Ted Kennedy Had a Chance to Hold Nixon Accountable. Why Didn’t He?

Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy (D-Mass.) delivers a nationalist code connected July 25, 1969 astir the contention surrounding a car mishap that claimed the beingness of Mary Jo Kopechne. | AP Photo

John A. Farrell is the writer of Ted Kennedy: A Life, from which this nonfiction is adapted

Senator George McGovern and his unit were hopeless arsenic the Democrats slogged into the last weeks of his 1972 run against President Richard Nixon.

The Democratic Party was broke, dispirited and divided. Nixon had stoked the system and forecast “peace with honor” successful Vietnam. Only the trifling unreality called Watergate shadowed the president’s expected victory.

All of which placed Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts nether aggravated pressure. His Judiciary Committee investigators had corralled a witnesser who, fixed the play of a nationalist hearing, an anxious media and the dazzle of the Kennedy name, could shatter the Watergate screen up and respire caller beingness into McGovern’s campaign.

“A elephantine fraud is being perpetrated upon the American people, and anyone who has it wrong his powerfulness to assistance exposure that fraud has a work to the nationalist and to himself to bash truthful arsenic soon and arsenic dramatically arsenic possible,” 1 of Kennedy’s advisers contended successful a memo to the senator.

But a man-to-man showdown with Nixon would rise the contented of Kennedy’s ain scandalous behavior. Only 3 years had passed since the nighttime connected Chappaquiddick, erstwhile helium drove his car disconnected an unmarked span and outgo Mary Jo Kopechne her life. And it could beryllium seen arsenic partisan hatchetry.

“I deliberation the nationalist should get arsenic galore facts arsenic imaginable earlier the election, but I spot nary crushed wherefore we person to beryllium the ones who bash it … if our doing it is going to rise a superior collateral issue,” different adjutant responded.

In the end, not for the archetypal oregon past clip successful a storied career, Ted Kennedy’s backstage failings afflicted his nationalist performance. He held nary hearings successful that predetermination season. Nixon carried 49 states.

In the hyper-partisan epoch of Donald Trump, the conception of a politician’s idiosyncratic shortcomings hurting their governmental chances seems quaint. Far from disqualifying him, the 45^th president’s litany of controversies — from shady concern practices to the Billy Bush portion — seemed to boost his representation and excite his base. Even now, pursuing the events of January 6, Trump remains the de facto person (and presumptive 2024 nominee) of the GOP.

But arsenic Ted Kennedy’s vocation shows, authorities did not ever run this way. At cardinal junctions successful American history, his vulnerability connected issues of idiosyncratic quality kept him from acting connected nationalist policy. His soundlessness during the hearings implicit Anita Hill’s allegations of intersexual battle by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is simply a classical example.

Now, acknowledgment to the unheralded merchandise of a Senate Judiciary Committee record connected Watergate that was improperly withheld from the nationalist for decades, we person different lawsuit successful point. This is the untold communicative of wherefore Kennedy declined to signifier what 1 adjutant described arsenic “a melodramatic nationalist proceeding of historical proportions” and, to the dismay of chap Democrats, dawdled arsenic Nixon coasted to a landslide reelection.

Kennedy’s vocation has many might-have-beens. The astir wide known occurred successful 1991, erstwhile 1 of his investigators, Ricki Seidman, was the archetypal Senate adjutant to talk to Anita Hill and perceive her allegation that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her successful the years earlier his information to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kennedy had played a starring relation successful defeating different blimpish nominee to the precocious tribunal — Judge Robert Bork — successful 1987, but present was successful nary signifier to question Thomas’ behavior. The legislator was ensnared by ungraded that outpouring and summertime aft helium woke his lad and nephew for immoderate late-night carousing successful Palm Beach, Fla. The nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was charged with raping a young pistillate astatine the Kennedy household property that night.

