April 13, 2018 • 53 mins
On July 18th, 1969, campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne and Senator Ted Kennedy were involved in a single-car accident while departing a reunion held at Chappaquiddick island. Only one of them made it it out of the car alive. In the hours, days, weeks, years and decades since, numerous people have tried and failed to come up with conclusive answers about the sequence of events leading to Kopechne's tragic death. Join Ben and Matt as they interview Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, the screenwriters behind the film Chappaquiddick, as they retrace their steps researching and writing the story, including their inspirations, their beliefs about what actually occurred, and why it's crucial to remember this incident in the modern day.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our
trustee co host nol is off on a completely non
sketchy mission, but will be returning. They called me Ben.
We're joined with our super producer Paul Decan. Give him
a hand, Folks, friends and neighbors, but most importantly, give
a hand to yourself. You are here, You are you,
(00:45):
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today, Matt,
you and I are diving into a crucial event in
American history, one that, despite quite possibly changing the course
of American politics, is relatively obscure to a lot of
(01:08):
people living today, especially younger members of our audience. Yes, you,
you and I know about this because we've been paid
to delve into historical strangeness for quite a time now,
and a lot of people listening are going to be
familiar with the story we discussed today because of their
interest in these things. But overall the American public is,
(01:28):
maybe especially younger people, are not aware of this. Uh.
It's something that happened on July eighth, nine sixty nine,
one day, essentially one night, and it changed the course
of one man's life, uh quite a bit. And today
we have two gentlemen on the show who wrote an
(01:50):
entire screenplay about that day and the aftermath, why it occurred,
what occurred, and UM, we're we're going to jump right
in and introduce them right now. That's great, the screenwriters
of chap Aquittic, Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan. Welcome to
the show, gentlemen, Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much for happy for having I was
(02:10):
really excited to be here. So let's jump right in,
and today we're discussing the Kennedy Family, an American institution,
a group of people who have captured the fascination of
Americans for decades upon decades. And let's first start off
by discussing just how powerful the Kennedy institution was in
(02:30):
the nineteen sixties. So, yeah, the Kennedy family, UM, you know,
was u for sure, you know, one of the most
powerful families and American politics in the um. John F.
Kennedy was obviously president in the early sixties and Robert F.
Kennedy was running for president in nine when he was
(02:53):
tragically assassinated, and our story takes place the year after
UM Bobby's assassination a year later, when his younger brother
Ted Kennedy goes to U at Marcus Vineyards to have
a to host a party for a group of women
called the boiler Room Girls, who are actually Bobby Kennedy
(03:16):
uh campaign a um. And they were there to sort
of uh, you know, celebrate the memory of the you know,
recently deceased an older Kennedy brother. And much has been
made over the tone or the atmosphere of this gathering.
(03:36):
We know that there were let's see, what were there
four boiler room girls in attendance at this time, six
spoiler room girls actually, and they were all single and
the five of the men that were there were all married,
which led to a lot of um surlous rumors and
(03:57):
headlines about what that might mean because of the more
rays at the time in the late nineteen sixty UM.
But one thing that is good to get on the
record now is that, as Andrew said, the boiler room
girls were campaign workers and UM strategists, honestly, and that
in the newspapers at the time, they were often mischaracterized
(04:21):
as secretaries, and I think that that added to the
sort of humor and misinformation that had taken prominence in
the press at the time, because honestly, these were very smart,
very capable women, and they were very close with the
Kennedy family because of how skilled they were and how
(04:42):
close they became with the Senator Robert F. Kennedy over
the prior year. Do you do you feel that the
newspapers and media outlets of the time were pursuing a
salacious angle with the with the goal of maybe making
the the gathering seem more lurid than it actually was
(05:04):
with this, you know, with this mischaracterization as secretaries versus strategists. Undoubtedly,
I think that that was where people's minds went, and
I think that it was covered that way in part
to push newspapers, but in part just because of um
a problem that you know, is still a problem today
(05:25):
where you try to present both sides of the argument,
and at the end of the day, there was no foundation,
in fact, uh in discernible truth, that anything immoral was happening.
It was simply a party, It was simply a reunion,
and there was nothing else to it other than that
(05:46):
there was kind of a history at least with John F.
Kennedy and a little bit with Robert in having um
interactions with women outside of their marriage. So for you know,
there was something to it. But but as you said,
probably wasn't actually anything salacious. UM. So who who specifically
one of the boiler room girls who was Mary Joe Capecney.
(06:08):
Mary Joe Capecne is the victim in this case. UM.
She ends up, you know, dying as a result of
uh actions that Ted Kennedy took and didn't take. And
for us, when we were researching her, what we found was,
(06:28):
you know, the most brilliant and you know, a woman
of the highest standard. Um. And it was really a
life cut way too short. And so that's why in
the movie we really tried to honor her memory by
having her express all of her talent, to show how
(06:49):
everyone around her thoughts she was so talented, and to
show how she really did have a lot of dreams
and ambitions. And one of the lines that I quite
like is when she describes the difference between politics and
public service and uh in speaking with the family about
her Um, she was definitely not in it for the politics.
(07:13):
She was in it to serve the public interests. And
I really appreciate the point you make about a life
cut short, because she was twenty eight on the night
of this incident. And when we, like many others, look
back at the timeline, what we see is that for
(07:37):
many years afterwards, questions remained. Could you could you walk
us through briefly the the timeline, the events and the
order in which we believe they transpired after Kennedy and
Capecni left the gathering. Okay, so I'm going to try
to walk this through as simply as possible while pointing out, um,
(08:02):
what is on the record and by whom. Um. They
were there in Martha's vineyard that weekend for the edgar
Town Regatta. Uh and Ted Kennedy came in night that
day and after the race they went back to Chappaquittic Island,
which important to the story, is a ferry ride off
(08:23):
of the mainland. Uh. There's no way to access it
other than by ferry, and UM, no one was planning
on staying at chappa Quittic that evening. Uh. Ted Kennedy
had a room in Edgartown at the Shiretown Inn. UH.
(08:44):
All the boiler room girls had a room at a
different hotel on the mainland. And the only person I
think that was actually going to stay on Chappquittic Island
was the person who arranged for the party, and that
was Ted Kennedy's cousin, Joe Garden, and he becomes very
important the story as we continue. As we said, the
party was simply that a cookout with friends. Reminiscing music
(09:09):
was played. We now we assumed there was dancing. Ultimately,
one of the boiler room girls asked us to cut
out the dancing, so there's no dancing in the movie anymore. Uh.
And what Ted Kennedy has said and what many of
the boiler room girls said under oath, was that Ted
Kennedy and Mary Joe left at eleven fifteen. Ted Kennedy
(09:33):
has said that Mary Joe said that she wasn't feeling
well and that he was taking her back to her hotel.
I don't know if we're getting too deep into the
weeds here, but I'll tell you that Mary Joe left
her purse with her hotel room key at the cottage,
and so it leads to questions about how she was
expecting to get into her room if that was the
taste um. Ted Kennedy says that the accident happened shortly
(09:57):
thereafter after he made a wrong turn turn off of
Main Road onto Dike Road. UM. This is again a
very complicated thing to try to describe an audio, but uh,
to say that this was a mistaken turn is a
little bit stretching credulity. Because Main Road is a paved road,
(10:20):
it is obviously the way that you would go to
get to the ferry. Tamy has been back and forth
on the ferry multiple times that day and probably hadn't
been many times in his life prior to that. Uh.
It's also a curved road that curves left. Um, so
it's not like you would go to a stop sign
and then make a right turn. It was a continual,
(10:42):
just you know, left hand curve. So according to take
Kenny's testimony, he makes this accidental right turn onto the
unpaved and very bumpy Dike Road and travels for approximately
half a mile to Dyke Bridge, which at the time
had no guardrails and was to his point, built at
(11:03):
an angle to the road, and he drove off and
the mystery around how he got out of the car
is something that continues to fascinate people. I will actually
dismiss this right now and say that his window was
rolled down, and it's not implausible to assume that he
(11:28):
was able to get out of that window with relative ease. Uh,
especially in a life you know, preserving moment obviously. UM.
In his testimony, he says that he tried to dive
down several times to retrieve Mary Joe and was unsuccessful. UM.
(11:50):
And then this is the point where I have to
bring in other points of view and other notions about
what the truth might be, and certainly what me and
Andrew believed the truth is. And that's that UM. As
we said, Ted Kennedy puts the accident around eleven p m.
