn’t just that he caused her death, but there is the manner in which he saved himself and left Mary Joe Kopechne to drown in the car he drove off the bridge.

He failed to raise the alarm or look for help, waiting until the following morning to even bother to report the accident. In the end, though guilty of reckless driving which caused the death of another individual, he merely had his driving licence suspended for six months. Does anybody familiar with the facts surrounding the death of Ms Kopechne seriously doubt that if his name hadn’t been Kennedy he would have been put behind bars?

A few years later, protesting Ford’s pardoning of Nixon, Kennedy asked: “Is there one system of justice for the average citizen and another system for the high and mighty?”

He would know, having had first-hand experience.

James McGrath

Birchgrove

Hollyford

Co Tipperary