The researcher was told to basal down and passed the accusation to different Senate offices. Judiciary Chairman Joseph Biden led the consequent nationalist hearings. Kennedy became a people of ridicule aft tales of however helium had wandered the grounds of his seaside location that night, without pants, reached the writers astatine Saturday Night Live and the Tonight show.

The Bork-slayer had been silenced. “Viscerally and visually helium was getting smaller and smaller … conscionable sinking into his seat … becoming a small shriveled man,” said Judith Lichtman, the longtime women’s advocate. If Kennedy had not been cowed by the Palm Beach scandal, writer and writer Timothy Phelps, who broke the Hill story, told me, Thomas would ne'er person served connected the Supreme Court.

Kennedy’s hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, questioned his continued usefulness successful office.

“Those who person mostly supported Kennedy implicit the years — and we see ourselves successful that fig — person maintained that his backstage behavior, nevertheless reprehensible 1 judges it to be, has not adversely affected his show arsenic a nationalist official,” the Globe editorialized. “Sadly, that contention tin nary longer beryllium made.”

Chappaquiddick, Palm Beach, “and other, periodic results of reckless behaviour by Kennedy person diminished his motivation authority. … Neither helium nor his supporters tin again asseverate that his backstage beingness has nary interaction connected the discharge of his nationalist duties.”

There are different instances wherever Kennedy was muzzled by his backstage misbehavior. In the months aft Chappaquiddick, helium had sat connected the sidelines arsenic Sen. Birch Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana, and different liberals led the palmy absorption to 2 of Richard Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees — national judges Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, 2 Southerners whose speeches and rulings showed them arsenic defenders of the South’s achromatic supremacist order.

Kennedy’s “moral armor was successful atrocious repair,” wrote newsman William Eaton, who would triumph a Pulitzer Prize for his sum of the nomination. “This was close aft Chappaquiddick,” Jason Berman, an adjutant to Bayh, said erstwhile I spoke to him. “You tin understand, if you were going to marque the combat connected grounds of morals and morality, wherefore Teddy would not person been the champion candidate.”

A fewer months later, his colleagues successful the Democratic caucus dumped Kennedy, whom they had elevated to pb them successful conflict against the wily and formidable Nixon, from his occupation arsenic Senate whip.

“He took america with him implicit that bridge,” said Sen. Walter Mondale, the wide Democrat from Minnesota, “because helium was benignant of our star.” The Senate Democrats replaced Kennedy with the much blimpish Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia. “It was a immense humiliation wrong the Senate — a precise idiosyncratic happening that happened to him that senators seldom bash to each other,” Mondale said. “Chappaquiddick got him.”

But it is not until now, with the quiescent instrumentality of a Senate Judiciary Committee’s record connected Watergate to its rightful spot successful the National Archives, that this caller communicative tin beryllium told.

The Watergate record had been wrongly withheld from historians and biographers with Kennedy’s papers astatine the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, alternatively of astatine the Archives, wherever Senate committee records are expected to beryllium kept. It reappeared successful the Judiciary committee files aft Kennedy’s death. I came upon it successful my probe for a caller biography, Ted Kennedy: A Life, from which this nonfiction is adapted.

The documents archer of 1972, a clip erstwhile Nixon was riding high, having made his world-jolting travel to China — and pursuing it up by joining Soviet leaders astatine a momentous summit, for the signing of arms power treaties, successful Moscow.

But the president — who gnawed connected the content that the Kennedy clan had stolen the 1960 predetermination from him — was possessed with the fearfulness that they would bash it again, with Ted Kennedy arsenic a candidate, successful 1972.

“Nixon was mesmerized by Ted Kennedy. Even aft Chappaquiddick,” Tom Korologos, who lobbied for the medication connected Capitol Hill, told me. “The Kennedys had screwed him successful 1960. He had a syndrome. He didn’t privation it to hap again. He was paranoid. Really. Paranoid.”

