In a recent issue of Phlit, I mentioned that I had sent my manuscript to a literary agent, and was awaiting a response. The response came: she isn’t interested, and she said that if I didn’t send her a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE), she would recycle it (discard it). All my lofty ambitions end in a recycle bin! The manuscript to which I’ve devoted my life is going to be turned into a paper cup or a napkin! Next time you drink from a paper cup, pause and reflect: “this may have once been a work that attempted to extend the boundaries of knowledge, to start a new religion, to synthesize the various branches of the humanities, and now it’s a container for my coffee. Sic transit gloria mundi.”
Then I got more bad news: the Argentine publisher to whom I sent my manuscript (at considerable expense) says he isn’t looking at any manuscripts until further notice. And my Brazilian contacts, in whom I reposed such high hopes, are complaining that my work isn’t politically correct.
At this moment, when the blows of Fortune were raining down on my head thick and fast, lo and behold, I receive an e-mail from Japan: “we’ve received your manuscript, and will give you a decision in January.” I answered their e-mail, and they wrote me again, saying that they publish books in English, and sell them around the world, especially in the U.S. They wanted to know if I would give them U.S. rights to my book.
My spirits rose: the Japanese publisher seemed interested in my work, perhaps they thought it has the sort of international appeal that is suitable for an international publisher. Stay tuned.
If you’ll permit me to “blow my own horn,” I’d like to share with you a flattering e-mail that I just received, an e-mail about my JFK essay:
“This is just a quick note to say your essay is one of the best things about the JFK assassination I’ve ever read. Great insight from a psychological point of view.”
Pleased with this feedback, I decided to set down my thoughts on another controversial incident involving the Kennedys, The Chappaquiddick Affair:
About six years after John Kennedy was assassinated, his younger brother, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, became involved in The Chappaquiddick Affair. Encyclopedia Britannica describes the incident thus: “On the night of July 18, 1969, [Ted Kennedy] accidentally drove his car off an unmarked bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and his companion in the car, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, was drowned. Kennedy was found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident.”
The local police chief, Dominick “Jim” Arena, first learned of the accident when he received a phone call, not from Kennedy, but from a Chappaquiddick resident. “‘I went over there and saw a car in the water upside down. You could just about see one of the tires,’ Arena said. ‘I borrowed a bathing suit and dove in. I couldn’t see much, because of the strong current. The top of the car was crushed. I couldn’t get in, so I sent for a scuba diver,’ he said. ‘He attached a rope to the girl and I assisted him in pulling her up,’ Arena said. He said it was after the body was on land that he received a call that Kennedy had arrived at the police station. ‘I have no recollection of how I got out of the car,’ Kennedy said.... Kennedy said he dove several times attempting to rescue her from the car.”1
Most people believed Kennedy’s story that he was driving the car when it went off the bridge; the Britannica article accepts that version of events unquestioningly. But most people didn’t think that Kennedy acted properly (he didn’t report the accident for about ten hours), and most people didn’t think that Kennedy told the whole truth about the affair. The affair cast a shadow over Kennedy’s political career. Before the affair, Kennedy was a front-runner for the ’72 Democratic nomination for President, but after the affair, he backed out of the Presidential campaign.
I believe that Kennedy’s version of events is completely false, and that he wasn’t driving the car when it went off the bridge. Here’s my version of the affair:
Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne were both at a party on Chappaquiddick Island at around 9 pm on July 18, 1969. On the map below, I marked the location of the party with a blue pin.
There were about 5-7 women at the party, around 25-30 years old, and about 5-7 men about ten years older. Several of the men were married, but none of their wives were at the party. Ted was staying at the Shiretown Inn (purple pin), Mary Jo and the other women were staying at the Katama Shores Motel (yellow pin). Two of the men were staying at the rented house where the party was held.
Ted and Mary Jo left the party together around midnight. They probably left hurriedly, Mary Jo seems to have ended up with another woman’s purse. They probably drove north (northeast) on Chappaquiddick Road.
Ted was driving. They passed Huck Look, an off-duty sheriff, who was driving south (southwest). They aroused the sheriff’s suspicions, perhaps because they were driving slowly.
They probably parked around my red pin, in what they thought was a secluded spot. Huck Look apparently turned his car around, and drove toward Kennedy’s car, perhaps to ask if they were lost. Kennedy’s car sped away, and probably headed east (southeast) toward Dike Bridge, Kennedy driving.
I believe Ted got out of the car, thinking that a policeman might be pursuing. He didn’t want to be caught with a young woman. He also didn’t want to be caught driving-while-intoxicated; both Ted and Mary Jo probably had too much to drink. After Ted got out, Mary Jo drove toward Dike Bridge, believing that a policeman might be pursuing. In fact, I’m not sure if Huck Look pursued the speeding car or not; perhaps he pursued as far as Dike Bridge, but didn’t notice the car in the water; perhaps he went home, and didn’t pursue.