(12:11):
And the reason that he does that is because the
last ferry leaves at midnight. And so when I tell
you that a sheriff deputy deputy officer Huck Look saw
an oldsmobile matching Ted Kennedy's oldsmobile's description with a license
plate beginning with L, the same letter that said Kennedy's
(12:31):
license late begin with remembering it also had two sevens,
which Ted Kennedy's license plate had. I think it's very
credible that a police officer and I witnessed says that
that oldsmobile went through that intersection at am. I now
described this as the missing hour. In that missing hour,
(12:57):
we don't know what happened, but I'm willing to believe
that Teg, Dammy and Mary Joe left the level of
team as long as we can also believe that they
were not seeing again until twelve. Okay, So ultimately the
car ends up in the water, it's overturned and said
Kennedy does get out of the vehicle, but Mary Joe
(13:20):
does not. Um, let's just continue with the story because
I think our listeners want to know exactly how you
believe it's happened, now that you've done all the research
and constructed an entire story around it. Yeah, and I
think this is the perfect place to interject that where
we got our facts wasn't from uh conspiracy theory paperback
(13:40):
of some people have suggested, Um, we actually got the
court records into the inquestion to the death of Mary
Joe Copectni where everyone involved, everybody at the party actually
was reconvened in Martha's vineyard about six months later and
had to speak to these events under oath and for us,
(14:01):
that primary source of people that lived through it speaking
under oath. That's the most sure research that we could do.
And that's why we felt like if we stuck to
the facts that we learned from that testimony, that we
were doing our best to recreate and interpret what happened
(14:21):
that night. And I think that one thing that really
stands out for us and hopefully for viewers of the
film as well, is the fact driven spine of the narrative.
As you can tell listeners, as Taylor is walking through
the timeline of events here, Uh, everyone's being being very
(14:44):
deliberate in saying, uh, this is the attribution of this description.
And as as you have established, Matt, the the ultimate,
the the ultimate sticking or lack of unified perspective here
(15:05):
does come about in the in the hours following uh,
the and in the hours following the incident. Uh. I
really appreciate Tiller the term you use there, the missing hour,
because this sounds like one period of time where there
is no witness between you know, between this uh, this
(15:31):
period from shortly after eleven too after twelve there. Uh.
And it maybe too far to ask what the to
ask for conjecture on what would have happened, uh during
that missing hour, But we do know that after the incident,
based on Kennedy's accounts, based on the innkeepers accounts and
(15:54):
a few other accounts of phone calls and stuff, we
do have a rough timeline of what Kennedy was probably
doing in the hours following the accident. Is that correct? Absolutely?
And I'll tell you even more. We read his autobiography,
as I think anybody would that was trying to tell
the story seriously, and he talks a lot about what
(16:18):
he was thinking and feeling during these intervening hours as well.
And so I'll continue on from where we kind of
left off, and it kind of lines up perfectly with
the point that I wanted to make, which is um
that Ted Kennedy does escape from the car, and I
do believe that he probably tried to rescue Mary Joe,
(16:40):
but he was unsuccessful because the current was very strong,
his back was bad from a plane crash in nine
I'm sure that it was probably not easy for him
to enter that vehicle. And then we get to the
first negligent decision that for me is inexcusable, even if
(17:02):
it might be understandable. And I want to make a
clear delineation between something that I think that is understandable
and forgivable. UM. And I tried to get into the
psychology of Ted Kennedy. And the first moment that you
hit a real bump is that there's a house called
(17:22):
the Dike House. Um, not more than a hundred yards
from that Dike Bridge, and UM, he walks past it,
and it had its light on that evening. And I
feel like any person who has gotten into an accident,
(17:43):
one where someone's life is in danger or you know,
worst case scenario, already dead, it is your responsibility to
report that accident. I think that it's fair to say,
based off of what Ted Kennedy has said in interviews
(18:05):
and elsewhere, that he immediately realized that this accident was
going to have great impact on his political career. Now,
I am not directly attributing that to the reason why
he didn't report the accident immediately to whoever lived in
the Dike House, but that was on his mind. And
(18:28):
so he makes approximately about a mile and a half
walk back from Dike Bridge to Lawrence Cottage where the
party was taking place, and he passes several houses along
the way, and this is a walk that me and
Andrew have made ourselves and made recently when we showed
the movie in Martha Svineyard for the Martha Syneyard Film Festival.
It's a twenty five minute walk. It's a long walk.
(18:51):
There's a lot that could go through one's mind. And
in the movie, Ted Kennedy gets into the back seat
of the Valiant, the other car that the party had
on the island that night, and he asked for his cousin,
Joe Gargon, And in the movie, Ted Kennedy tells Joe Gargon,
(19:13):
I'm never going to be president. Now. This line has
created a lot of consternation in the Kennedy camp and
uh in certain opinion pieces that have run in the
New York Times, etcetera. Uh, it is my invention. That
is Andrew's invention that that he said that in that moment,
But it is based off of the fact that Ted
(19:34):
Kennedy acknowledged that he did recognize immediately that his political
career has been impacted by this accident. Also in terms
of we talked about negligent behavior in terms of this
walk back to the um what's referred to as the
Lawrence Cottage where the party was being held um that
(19:55):
he also, in addition to the Dike house which had
their light on outside and the occupants of that home,
we're there, he also walked right by a fire station
which was almost directly across the street from the Lawrence cottage,
which is another which would have been another opportunity for
him to go seek help UH to um for immediate
(20:19):
UH to get help for Mary Joe immediately. Well, I
will paraphrase said Kennedy's speech to the entire nation at
the end of the movie by saying, it was only
for reasons of budget that this fire station was not
included in the film. And at this point we're going
to pause the narrative briefly. We will return to the
(20:42):
events of chap Aquittic there in sixty nine after a
word from our sponsor, and we have returned. When we
examine the event of this night, and as as Taylor
(21:03):
and Andrew are already establishing here, it's it's inarguable that
Kennedy would have would have had to would have anticipated
uh political consequences of some sort, right even even immediately
after the event. One of the big questions that members
(21:24):
of our audience are going to have immediately is who
did he talk to that night, And if possible, without
relying too much on conjecture, what what was the substance
of those conversations Because to the earlier points he walked past,
he bypassed houses that had that that had the lights on,
(21:48):
right a fire station, where wherein one would assume, just
on on surface, we would we would assume that after
an accident, especially with another person still left at the
scene of the accident, the first move you would take
is to contact an authority figure. So who were the
(22:10):
people that he contacted before contacting the police or the
fire department. I'm so excited that you asked this question
the way that you did, because I get to talk
about one of the details that we tried desperately to
make into the movie and in any iteration became too
expository to explain. Um. That is that the first person
(22:34):
that he talked to was a gentleman named ray L
Rosa who was at the party at Lawrence Cottage. I
believe that he was a certified diverer. Uh. Certainly he
had a lot of experience uh diving scoopa in the ocean,
et cetera. And he is the very first person that
Ted talks to and what he tells him is get
(22:58):
Joe Gargan, we've got a problem. And for Andrew and I,
this was already kind of a shocking thing for everyone
to agree on the record to be exactly what happened.
He was not interested in telling ray La Rosa, a
(23:18):
friend of his and someone that could have helped what
had happened. He first wanted to talk to somebody that
he was very close with and arguably one of the
people that Ted was closest within the world, his cousin
Joe Garden. And I should note here that Joe Garden
was not simply a cousin. I have cousins that I
haven't talked to in five years. He was kind of, uh,
(23:41):
Ted Kennedy's go to advanced man who would go and
advance his Ted to every location that would go to
to prepare everything. And that he actually lived with the
Kennedy's as his father and mother had died tragically at
a young age, and so he and his sister end
up being with the Kennedy's and they feel so indebted
(24:02):
to the Kennedy's that actually and his sister is Joe
Kennedy seniors nurse who you see in the film all
the way through the rest of his life, so very
close relationship, is my point. So rayl Rossa goes inside
and he grabs Joe Garden and the next thing out
of Ted Kennedy's mouth is you better get Paul Markham too,
(24:23):
who is very close with the Kennedy family, and was
you know, not more than six months prior the U
S Attorney to the State of Massachusetts. And this is
a high power, very intelligent group of loyal Kennedy campaign friends.
(24:43):
Now I do want to point out really quick on
Paul Markham. Uh, he's the absolute worst person at the
party to ask for help in any sort of rescue
mission because he's the only person of the party who
is suffering from a significant injury which he sustained uh
in the boat that they were racing. Actually, in reality,
(25:05):
he got that injury voting on the way from wherever
it was originally dr to Martha's vineyards. We put it
in during the race. I hope that you don't mind. Uh.
We thought that that was an acceptable fudge. Um. But
so he is walking with a limp throughout throughout the
weekend because he's injured, and yet this is one of
(25:25):
the two people that Ted kemothy as requested to help,
and according to Garden's testimony, it was still moments later
before Ted actually explained what was going on, and it
was on their drive over that he explains that there
was an accident and the car has gone off the
(25:46):
bridge and married Joe is inside. And again strange behavior,
uh in reality and in the movie, and very few
people seem to care about this inexplicable decision. Joe Gargan
and Paul Markham stripped down to their underwear to jump
into the pucha pon to try to rescue her. I
(26:10):
don't understand this, and I would love to turn it
to the host and see if you can help me.