Nixon pressed his unit for ungraded connected Kennedy and different Democrats. In May of 1971, helium had ordered them to proceed with a run of bugging and surveillance. “I want, Bob, much usage of wiretapping,” helium told his main of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman. “Kennedy… Maybe we tin get a existent ungraded connected immoderate 1 of the starring Democrats.”

The president’s men picked up the pace, with schemes to wreak havoc astatine the Democratic nationalist normal successful Miami, to interruption into McGovern’s office and to bug Democratic office astatine the Watergate bureau building. On June 17, astatine the Watergate, a squad of Nixon’s burglars got caught.

Watergate was a self-inflicted coiled by Nixon. The Democratic normal was a catastrophe that summertime — with scuffling betwixt the New Left and vanquished enactment moderates, sophomoric wide antics (there were votes to springiness Mao Zedong, Archie Bunker and Benjamin Spock the vice-presidential nomination) and a wide deficiency of subject that delayed McGovern’s acceptance code until astir 3 a.m. “Only successful Guam,” noted the run chronicler Theodore H. White, “was George McGovern speaking successful premier clip nether the American flag.”

And past atrocious turned to worse, arsenic the vice-presidential campaigner — Senator Joseph Eagleton of Missouri — was compelled to resign from the summons for not disclosing hospitalizations, electrical daze sessions and different intelligence wellness treatments helium had undergone.

Nixon’s ain normal was superbly choreographed. He had browbeat the Federal Reserve into stoking the roaring economy. He was cutting a woody with the North Vietnamese that would doom the American ally, South Vietnam, successful the agelong word but springiness Nixon thing to boast astir that fall. “Peace is astatine hand,” said his adviser, Henry Kissinger, successful October.

Through each this, the Watergate coverup continued. With perjury and payoffs, Nixon and his aides cloaked the president’s involvement. At the Washington Post, 2 young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, helped support the communicative alive. Out of the nationalist eye, the Post’s efforts were matched by 1 of Kennedy’s aides, the inestimable James Flug, that summertime and fall.

Kennedy had recovered however his family’s mystique lured the champion and brightest to Washington and to his staff, and Flug was a premier example. Brooklyn-born and tough, helium graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and past from Harvard Law School. Kennedy kept a escaped rein connected his staff, Flug told maine earlier his decease successful 2020, and helium was fixed state to roam. He excelled, said a chap aide, successful taking Ted Kennedy into governmental thickets, from which the legislator had to hack his mode out.

Watergate was the eventual thicket. The conveyance was Kennedy’s small Judiciary subcommittee. In summation to a sheet connected refugees, and a Senate Labor subcommittee connected health, helium chaired an all-purpose toolbox with jurisdiction implicit the national government’s administrative procedures and practices. Known arsenic Ad Prac, its charter was fundamentally thing that Ted Kennedy could person the Judiciary chairman, James Eastland of Mississippi, to OK. “It was bottom-up work,” erstwhile staffer Thomas Susman said. Kennedy’s aides brought their groundwork to the boss. He past made the prime to join, oregon to skip, a scrap.

Flug was the Ad Prac counsel. By mid-August, helium was well-versed successful the Watergate ungraded and plugged into the web of lawyers, authorities accountants and investigators who were gathering a lawsuit against the president’s men. “Flug was uncovering connections and weaving patterns that were conscionable benignant of mind-boggling,” Kennedy would recall, successful an oral past for the University of Virginia.

Flug was 1 of the archetypal legislature investigators to interrogation Alfred Baldwin, the Nixon hireling who monitored the Watergate wiretaps from a edifice crossed the thoroughfare — and famously served arsenic the lookout for the burglars connected the nighttime of the break-in. It is Baldwin who is immortalized successful the opening scenes of the question representation All the President’s Men, alerting his cohorts (“Base One to Unit One — we person immoderate enactment here…”) to the accomplishment of the police.

Flug warned Kennedy, successful a agelong August memo, that Nixon’s men were succeeding, via perjury and different means, astatine covering up the ties betwixt the burglars, who were astir to beryllium indicted and brought to trial, and the White House.