After Ted got out of the car, he probably walked back to the party; if he was embarrassed at losing Mary Jo, he might have lain down in a friend’s car, and not entered the house. He probably assumed that Mary Jo made her way back to her hotel, though catching the ferry from Chappaquiddick to Edgartown at that late hour could have been difficult. Ted had no idea that Mary Jo had an accident or needed help.
Ted probably drove back to the ferry with friends. They took the ferry to Edgartown, and then walked the short distance to the Shiretown Inn, still not knowing that Mary Jo was in trouble, still assuming she was at the Katama Shores Motel.
One fact is beyond dispute: the car drove off Dike Bridge, and ended up on the south side (right side) of the bridge. As you’re driving southeast on Dike Road, you needed to turn leftward for the bridge, the bridge wasn’t directly in front of the road (it has been modified since 1969, so now it’s in front of the road, or nearly so). So if a car is out of control, it would tend to go off the bridge to the right. In 1969, the bridge had no guardrails (it does now).
It’s unlikely that Ted would drive off the bridge, since he was familiar with the car and with the area. It’s more likely that Mary Jo would drive off the bridge, since she wasn’t familiar with the car or the area. The seat of the car was adjusted for someone 6'2", while Mary Jo was only 5'2", so it was difficult for her to see the road. She was driving fast, believing she might be pursued. Considering all these factors, it would be surprising if she didn’t have an accident.
Once we assume that Mary Jo was driving, many mysteries are resolved. Why was Ted able to extricate himself from the car, but not extricate Mary Jo? Why did he have no recollection of how he extricated himself? This mystery is resolved: Ted wasn’t in the car when it went off the bridge.
Why didn’t Ted immediately seek help, when he wasn’t able to extricate Mary Jo from the car? Why didn’t he alert the authorities? Why did he leave Mary Jo to die? This mystery is resolved: Ted didn’t know that Mary Jo was in the water.
Why did he return to his hotel, and complain to the concierge about a noisy neighbor, as if he hadn’t a care in the world except sleeping? This mystery, too, is resolved: Ted assumed Mary Jo was asleep.
And why did Ted chat casually with hotel-guests the next morning? Because he still didn’t know that Mary Jo was dead.
So the whole incident makes sense if Mary Jo was driving, but nothing makes sense if Ted was driving. Yet still the world believes that Ted was driving; Wikipedia dismisses my theory as a “fringe theory.” Bernie Flynn, a state-police detective who investigated in 1969, said that Mary Jo was driving. Jim Arena, the first person to dive in the water, seemed receptive to the notion that Mary Jo was driving (I saw Jim Arena in a documentary).
Why do so many people cling to the conventional view that Ted was driving, though this view is highly unlikely? Are they indifferent to truth? Or do they fear the social pressure of accepting a heretical theory — is it easier to go with the flow, and accept the conventional view, for social reasons? Are they afraid of the social consequences of accepting a “fringe theory”?
Once Ted learned of Mary Jo’s death, he conferred with his advisers, and they decided that since it was his car, since people knew that he was with Mary Jo, and since he couldn’t admit to leaving the car, he had to pretend that he was driving the car when it rolled into the water. With Mary Jo dead, Ted was in a tight spot, he was “between a rock and a hard place.” There was no good option, no way to spin the story in a positive way. He and his advisers decided to tell a yarn that they thought was less damaging than the truth. They invented a string of lies to save Ted’s career; he even appeared in public with a neck brace, as if he had been injured in the accident.2
I recently received the following e-mail: “Read with interest your thesis on genius but would have liked to have read about both genders and how women may arrive at and display genius.”
I responded thus:
The point that you raise is an interesting one. In recent years, I’ve developed a deep interest in Jung, who emphasizes the genius that is in everyone, the genius that is in everyone’s unconscious. In a recent issue of my newsletter, I wrote, “Jung argues that every individual carries deep wisdom in his unconscious, and every individual is capable of listening to this wisdom, learning from it, and adjusting his life in response to it. Jungians find deep wisdom in fairy tales from all races and nations.” Most people don’t tap into the genius that is in their unconscious. Women can tap into this genius just as well as men can; in this respect, the genders are equal.
Perhaps there are two kinds of genius, the universal kind that’s in everyone’s unconscious, and the particular kind that manifests itself in novels, paintings, scientific theories, etc. Examples of the particular kind are Shakespeare, Einstein, Leonardo, etc. The particular kind is, in my view, very rare, and is beyond the reach of the vast majority of people. On the other hand, people can surely create novels and paintings of value even though they don’t have the talent of Shakespeare, etc.
[This section is now Chapter 11 of my book Conversations With Great Thinkers.]
© L. James Hammond 2004
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| Footnotes | |
| 1. | An AP news story, quoted in Microsoft Encarta. back |
| 2. | I don’t claim that my Chappaquiddick theory is original, just as I don’t claim that my theory of the JFK assassination is original. Both theories were influenced by TV documentaries. My Chappaquiddick theory was influenced by a 2-hour “Investigative Reports” documentary that I saw in July, 1994.
Click here or here for essays that make the same argument. back |