You know, to this day, I still have plummax by
why two men trying to save a woman would need
to strip down. It seems like the urgency would have
you wanting to either a make a phone call to
somebody more capable or be just jump right in, as
(26:32):
someone's life might be at stake. Yeah, it's a question
that many people. I believe you're trying to answer. One
one argument might be the idea of of course, the
most immediate argument would be let's keep this between us.
Let's uh, let's resolve this and you know, let's get
(26:53):
the other person in the vehicle out safely. We can
all go home, get warm and then called insurance folks tomorrow. Right,
that would be that would be the most immediate assumption.
What do you think, Matt, Well, when you take into
account the roles that all three of the men had,
um the the third person that was with them, wasn't
(27:14):
he what was his role? Yeah? The U S Attorney
to the State of Massachusetts. So okay, So these these
are men who have powerful positions and know the law.
So there, I believe they're most likely saying on multiple occasions, Ted,
you've got to call the cops. Yes. So my my
(27:36):
thought of them stripping down to their underwear is not
maybe a little bit of self preservation and that they
could put their clothes back on sands underwear after jumping
in and look as though nothing had happened, if they
needed to have that option. That's my only thinking I
mean with that regards. So I'll tell you making a
(27:58):
movie as an evolutionary process, and we learned a lot
throughout writing the script and coming up with the way
to best tell the truth. As we knew it. And
so to this point about what you just said. In
the script, you'll see that the line from Joe Gargan
as they're stripping down is coming back in what clothes?
(28:23):
Doesn't give us many options or something to that effect,
And in the movie it comes across in the sound
makes very deliberately as a New York Times interview with
Donald Trump, and it's just scarbled. Uh But uh, ultimately
I feel like that is the right decision for the movie,
because we do know for a fact that they did
(28:45):
strip down, but we really don't know why. You did
a great job making it the most plausible version, at
least in my mind. Um So, okay, all of this
is going down. There's much more to the story about
what actually happens following the incident, but I kind of
want to leave some of that to the to the
(29:06):
person who's going to eventually watch the movie. Um So
I'd like to jump into while while this is occurring,
what else is happening in the United States and world
news that kind of exists as a cover for this incident. Well,
I don't know about cover, but it's happening concurrently. It's okay,
(29:27):
it's not a cover. It provides um the a one
position in a newspaper, right, well, this other thing that's
occurring in the news. Another way to put it is
that it is thematically the most relevant thing that could
possibly be happening at the time. And for me as
a writer, it was one of the reasons why this
(29:50):
story had to be told cinematically for the first time
was that this is the weekend of the moon landing.
And so what you have is the greatest residents of
the John F. Kennedy presidential legacy, the greatest achievement of
his older brother, and possibly the lowest moment for Ted
(30:11):
Kennedy as Senator. And considering our premise and our understanding
of Ted as a human being, was that as the
youngest Kennedy, he never expected the spotlight to be on him,
and in fact, not even John F. Kennedy expected the
spotlight to be on him. Everyone assumed that Joe Jr.
(30:32):
The eldest, was you know, the prodigal son, and then
he died tragically in World War Two, and then that
led to, you know, everyone hoping for John F. Kennedy
to run for president, and obviously he didn't became president,
and only after two more tragedies. With the assassinations of
John and Bobby, did suddenly all the hopes and dreams
(30:52):
of the Kennedy legacy rest on Ted shoulders. And for us,
you know, we looked at it like as a sort
of Shakespearean sort of tray today leading into the events
of this weekend, and that's what made it easier to
understand how Ted made some of the wrong decisions that
he made that weekend. And with this, uh, with this
(31:15):
confluence of events, we we see several things happening, right.
We we see, as Matt said, the a one story
the net and as you said, Taylor, the when one
of the high points of JF. Kay's career occur at
the same time as this tragedy. So perhaps there wasn't
(31:40):
as much media attention on it as there otherwise would
have been, but investigations did occur. And one of the
things that we noticed in the film is that when
we fast forward a bit, when authorities finally do recover
Copectny's body, one one person believes that she may have
(32:05):
been dead or expired before the accident. UH, the argument
being that there was not enough water in her lungs
for her to have drowned. H was this possibility actually examined,
you know, in real in real life by the investigators. UM,
so I want to sort of make clear how uh
(32:31):
Mary Joe was positioned in the car, so excuse a
long visual description. UM. She was in the backseat of
the car, and that has led to a lot of
confusion about Oh, maybe she wasn't even writing as a passenger.
Maybe she was asleep in the back and all that
doesn't make any sense. Acam's razor tells us that Ted
(32:55):
Kennedy testified under oath that she was the passator. People
all testified that she left. There's reason to believe that
to be very true. UM. What's also very interesting about
the way that she was positioned is that her arms
were the car's upside down, I should say, UM, and
(33:16):
her arms are clutched into the floorboards again upside down
in the car, UM to prop herself up, and her
neck is craned it away where her mouth is fluted upwards.
And the only person saw Mary Joe in the car
(33:36):
is a man named John Farrar, who um was a
volunteer for the fire department, I believe, and was the
diver that you know suited up and got into the
car to excavate her out of the vehicle, and he
said that it quote looked like she was gasping for
a last breath of air. And this is where we
(33:59):
get into something really interesting, which is that I know
that Ted Kennedy assumed that, you know, minutes after the accident,
that she had to have drowned. That's not an unreasonable
conclusion for someone to make. But once you start researching this,
you find out that even before this accident, there's a
(34:21):
woman in New Zealand, I believe, and I think you
know the mid nineteen sixties who survived for two hours
in a very similar accident in an air pocket. And
because someone called, they were able to get this New
Zealand woman out of the car and save her life.
And that's what John Farrar has said under oath, and
(34:43):
when we talked to him personally, he said, I could
have gotten her out of that car in twenty minutes
of someone and called, but no one called. Wow, jeezus.
So with this in mind, with the questions that came
into being the night a the incident, the hours and
days following, and even the years uh following, we do
(35:05):
have Uh, some inevitable consequences that that we've mentioned before.
Let's explore those after a word from our sponsor. Welcome
back everyone. Let's begin by quickly discussing the political machine
(35:28):
that was standing directly behind Ted Kennedy. As all of
this is going down, he contacts his father, and his father,
at least according to the film, puts him in touch
with a whole host of political advisors and lawyers who
then began constructing the narrative of what happened. What they're
(35:49):
what the official stance is, What the official story is, um,
And let's just go through just a bit of that
before we hit uh, kind of the aftermath. Yeah, this
is a perfect topic to talk about today. The movie
came out in theaters today as we're recording this, and
the New York Times just published an opinion piece by
(36:10):
a gentleman who's uh writing a new biography about Ted Kennedy,
who um inexplicably thinks that, uh, this is not something
to be included in the public Yeah, discussion about Ted
Kennedy at the moment, as he has in this writer's opinion,
not moved onto the public domain. Again, I can't quite
(36:32):
understand that, but his His biggest issue with the movie
UH is a theme that we had to invent, which
is UH that when Ted returns to the main land
UH to his hotel UH, he goes to the pay
(36:54):
phone out front and he calls hiantus Port where his father,
who's a victim and has trouble communicating, lives and Ted
explains to his father in the scene what has occurred,
and he is incredibly remorseful and unsure of what to do.
And the one word that his father is able to
(37:16):
speak is alibi. And this is conjecture on Andrew and
my part, but more it is talking to an emotional
truth and a thematic truth that we feel is incredibly
relevant to Ted. And here's what I'm trying to say.
(37:39):
We know that this accident occurred, and that Ted didn't
report it even after your return to the shire town
in and then we also know that you know, presumably
according to Ted Kennedy's testimony, about an hour after he
returned to the shire town End, he went down to
talk to a hotel clerk and he asked for the time.
(38:04):
He is all dry. Now, there's nothing visually apparent about
him that he's been in an accident, and the hotel
clerk said that although something seemed off, there was nothing
unusual about his appearance. Now, asking for the time is
what you do if you're trying to create an alibi
(38:24):
for yourself in a situation where a crime might have
been might have occurred. And I do think that, as
we said about the other line, I'll never be president,
that he has suggested that he did consider the impact
that this would have on his political career. We've already
discussed the moon landing in the Kennedy legacy and how
(38:44):
much that weighs on his shoulders. I don't think that
it is at all a step too far to say
that his father's opinion of this probably weighed on him,
and that what he might have concluded is that this
would be a huge black mark on the Kennedy legacy.
(39:05):
And then we know that he did something that looked
a lot like crafting an alibi, and that's how the
scene seemed to be. And I have no shame in
admitting that it is an invention. There are phone records
that imply that calls were made from that pay phone
collects calls, et cetera. I I don't know, but I
(39:25):
feel like it is incredibly relevant to his character and
the emotions he was going through. And the other thing
that people I've seen right about as well, specifically with
the alibi lines, that Joe Kennedy, you know, had had
a massive stroke and couldn't really speak, And it was
actually something that Taylor and I really discussed it Lincoln.