“The accusation successful the indictments volition astir apt not supply overmuch existent item connected the who, what oregon however of the plot,” Flug wrote. “The indictments volition beryllium amended than nothing, (but) they volition beryllium of precise constricted inferior successful bringing retired the full story.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats had chosen McGovern. Kennedy gave a rousing code astatine the normal but turned McGovern down erstwhile asked to beryllium his moving mate. Kennedy’s household was disquieted astir his safety, and helium instinctively recoiled from the inconsequential duties of the office. “I americium not chopped retired that way,” helium told the Boston Globe. “The vice presidency is bully for immoderate people. However, I don’t request that benignant of exposure.”

Performing a mitzvah for the enactment mightiness person been a astute move. By declining to serve, Kennedy squandered an accidental to beryllium vetted and immunized, connected a nationalist stage, for his behaviour astatine Chappaquiddick. “You bash the penance, arsenic they say, arsenic a vice statesmanlike candidate,” Boston Globe exertion Robert Healy told White House adjutant Charles Colson, successful a transcribed telephone call. “You bash the spot for the enactment and past successful ’76 you person done it and due to the fact that you’ve done it Chappaquiddick fades away. … I deliberation that truly makes immoderate sense.”

“That’s the 1 rationale,” Colson agreed.

McGovern understood Kennedy’s reticence but bristled astatine the selfishness Kennedy displayed after declining the candidate’s offer. Like a wolf marking his territory, Kennedy blackballed McGovern’s 2nd choice, Mayor Kevin White of Boston. If Kennedy wished to tally for president himself someday, helium did not spot the consciousness successful raising different Irish-Catholic from Massachusetts to nationalist prominence. With cursory vetting, and the timepiece running, McGovern picked Eagleton instead.

It was a disastrous commencement for McGovern’s autumn campaign. Nixon had the system connected occurrence and a drawstring of overseas argumentation successes to tout. Despite the Democratic nominee’s subject grounds — arsenic a bomber pilot, helium flew 35 missions against the Nazis — Nixon portrayed him arsenic an irresolute radical.

McGovern’s accidental to regain ground, it seemed, rested with the Watergate scandal. It “has go 1 of the large issues of the 1972 Presidential campaign,” an eight-page, single-spaced McGovern run memo to the nation’s editors and tv producers declared alternatively hopefully connected September 22. “Repeated Republican denials of complicity successful the break-in person been met with repeated discoveries of grounds to the contrary.”

In his ain memo, Flug told Kennedy that the bureau was getting vigor from the McGovern campaign. “They, of course, deliberation this is the champion happening they person going.”

Kennedy faced a decision, akin to those helium confronted successful the Haynsworth and Carswell battles. Did helium person the credibility, aft Chappaquiddick, to motorboat a highly nationalist probe of corrupt acts by others? Would his beingness distort the public’s cognition of the crimes committed successful Nixon’s name?

“My earthy inclination, similar yours, is to spell — it’s excessively meaty a happening to enactment distant from,” Flug urged his boss. “But for the aforesaid reason, it could backfire large and permission you looking similar McGovern’s governmental hatchet man.”

Kennedy’s prime was a taxable of statement for years. Nixon and his aides would yet recognition “the good manus of the Kennedys” with the instauration of the Senate Watergate Committee, the assignment of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the president’s dilatory and dependable downfall. McGovern’s advisers, however, were conscionable arsenic agitated — filling the aerial with “unprintable expletives,” according to columnist Stewart Alsop — by what they perceived arsenic Kennedy’s nonaccomplishment to act. Upon examination, McGovern whitethorn person had the amended origin to complain.