(39:48):
We were writing the script because obviously we wanted to
get it actually correct, and we knew that he had
a stroke, and we knew that he UM that his
speech was impaired, and so what we is up doing
his finding a recording of UM President Johnson calling Joseph
Kennedy from the Oval office and Ted Kennedy was actually
(40:09):
in the Oval office with LBJ as well, and in
this recording, uh, you can hear exactly what Joe Kennedy
sounds like, which is that he's able to utter actual
words and that he's got the heavy breathing on the
other end of the line. And you know, I just
think it's important that people know that we did our
due diligence and as much research as we could to
(40:29):
make this as actual as possible. And I should say
this call with President Join took place in so you know,
just over a year before these events, and although Joseph
Kennedy's health may have deteriorated from there, even at the time.
A line in the movie that Ted says is in
(40:50):
this phone call, and that's you're still the man with
all the influence, referring to his father. And that's why
it was not surprising to us or too far of
a stretch when we read the incredibly influential advisors that
were at Hyena Sport as soon as Ted arrived. Included
(41:11):
people like former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, included John F. Kennedy,
speech writer Ted Sorenson, Congressman, great lawyers, Burke Marshall, Sergeant Driver, etcetera.
Just you know, men of great historical stature, all were
already convened for helping Ted navigate his way out of
(41:34):
this crisis. And so Ted in the movie says, you're
still demand with all the influence to his father. And
I don't think that it's, you know, too far of
a stretch to suggest that perhaps old Joe was able
to still hold some strengths agreed at least on our end,
That almost seems that almost seems without question or perhaps
(42:00):
naive to assume otherwise. And as we're as we're exploring, uh,
your collective experience writing this screenplay and bringing this story
to the large screen and thus, you know, to the
public at large, we'd like to ask some questions about
(42:22):
your experience and what you found afterwards. And we'd like
to begin by asking what inspired the two of you
two go so far into this research to pursue this
story above other ones. Because you had mentioned before that
there was maybe some controversy about this cinematic look at it,
(42:46):
but you conducted interviews, you actually walked the road, Uh,
you delved into court records. What what was the impetus
for you to pursue this despite the obstacles that may
have been put up in your path. Um, you know
one word answer my evany uh longer but still quotable answer. Uh.
(43:10):
Both Andrew and I are lifelong Democrats and incredibly huge
fans of the work that Ted Kennedy did a senator,
especially after nineteen and it was actually at one of
his most historic moments when he endorsed h then Senator
(43:30):
Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the two thousand eight
primary in what was unexpected and considered by many to
be a game changing moment in that election cycle. And
we were and still are incredibly huge fans of Barack Obama.
I you know, really missed that man in the Oval Office.
(43:54):
And so when we were watching Real Time with Bill
Maher that night, Bill Maher was like Ted Kennedy changing
presidential history again. You know, he would have been president
in nineteen seventy two had it not been for Chap
a critic. And Andrew and I had never heard of
this before. We didn't even know how to spell it
(44:15):
when we went to the Google machine to try to
type it in and figure out what Bill was talking about.
And for us, because this story was undertold and to
a generation younger than my parents, I think, completely obscure,
that was the reason why we were dying to tell
(44:38):
this story. And it became clear quickly that this was,
you know, an important story and one that a lot
of rumor and conspiracy theories had you know, gotten a
lot of traction. You know, the Wikipedia is littered with
conspiracy nuts. Uh, And for us, that was the reason
(45:01):
why we wanted to get to the truth as best
we could find it. Also, Uh, Andrew's dad as a lawyer,
and so I think, yeah, Andrew was very inspired, much
like Psychomoty, to honor his father's legacy and UH stick
to the facts as we could find them. So, so,
(45:22):
what were some of the as you as you said,
the film Chappaquittic has only recently been released in theaters,
what were some of the things you ran into that
might be considered obstacles in the course your research. And
what have the reactions been like so far as as
the film has been screened or encountered by both film
(45:48):
critics or analysts, but then also by people who have
some sort of personal or professional relationship with the uh,
with the individuals in the story. I'm gonna say something
so sounds like marketing, but it is the God's honest truth.
I have been overwhelmed by the positive reaction from audiences
(46:09):
and film critics alike about this movie. Um, I knew
that we were you know, by the time we were
making this movie, I finally understood that we were dealing
with what was a third rail in political history, and
it's like the original source of what aboutism in our
(46:30):
modern political history. And for me, I expected the reactions
to sadly be divided on partisan lines, but in reality,
I have been so, you know, eager and excited to
read these reviews and see these audience reactions, and everyone
(46:50):
feels incredibly passionate about how this story has finally been told.
And even the people that are critical of the movie,
I think acknowledge that this did happen and it's something
that deserves reexamination. I couldn't agree more. Uh, watching this film,
(47:11):
my reaction to it, specifically to watching that political machine happened,
because it's something that I had imagined after just reading
about the story. Those scenes, I imagine them in my
head and you captured them almost too well. The the
unnerving feeling that if a powerful person gets in trouble,
(47:33):
there is this institution that can come through and basically
save you, um, you know, somewhat by changing details somewhat,
just by controlling the situation and just by making the
optics correct for what you need. I want to jump
to well, just we'll we'll say this. There was a
(47:56):
press conference televised, well, it was more of a televised
statement that Ted Kennedy gave no questions, no questions at
this time. Yeah, you couldn't have anybody there. There were
a lot of stipulations about it. It was just Ted
Kennedy speaking to the camera and that was on July nine,
sixty nine. And in the film, he is having a
(48:18):
just a quick discussion with Joe Gargan and I'm just
gonna feed this line and see if you can give
me the one that comes right after it. Moses had
a temper, Peter betrayed Jesus, I have chap a quittic.
Moses had a temper, but he didn't leave a girl
at the bottom of the Red six. Oh dude, talk
(48:40):
about some screenwriting there, guys. I uh, that that hit
home like perfectly. It was just an awesome line, and
it made it really encapsulated everything that you had seen
and experienced up until that moment, because Joe's character played
by Ed Helms, really is kind of the human side
to this story at least it feels that way, the
(49:03):
conscience that exists within this story. And I really appreciated
that you brought that in in that that moment of
I don't know that the moment where Ted was trying
to reach greatness to be a Kennedy and he had
to kind of make a decision there about whether he
wanted to move forward as a politician or kind of
(49:26):
let it go. And I just I don't know, I
really appreciate what you did there. I don't really I
don't know if I have a question about that so much.
It's not really a question, it's just I appreciate it. Uh.
You know, I certainly myself have had moments where you know,
Chris Farley and uh, Paul McCartney comes to mind. So
I appreciate the question, non question, but uh, to your point,
(49:51):
I do want to say for the listeners out there,
if you do see the movie, um, the seem that
he's referring to, Joe Garden ends up doing something immediately
afterwards during the reading of the cell Avice statement that
I actually won't spoil here, but I do want to
say that, as unbelievable as it may seem, that is
(50:15):
exactly true, and that Joe Gargen did, in fact suffer
the indignity that we show him suffering. Wow. And if
you want to learn what we're referring to, the best
way to do it is to check out the film
chap Equitic in theaters near you. Yeah, as we're recording this,
(50:38):
it's premiering today in theaters, and we want to thank
you Taylor and you Andrew so much for coming on
the show with us and exploring this all too often
neglected chapter in American history. And and folks, as you're
(50:58):
thinking about the episode today, you have to ask yourself, inevitably,
how would the course of history have changed had this
incident not occurred, or had it been processed differently by
by Kennedy by the media at large. Yeah, you teat
(51:21):
it up perfectly by saying how would history have been different?
And what I'll say is that now after researching for
the film, and hopefully for your audience after seeing the film. Um,
the movie ends with a sort of you know, jaywalking
man on the Street interview where people are asked what
they thought of this televised statement and more pointedly, would
(51:44):
they still vote for him? And with the you know
joy of Monday morning quarterbacking and knowing all the great
things that he did as senator and that maybe he
might have changed presidential election history a second time in
two thousand and eight with Rock Obama. For me, one
of the driving questions of wanting to tell the story
(52:05):
was was it worth it was? Ted Kennedy is going
on to be senator for so many more years becoming
the lion of the Senate and driving through policies that
agree with was that the right choice? And for me,
the only answer I ever came up with was that
(52:26):
the truth has no political party. And that was true
in nineteen nine, and that is especially true today in
two thousand and eighteen. The midterms are coming up. I
would love another re examination of the truth for executive branch.
So that's that's my point that I had to make.
That is a fantastic point and very well said. The
(52:48):
truth has no allegiance other than to the facts. And
that's our show for today, folks, our interview with Taylor
Allen and Andrew Logan. The screen ride of chap Equittic
in theaters near you as we record this and as
you listen to it. We will be back very soon
(53:09):
with more stuff they don't want you to know. In
the meantime, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,
and if you think that social media is a big
brew ha ha and uh, you'd rather talk to us directly,
take a line from Taylor and Andrews book, Go to
your primary sources. The good news is you can write
to us directly. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
(53:32):
dot com,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our
trustee co host nol is off on a completely non
sketchy mission, but will be returning. They called me Ben.
We're joined with our super producer Paul Decan. Give him
a hand, Folks, friends and neighbors, but most importantly, give
a hand to yourself. You are here, You are you,
(00:45):
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today, Matt,
you and I are diving into a crucial event in
American history, one that, despite quite possibly changing the course
of American politics, is relatively obscure to a lot of
(01:08):
people living today, especially younger members of our audience. Yes, you,
you and I know about this because we've been paid
to delve into historical strangeness for quite a time now,
and a lot of people listening are going to be
familiar with the story we discussed today because of their
interest in these things. But overall the American public is,
(01:28):
maybe especially younger people, are not aware of this. Uh.
It's something that happened on July eighth, nine sixty nine,
one day, essentially one night, and it changed the course
of one man's life, uh quite a bit. And today
we have two gentlemen on the show who wrote an
(01:50):
entire screenplay about that day and the aftermath, why it occurred,
what occurred, and UM, we're we're going to jump right
in and introduce them right now. That's great, the screenwriters
of chap Aquittic, Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan. Welcome to
the show, gentlemen, Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much for happy for having I was
(02:10):
really excited to be here. So let's jump right in,
and today we're discussing the Kennedy Family, an American institution,
a group of people who have captured the fascination of
Americans for decades upon decades. And let's first start off
by discussing just how powerful the Kennedy institution was in
(02:30):
the nineteen sixties. So, yeah, the Kennedy family, UM, you know,
was u for sure, you know, one of the most
powerful families and American politics in the um. John F.
Kennedy was obviously president in the early sixties and Robert F.
Kennedy was running for president in nine when he was
(02:53):
tragically assassinated, and our story takes place the year after
UM Bobby's assassination a year later, when his younger brother
Ted Kennedy goes to U at Marcus Vineyards to have
a to host a party for a group of women
called the boiler Room Girls, who are actually Bobby Kennedy
(03:16):
uh campaign a um. And they were there to sort
of uh, you know, celebrate the memory of the you know,
recently deceased an older Kennedy brother. And much has been
made over the tone or the atmosphere of this gathering.
(03:36):
We know that there were let's see, what were there
four boiler room girls in attendance at this time, six
spoiler room girls actually, and they were all single and
the five of the men that were there were all married,
which led to a lot of um surlous rumors and
(03:57):
headlines about what that might mean because of the more
rays at the time in the late nineteen sixty UM.
But one thing that is good to get on the
record now is that, as Andrew said, the boiler room
girls were campaign workers and UM strategists, honestly, and that
in the newspapers at the time, they were often mischaracterized
(04:21):
as secretaries, and I think that that added to the
sort of humor and misinformation that had taken prominence in
the press at the time, because honestly, these were very smart,
very capable women, and they were very close with the
Kennedy family because of how skilled they were and how
(04:42):
close they became with the Senator Robert F. Kennedy over
the prior year. Do you do you feel that the
newspapers and media outlets of the time were pursuing a
salacious angle with the with the goal of maybe making
the the gathering seem more lurid than it actually was
(05:04):
with this, you know, with this mischaracterization as secretaries versus strategists. Undoubtedly,
I think that that was where people's minds went, and
I think that it was covered that way in part
to push newspapers, but in part just because of um
a problem that you know, is still a problem today
(05:25):
where you try to present both sides of the argument,
and at the end of the day, there was no foundation,
in fact, uh in discernible truth, that anything immoral was happening.
It was simply a party, It was simply a reunion,
and there was nothing else to it other than that
(05:46):
there was kind of a history at least with John F.
Kennedy and a little bit with Robert in having um
interactions with women outside of their marriage. So for you know,
there was something to it. But but as you said,
probably wasn't actually anything salacious. UM. So who who specifically
one of the boiler room girls who was Mary Joe Capecney.
(06:08):
Mary Joe Capecne is the victim in this case. UM.
She ends up, you know, dying as a result of
uh actions that Ted Kennedy took and didn't take. And
for us, when we were researching her, what we found was,
(06:28):
you know, the most brilliant and you know, a woman
of the highest standard. Um. And it was really a
life cut way too short. And so that's why in
the movie we really tried to honor her memory by
having her express all of her talent, to show how
(06:49):
everyone around her thoughts she was so talented, and to
show how she really did have a lot of dreams
and ambitions. And one of the lines that I quite
like is when she describes the difference between politics and
public service and uh in speaking with the family about
her Um, she was definitely not in it for the politics.
(07:13):
She was in it to serve the public interests. And
I really appreciate the point you make about a life
cut short, because she was twenty eight on the night
of this incident. And when we, like many others, look
back at the timeline, what we see is that for
(07:37):
many years afterwards, questions remained. Could you could you walk
us through briefly the the timeline, the events and the
order in which we believe they transpired after Kennedy and
Capecni left the gathering. Okay, so I'm going to try
to walk this through as simply as possible while pointing out, um,
(08:02):
what is on the record and by whom. Um. They
were there in Martha's vineyard that weekend for the edgar
Town Regatta. Uh and Ted Kennedy came in night that
day and after the race they went back to Chappaquittic Island,
which important to the story, is a ferry ride off
(08:23):
of the mainland. Uh. There's no way to access it
other than by ferry, and UM, no one was planning
on staying at chappa Quittic that evening. Uh. Ted Kennedy
had a room in Edgartown at the Shiretown Inn. UH.
(08:44):
All the boiler room girls had a room at a
different hotel on the mainland. And the only person I
think that was actually going to stay on Chappquittic Island
was the person who arranged for the party, and that
was Ted Kennedy's cousin, Joe Garden, and he becomes very
important the story as we continue. As we said, the
party was simply that a cookout with friends. Reminiscing music
(09:09):
was played. We now we assumed there was dancing. Ultimately,
one of the boiler room girls asked us to cut
out the dancing, so there's no dancing in the movie anymore. Uh.
And what Ted Kennedy has said and what many of
the boiler room girls said under oath, was that Ted
Kennedy and Mary Joe left at eleven fifteen. Ted Kennedy
(09:33):
has said that Mary Joe said that she wasn't feeling
well and that he was taking her back to her hotel.
I don't know if we're getting too deep into the
weeds here, but I'll tell you that Mary Joe left
her purse with her hotel room key at the cottage,
and so it leads to questions about how she was
expecting to get into her room if that was the
taste um. Ted Kennedy says that the accident happened shortly
(09:57):
thereafter after he made a wrong turn turn off of
Main Road onto Dike Road. UM. This is again a
very complicated thing to try to describe an audio, but uh,
to say that this was a mistaken turn is a
little bit stretching credulity. Because Main Road is a paved road,
(10:20):
it is obviously the way that you would go to
get to the ferry. Tamy has been back and forth
on the ferry multiple times that day and probably hadn't
been many times in his life prior to that. Uh.
It's also a curved road that curves left. Um, so
it's not like you would go to a stop sign
and then make a right turn. It was a continual,
(10:42):
just you know, left hand curve. So according to take
Kenny's testimony, he makes this accidental right turn onto the
unpaved and very bumpy Dike Road and travels for approximately
half a mile to Dyke Bridge, which at the time
had no guardrails and was to his point, built at
(11:03):
an angle to the road, and he drove off and
the mystery around how he got out of the car
is something that continues to fascinate people. I will actually
dismiss this right now and say that his window was
rolled down, and it's not implausible to assume that he
(11:28):
was able to get out of that window with relative ease. Uh,
especially in a life you know, preserving moment obviously. UM.
In his testimony, he says that he tried to dive
down several times to retrieve Mary Joe and was unsuccessful. UM.
(11:50):
And then this is the point where I have to
bring in other points of view and other notions about
what the truth might be, and certainly what me and
Andrew believed the truth is. And that's that UM. As
we said, Ted Kennedy puts the accident around eleven p m.
(12:11):
And the reason that he does that is because the
last ferry leaves at midnight. And so when I tell
you that a sheriff deputy deputy officer Huck Look saw
an oldsmobile matching Ted Kennedy's oldsmobile's description with a license
plate beginning with L, the same letter that said Kennedy's
(12:31):
license late begin with remembering it also had two sevens,
which Ted Kennedy's license plate had. I think it's very
credible that a police officer and I witnessed says that
that oldsmobile went through that intersection at am. I now
described this as the missing hour. In that missing hour,
(12:57):
we don't know what happened, but I'm willing to believe
that Teg, Dammy and Mary Joe left the level of
team as long as we can also believe that they
were not seeing again until twelve. Okay, So ultimately the
car ends up in the water, it's overturned and said
Kennedy does get out of the vehicle, but Mary Joe
(13:20):
does not. Um, let's just continue with the story because
I think our listeners want to know exactly how you
believe it's happened, now that you've done all the research
and constructed an entire story around it. Yeah, and I
think this is the perfect place to interject that where
we got our facts wasn't from uh conspiracy theory paperback
(13:40):
of some people have suggested, Um, we actually got the
court records into the inquestion to the death of Mary
Joe Copectni where everyone involved, everybody at the party actually
was reconvened in Martha's vineyard about six months later and
had to speak to these events under oath and for us,
(14:01):
that primary source of people that lived through it speaking
under oath. That's the most sure research that we could do.
And that's why we felt like if we stuck to
the facts that we learned from that testimony, that we
were doing our best to recreate and interpret what happened
(14:21):
that night. And I think that one thing that really
stands out for us and hopefully for viewers of the
film as well, is the fact driven spine of the narrative.
As you can tell listeners, as Taylor is walking through
the timeline of events here, Uh, everyone's being being very
(14:44):
deliberate in saying, uh, this is the attribution of this description.
And as as you have established, Matt, the the ultimate,
the the ultimate sticking or lack of unified perspective here
(15:05):
does come about in the in the hours following uh,
the and in the hours following the incident. Uh. I
really appreciate Tiller the term you use there, the missing hour,
because this sounds like one period of time where there
is no witness between you know, between this uh, this
(15:31):
period from shortly after eleven too after twelve there. Uh.
And it maybe too far to ask what the to
ask for conjecture on what would have happened, uh during
that missing hour, But we do know that after the incident,
based on Kennedy's accounts, based on the innkeepers accounts and
(15:54):
a few other accounts of phone calls and stuff, we
do have a rough timeline of what Kennedy was probably
doing in the hours following the accident. Is that correct? Absolutely?
And I'll tell you even more. We read his autobiography,
as I think anybody would that was trying to tell
the story seriously, and he talks a lot about what
(16:18):
he was thinking and feeling during these intervening hours as well.
And so I'll continue on from where we kind of
left off, and it kind of lines up perfectly with
the point that I wanted to make, which is um
that Ted Kennedy does escape from the car, and I
do believe that he probably tried to rescue Mary Joe,
(16:40):
but he was unsuccessful because the current was very strong,
his back was bad from a plane crash in nine
I'm sure that it was probably not easy for him
to enter that vehicle. And then we get to the
first negligent decision that for me is inexcusable, even if
(17:02):
it might be understandable. And I want to make a
clear delineation between something that I think that is understandable
and forgivable. UM. And I tried to get into the
psychology of Ted Kennedy. And the first moment that you
hit a real bump is that there's a house called
(17:22):
the Dike House. Um, not more than a hundred yards
from that Dike Bridge, and UM, he walks past it,
and it had its light on that evening. And I
feel like any person who has gotten into an accident,
(17:43):
one where someone's life is in danger or you know,
worst case scenario, already dead, it is your responsibility to
report that accident. I think that it's fair to say,
based off of what Ted Kennedy has said in interviews
(18:05):
and elsewhere, that he immediately realized that this accident was
going to have great impact on his political career. Now,
I am not directly attributing that to the reason why
he didn't report the accident immediately to whoever lived in
the Dike House, but that was on his mind. And
(18:28):
so he makes approximately about a mile and a half
walk back from Dike Bridge to Lawrence Cottage where the
party was taking place, and he passes several houses along
the way, and this is a walk that me and
Andrew have made ourselves and made recently when we showed
the movie in Martha Svineyard for the Martha Syneyard Film Festival.
It's a twenty five minute walk. It's a long walk.
(18:51):
There's a lot that could go through one's mind. And
in the movie, Ted Kennedy gets into the back seat
of the Valiant, the other car that the party had
on the island that night, and he asked for his cousin,
Joe Gargon, And in the movie, Ted Kennedy tells Joe Gargon,
(19:13):
I'm never going to be president. Now. This line has
created a lot of consternation in the Kennedy camp and
uh in certain opinion pieces that have run in the
New York Times, etcetera. Uh, it is my invention. That
is Andrew's invention that that he said that in that moment,
But it is based off of the fact that Ted
(19:34):
Kennedy acknowledged that he did recognize immediately that his political
career has been impacted by this accident. Also in terms
of we talked about negligent behavior in terms of this
walk back to the um what's referred to as the
Lawrence Cottage where the party was being held um that
(19:55):
he also, in addition to the Dike house which had
their light on outside and the occupants of that home,
we're there, he also walked right by a fire station
which was almost directly across the street from the Lawrence cottage,
which is another which would have been another opportunity for
him to go seek help UH to um for immediate
(20:19):
UH to get help for Mary Joe immediately. Well, I
will paraphrase said Kennedy's speech to the entire nation at
the end of the movie by saying, it was only
for reasons of budget that this fire station was not
included in the film. And at this point we're going
to pause the narrative briefly. We will return to the
(20:42):
events of chap Aquittic there in sixty nine after a
word from our sponsor, and we have returned. When we
examine the event of this night, and as as Taylor
(21:03):
and Andrew are already establishing here, it's it's inarguable that
Kennedy would have would have had to would have anticipated
uh political consequences of some sort, right even even immediately
after the event. One of the big questions that members
(21:24):
of our audience are going to have immediately is who
did he talk to that night, And if possible, without
relying too much on conjecture, what what was the substance
of those conversations Because to the earlier points he walked past,
he bypassed houses that had that that had the lights on,
(21:48):
right a fire station, where wherein one would assume, just
on on surface, we would we would assume that after
an accident, especially with another person still left at the
scene of the accident, the first move you would take
is to contact an authority figure. So who were the
(22:10):
people that he contacted before contacting the police or the
fire department. I'm so excited that you asked this question
the way that you did, because I get to talk
about one of the details that we tried desperately to
make into the movie and in any iteration became too
expository to explain. Um. That is that the first person
(22:34):
that he talked to was a gentleman named ray L
Rosa who was at the party at Lawrence Cottage. I
believe that he was a certified diverer. Uh. Certainly he
had a lot of experience uh diving scoopa in the ocean,
et cetera. And he is the very first person that
Ted talks to and what he tells him is get
(22:58):
Joe Gargan, we've got a problem. And for Andrew and I,
this was already kind of a shocking thing for everyone
to agree on the record to be exactly what happened.
He was not interested in telling ray La Rosa, a
(23:18):
friend of his and someone that could have helped what
had happened. He first wanted to talk to somebody that
he was very close with and arguably one of the
people that Ted was closest within the world, his cousin
Joe Garden. And I should note here that Joe Garden
was not simply a cousin. I have cousins that I
haven't talked to in five years. He was kind of, uh,
(23:41):
Ted Kennedy's go to advanced man who would go and
advance his Ted to every location that would go to
to prepare everything. And that he actually lived with the
Kennedy's as his father and mother had died tragically at
a young age, and so he and his sister end
up being with the Kennedy's and they feel so indebted
(24:02):
to the Kennedy's that actually and his sister is Joe
Kennedy seniors nurse who you see in the film all
the way through the rest of his life, so very
close relationship, is my point. So rayl Rossa goes inside
and he grabs Joe Garden and the next thing out
of Ted Kennedy's mouth is you better get Paul Markham too,
(24:23):
who is very close with the Kennedy family, and was
you know, not more than six months prior the U
S Attorney to the State of Massachusetts. And this is
a high power, very intelligent group of loyal Kennedy campaign friends.
(24:43):
Now I do want to point out really quick on
Paul Markham. Uh, he's the absolute worst person at the
party to ask for help in any sort of rescue
mission because he's the only person of the party who
is suffering from a significant injury which he sustained uh
in the boat that they were racing. Actually, in reality,
(25:05):
he got that injury voting on the way from wherever
it was originally dr to Martha's vineyards. We put it
in during the race. I hope that you don't mind. Uh.
We thought that that was an acceptable fudge. Um. But
so he is walking with a limp throughout throughout the
weekend because he's injured, and yet this is one of
(25:25):
the two people that Ted kemothy as requested to help,
and according to Garden's testimony, it was still moments later
before Ted actually explained what was going on, and it
was on their drive over that he explains that there
was an accident and the car has gone off the
(25:46):
bridge and married Joe is inside. And again strange behavior,
uh in reality and in the movie, and very few
people seem to care about this inexplicable decision. Joe Gargan
and Paul Markham stripped down to their underwear to jump
into the pucha pon to try to rescue her. I
(26:10):
don't understand this, and I would love to turn it
to the host and see if you can help me.
You know, to this day, I still have plummax by
why two men trying to save a woman would need
to strip down. It seems like the urgency would have
you wanting to either a make a phone call to
somebody more capable or be just jump right in, as
(26:32):
someone's life might be at stake. Yeah, it's a question
that many people. I believe you're trying to answer. One
one argument might be the idea of of course, the
most immediate argument would be let's keep this between us.
Let's uh, let's resolve this and you know, let's get
(26:53):
the other person in the vehicle out safely. We can
all go home, get warm and then called insurance folks tomorrow. Right,
that would be that would be the most immediate assumption.
What do you think, Matt, Well, when you take into
account the roles that all three of the men had,
um the the third person that was with them, wasn't
(27:14):
he what was his role? Yeah? The U S Attorney
to the State of Massachusetts. So okay, So these these
are men who have powerful positions and know the law.
So there, I believe they're most likely saying on multiple occasions, Ted,
you've got to call the cops. Yes. So my my
(27:36):
thought of them stripping down to their underwear is not
maybe a little bit of self preservation and that they
could put their clothes back on sands underwear after jumping
in and look as though nothing had happened, if they
needed to have that option. That's my only thinking I
mean with that regards. So I'll tell you making a
(27:58):
movie as an evolutionary process, and we learned a lot
throughout writing the script and coming up with the way
to best tell the truth. As we knew it. And
so to this point about what you just said. In
the script, you'll see that the line from Joe Gargan
as they're stripping down is coming back in what clothes?
(28:23):
Doesn't give us many options or something to that effect,
And in the movie it comes across in the sound
makes very deliberately as a New York Times interview with
Donald Trump, and it's just scarbled. Uh But uh, ultimately
I feel like that is the right decision for the movie,
because we do know for a fact that they did
(28:45):
strip down, but we really don't know why. You did
a great job making it the most plausible version, at
least in my mind. Um So, okay, all of this
is going down. There's much more to the story about
what actually happens following the incident, but I kind of
want to leave some of that to the to the
(29:06):
person who's going to eventually watch the movie. Um So
I'd like to jump into while while this is occurring,
what else is happening in the United States and world
news that kind of exists as a cover for this incident. Well,
I don't know about cover, but it's happening concurrently. It's okay,
(29:27):
it's not a cover. It provides um the a one
position in a newspaper, right, well, this other thing that's
occurring in the news. Another way to put it is
that it is thematically the most relevant thing that could
possibly be happening at the time. And for me as
a writer, it was one of the reasons why this
(29:50):
story had to be told cinematically for the first time
was that this is the weekend of the moon landing.
And so what you have is the greatest residents of
the John F. Kennedy presidential legacy, the greatest achievement of
his older brother, and possibly the lowest moment for Ted
(30:11):
Kennedy as Senator. And considering our premise and our understanding
of Ted as a human being, was that as the
youngest Kennedy, he never expected the spotlight to be on him,
and in fact, not even John F. Kennedy expected the
spotlight to be on him. Everyone assumed that Joe Jr.
(30:32):
The eldest, was you know, the prodigal son, and then
he died tragically in World War Two, and then that
led to, you know, everyone hoping for John F. Kennedy
to run for president, and obviously he didn't became president,
and only after two more tragedies. With the assassinations of
John and Bobby, did suddenly all the hopes and dreams
(30:52):
of the Kennedy legacy rest on Ted shoulders. And for us,
you know, we looked at it like as a sort
of Shakespearean sort of tray today leading into the events
of this weekend, and that's what made it easier to
understand how Ted made some of the wrong decisions that
he made that weekend. And with this, uh, with this
(31:15):
confluence of events, we we see several things happening, right.
We we see, as Matt said, the a one story
the net and as you said, Taylor, the when one
of the high points of JF. Kay's career occur at
the same time as this tragedy. So perhaps there wasn't
(31:40):
as much media attention on it as there otherwise would
have been, but investigations did occur. And one of the
things that we noticed in the film is that when
we fast forward a bit, when authorities finally do recover
Copectny's body, one one person believes that she may have
(32:05):
been dead or expired before the accident. UH, the argument
being that there was not enough water in her lungs
for her to have drowned. H was this possibility actually examined,
you know, in real in real life by the investigators. UM,
so I want to sort of make clear how uh
(32:31):
Mary Joe was positioned in the car, so excuse a
long visual description. UM. She was in the backseat of
the car, and that has led to a lot of
confusion about Oh, maybe she wasn't even writing as a passenger.
Maybe she was asleep in the back and all that
doesn't make any sense. Acam's razor tells us that Ted
(32:55):
Kennedy testified under oath that she was the passator. People
all testified that she left. There's reason to believe that
to be very true. UM. What's also very interesting about
the way that she was positioned is that her arms
were the car's upside down, I should say, UM, and
(33:16):
her arms are clutched into the floorboards again upside down
in the car, UM to prop herself up, and her
neck is craned it away where her mouth is fluted upwards.
And the only person saw Mary Joe in the car
(33:36):
is a man named John Farrar, who um was a
volunteer for the fire department, I believe, and was the
diver that you know suited up and got into the
car to excavate her out of the vehicle, and he
said that it quote looked like she was gasping for
a last breath of air. And this is where we
(33:59):
get into something really interesting, which is that I know
that Ted Kennedy assumed that, you know, minutes after the accident,
that she had to have drowned. That's not an unreasonable
conclusion for someone to make. But once you start researching this,
you find out that even before this accident, there's a
(34:21):
woman in New Zealand, I believe, and I think you
know the mid nineteen sixties who survived for two hours
in a very similar accident in an air pocket. And
because someone called, they were able to get this New
Zealand woman out of the car and save her life.
And that's what John Farrar has said under oath, and
(34:43):
when we talked to him personally, he said, I could
have gotten her out of that car in twenty minutes
of someone and called, but no one called. Wow, jeezus.
So with this in mind, with the questions that came
into being the night a the incident, the hours and
days following, and even the years uh following, we do
(35:05):
have Uh, some inevitable consequences that that we've mentioned before.
Let's explore those after a word from our sponsor. Welcome
back everyone. Let's begin by quickly discussing the political machine
(35:28):
that was standing directly behind Ted Kennedy. As all of
this is going down, he contacts his father, and his father,
at least according to the film, puts him in touch
with a whole host of political advisors and lawyers who
then began constructing the narrative of what happened. What they're
(35:49):
what the official stance is, What the official story is, um,
And let's just go through just a bit of that
before we hit uh, kind of the aftermath. Yeah, this
is a perfect topic to talk about today. The movie
came out in theaters today as we're recording this, and
the New York Times just published an opinion piece by
(36:10):
a gentleman who's uh writing a new biography about Ted Kennedy,
who um inexplicably thinks that, uh, this is not something
to be included in the public Yeah, discussion about Ted
Kennedy at the moment, as he has in this writer's opinion,
not moved onto the public domain. Again, I can't quite
(36:32):
understand that, but his His biggest issue with the movie
UH is a theme that we had to invent, which
is UH that when Ted returns to the main land
UH to his hotel UH, he goes to the pay
(36:54):
phone out front and he calls hiantus Port where his father,
who's a victim and has trouble communicating, lives and Ted
explains to his father in the scene what has occurred,
and he is incredibly remorseful and unsure of what to do.
And the one word that his father is able to
(37:16):
speak is alibi. And this is conjecture on Andrew and
my part, but more it is talking to an emotional
truth and a thematic truth that we feel is incredibly
relevant to Ted. And here's what I'm trying to say.
(37:39):
We know that this accident occurred, and that Ted didn't
report it even after your return to the shire town
in and then we also know that you know, presumably
according to Ted Kennedy's testimony, about an hour after he
returned to the shire town End, he went down to
talk to a hotel clerk and he asked for the time.
(38:04):
He is all dry. Now, there's nothing visually apparent about
him that he's been in an accident, and the hotel
clerk said that although something seemed off, there was nothing
unusual about his appearance. Now, asking for the time is
what you do if you're trying to create an alibi
(38:24):
for yourself in a situation where a crime might have
been might have occurred. And I do think that, as
we said about the other line, I'll never be president,
that he has suggested that he did consider the impact
that this would have on his political career. We've already
discussed the moon landing in the Kennedy legacy and how
(38:44):
much that weighs on his shoulders. I don't think that
it is at all a step too far to say
that his father's opinion of this probably weighed on him,
and that what he might have concluded is that this
would be a huge black mark on the Kennedy legacy.
(39:05):
And then we know that he did something that looked
a lot like crafting an alibi, and that's how the
scene seemed to be. And I have no shame in
admitting that it is an invention. There are phone records
that imply that calls were made from that pay phone
collects calls, et cetera. I I don't know, but I
(39:25):
feel like it is incredibly relevant to his character and
the emotions he was going through. And the other thing
that people I've seen right about as well, specifically with
the alibi lines, that Joe Kennedy, you know, had had
a massive stroke and couldn't really speak, And it was
actually something that Taylor and I really discussed it Lincoln.
(39:48):
We were writing the script because obviously we wanted to
get it actually correct, and we knew that he had
a stroke, and we knew that he UM that his
speech was impaired, and so what we is up doing
his finding a recording of UM President Johnson calling Joseph
Kennedy from the Oval office and Ted Kennedy was actually
(40:09):
in the Oval office with LBJ as well, and in
this recording, uh, you can hear exactly what Joe Kennedy
sounds like, which is that he's able to utter actual
words and that he's got the heavy breathing on the
other end of the line. And you know, I just
think it's important that people know that we did our
due diligence and as much research as we could to
(40:29):
make this as actual as possible. And I should say
this call with President Join took place in so you know,
just over a year before these events, and although Joseph
Kennedy's health may have deteriorated from there, even at the time.
A line in the movie that Ted says is in
(40:50):
this phone call, and that's you're still the man with
all the influence, referring to his father. And that's why
it was not surprising to us or too far of
a stretch when we read the incredibly influential advisors that
were at Hyena Sport as soon as Ted arrived. Included
(41:11):
people like former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, included John F. Kennedy,
speech writer Ted Sorenson, Congressman, great lawyers, Burke Marshall, Sergeant Driver, etcetera.
Just you know, men of great historical stature, all were
already convened for helping Ted navigate his way out of
(41:34):
this crisis. And so Ted in the movie says, you're
still demand with all the influence to his father. And
I don't think that it's, you know, too far of
a stretch to suggest that perhaps old Joe was able
to still hold some strengths agreed at least on our end,
That almost seems that almost seems without question or perhaps
(42:00):
naive to assume otherwise. And as we're as we're exploring, uh,
your collective experience writing this screenplay and bringing this story
to the large screen and thus, you know, to the
public at large, we'd like to ask some questions about
(42:22):
your experience and what you found afterwards. And we'd like
to begin by asking what inspired the two of you
two go so far into this research to pursue this
story above other ones. Because you had mentioned before that
there was maybe some controversy about this cinematic look at it,
(42:46):
but you conducted interviews, you actually walked the road, Uh,
you delved into court records. What what was the impetus
for you to pursue this despite the obstacles that may
have been put up in your path. Um, you know
one word answer my evany uh longer but still quotable answer. Uh.
(43:10):
Both Andrew and I are lifelong Democrats and incredibly huge
fans of the work that Ted Kennedy did a senator,
especially after nineteen and it was actually at one of
his most historic moments when he endorsed h then Senator
(43:30):
Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the two thousand eight
primary in what was unexpected and considered by many to
be a game changing moment in that election cycle. And
we were and still are incredibly huge fans of Barack Obama.
I you know, really missed that man in the Oval Office.
(43:54):
And so when we were watching Real Time with Bill
Maher that night, Bill Maher was like Ted Kennedy changing
presidential history again. You know, he would have been president
in nineteen seventy two had it not been for Chap
a critic. And Andrew and I had never heard of
this before. We didn't even know how to spell it
(44:15):
when we went to the Google machine to try to
type it in and figure out what Bill was talking about.
And for us, because this story was undertold and to
a generation younger than my parents, I think, completely obscure,
that was the reason why we were dying to tell
(44:38):
this story. And it became clear quickly that this was,
you know, an important story and one that a lot
of rumor and conspiracy theories had you know, gotten a
lot of traction. You know, the Wikipedia is littered with
conspiracy nuts. Uh, And for us, that was the reason
(45:01):
why we wanted to get to the truth as best
we could find it. Also, Uh, Andrew's dad as a lawyer,
and so I think, yeah, Andrew was very inspired, much
like Psychomoty, to honor his father's legacy and UH stick
to the facts as we could find them. So, so,
(45:22):
what were some of the as you as you said,
the film Chappaquittic has only recently been released in theaters,
what were some of the things you ran into that
might be considered obstacles in the course your research. And
what have the reactions been like so far as as
the film has been screened or encountered by both film
(45:48):
critics or analysts, but then also by people who have
some sort of personal or professional relationship with the uh,
with the individuals in the story. I'm gonna say something
so sounds like marketing, but it is the God's honest truth.
I have been overwhelmed by the positive reaction from audiences
(46:09):
and film critics alike about this movie. Um, I knew
that we were you know, by the time we were
making this movie, I finally understood that we were dealing
with what was a third rail in political history, and
it's like the original source of what aboutism in our
(46:30):
modern political history. And for me, I expected the reactions
to sadly be divided on partisan lines, but in reality,
I have been so, you know, eager and excited to
read these reviews and see these audience reactions, and everyone
(46:50):
feels incredibly passionate about how this story has finally been told.
And even the people that are critical of the movie,
I think acknowledge that this did happen and it's something
that deserves reexamination. I couldn't agree more. Uh, watching this film,
(47:11):
my reaction to it, specifically to watching that political machine happened,
because it's something that I had imagined after just reading
about the story. Those scenes, I imagine them in my
head and you captured them almost too well. The the
unnerving feeling that if a powerful person gets in trouble,
(47:33):
there is this institution that can come through and basically
save you, um, you know, somewhat by changing details somewhat,
just by controlling the situation and just by making the
optics correct for what you need. I want to jump
to well, just we'll we'll say this. There was a
(47:56):
press conference televised, well, it was more of a televised
statement that Ted Kennedy gave no questions, no questions at
this time. Yeah, you couldn't have anybody there. There were
a lot of stipulations about it. It was just Ted
Kennedy speaking to the camera and that was on July nine,
sixty nine. And in the film, he is having a
(48:18):
just a quick discussion with Joe Gargan and I'm just
gonna feed this line and see if you can give
me the one that comes right after it. Moses had
a temper, Peter betrayed Jesus, I have chap a quittic.
Moses had a temper, but he didn't leave a girl
at the bottom of the Red six. Oh dude, talk
(48:40):
about some screenwriting there, guys. I uh, that that hit
home like perfectly. It was just an awesome line, and
it made it really encapsulated everything that you had seen
and experienced up until that moment, because Joe's character played
by Ed Helms, really is kind of the human side
to this story at least it feels that way, the
(49:03):
conscience that exists within this story. And I really appreciated
that you brought that in in that that moment of
I don't know that the moment where Ted was trying
to reach greatness to be a Kennedy and he had
to kind of make a decision there about whether he
wanted to move forward as a politician or kind of
(49:26):
let it go. And I just I don't know, I
really appreciate what you did there. I don't really I
don't know if I have a question about that so much.
It's not really a question, it's just I appreciate it. Uh.
You know, I certainly myself have had moments where you know,
Chris Farley and uh, Paul McCartney comes to mind. So
I appreciate the question, non question, but uh, to your point,
(49:51):
I do want to say for the listeners out there,
if you do see the movie, um, the seem that
he's referring to, Joe Garden ends up doing something immediately
afterwards during the reading of the cell Avice statement that
I actually won't spoil here, but I do want to
say that, as unbelievable as it may seem, that is
(50:15):
exactly true, and that Joe Gargen did, in fact suffer
the indignity that we show him suffering. Wow. And if
you want to learn what we're referring to, the best
way to do it is to check out the film
chap Equitic in theaters near you. Yeah, as we're recording this,
(50:38):
it's premiering today in theaters, and we want to thank
you Taylor and you Andrew so much for coming on
the show with us and exploring this all too often
neglected chapter in American history. And and folks, as you're
(50:58):
thinking about the episode today, you have to ask yourself, inevitably,
how would the course of history have changed had this
incident not occurred, or had it been processed differently by
by Kennedy by the media at large. Yeah, you teat
(51:21):
it up perfectly by saying how would history have been different?
And what I'll say is that now after researching for
the film, and hopefully for your audience after seeing the film. Um,
the movie ends with a sort of you know, jaywalking
man on the Street interview where people are asked what
they thought of this televised statement and more pointedly, would
(51:44):
they still vote for him? And with the you know
joy of Monday morning quarterbacking and knowing all the great
things that he did as senator and that maybe he
might have changed presidential election history a second time in
two thousand and eight with Rock Obama. For me, one
of the driving questions of wanting to tell the story
(52:05):
was was it worth it was? Ted Kennedy is going
on to be senator for so many more years becoming
the lion of the Senate and driving through policies that
agree with was that the right choice? And for me,
the only answer I ever came up with was that
(52:26):
the truth has no political party. And that was true
in nineteen nine, and that is especially true today in
two thousand and eighteen. The midterms are coming up. I
would love another re examination of the truth for executive branch.
So that's that's my point that I had to make.
That is a fantastic point and very well said. The
(52:48):
truth has no allegiance other than to the facts. And
that's our show for today, folks, our interview with Taylor
Allen and Andrew Logan. The screen ride of chap Equittic
in theaters near you as we record this and as
you listen to it. We will be back very soon
(53:09):
with more stuff they don't want you to know. In
the meantime, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,
and if you think that social media is a big
brew ha ha and uh, you'd rather talk to us directly,
take a line from Taylor and Andrews book, Go to
your primary sources. The good news is you can write
to us directly. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
(53:32):
dot com,
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com