There were, to beryllium sure, complications. To start, determination was Kennedy’s projected usage of Ad Prac. Some successful the Senate objected to his presumption of the sheet arsenic an unfettered hunting licence and argued that a Watergate probe would beryllium amended launched from a committee with wide jurisdiction similar Government Operations. On the different hand, Kennedy had held hearings connected the menace posed to civilian liberties by wiretapping agelong earlier Watergate, and truthful had precedent connected his side. Nor did different senators amusement an appetite successful taking connected Nixon. The applicable committees were successful the hands of Southerners, aghast astatine McGovern’s wide views and with nary fierce tendency to manus him the White House.

A period earlier the election, the starring alternate — Senator Sam Ervin, who chaired Government Operations and a Judiciary subcommittee — took himself retired of the running. Instead, helium encouraged Kennedy to unmask the screen up with a televised nationalist proceeding — Kennedy vs. Nixon — that would warrant broad sum and commentary. They had a prize drawback successful Baldwin, who could rotation a gripping blow-by-blow relationship of the burglary, the bugging and the engagement of Nixon run officials. “I privation to impulse you to see hearings,” Ervin said. It would beryllium “a perfectly due legislature enquiry into however the Justice Department is performing its work to the American people.”

As a dean of the Senate and a dependable from the South, Ervin carried weight. He was “bad connected civilian rights,” but “incredibly bully connected civilian liberties,” Kennedy would recall. Ervin’s imprimatur would support bid successful the Senate, but it led Kennedy to different questions: Would his probe beryllium deemed credible by the property and the voters? Could helium suffer much than helium mightiness win?

Kennedy had Flug canvass the clan. Calls went retired to Burke Marshall and others from the precocious Robert Kennedy’s staff, to McGovern, and to Kennedy advisers David Burke, Richard Goodwin and Lawrence O’Brien. Attorney Edward Bennett Williams and his spouse Joseph Califano, whose steadfast represented the Washington Post and the Democratic Party, were consulted. Kennedy’s allies connected the subcommittee — Senators Phil Hart of Michigan, John Tunney of California, Bayh and North Dakota Sen. Quentin Burdick — were canvassed arsenic well.

On September 28, Flug sent Kennedy 3 memos. Written by antithetic advisers — and signed lone “X” and “Y” and “Z” to promote candor — each outlined a people of action.

The archetypal memo, by “X,” gave the lawsuit for restraint. Putting Baldwin connected the basal would beryllium “a melodramatic nationalist proceeding of historical proportions,” X acknowledged. But it could marque it intolerable for the different Watergate burglars to get a just trial. “Especially successful the fields of justness and liberty, the astir outrageous magnitude of the Nixon Administration has been its changeless readiness to sacrifice principles … (in favour of) short-run pragmatic expediency,” X wrote. “To combat specified cynicism and opportunism by partaking of it ourselves would beryllium hypocrisy of the archetypal order.”

Principle aside, determination was authorities to consider. Nixon would lash backmost — accusing Kennedy of trashing the defendants’ rights.

“We would beryllium playing successful a unsmooth league, and we would person to beryllium prepared to play rough,” X wrote. Baldwin’s grounds would beryllium 1 man’s story, and relied successful portion connected hearsay. They needed much impervious that the White House was progressive oregon that “the hole is in” astatine the Justice Department. “Right present we don’t person it.”

The 2nd memo, from “Y,” gave the assertive constituent of view, and was titled, “Why Ad Prac should denote Watergate Hearings Now.” Here was the lawsuit for a full-fledged battle earlier the election. “Even if Baldwin is our lone witness, his communicative is 1 of ruthless lawlessness by employees of the (Nixon) Re-Election Committee,” Y wrote. They had a motivation work to exposure Nixon’s transgressions. “If we are going to basal softly successful the look of some a ungraded of historical proportions and a politically motivated effort to … screen up that ungraded until aft Election Day, past we merit the benignant of authorities we are getting.”

“It would beryllium omniscient to beryllium polite and accidental that the facts volition travel retired successful the people of the transgression trial,” wrote Y. “But the cruel information is that the probe has been successful the hands of (Nixon administration) officials with the grossest benignant of struggle of involvement who delayed the indictment truthful that a pre-election proceedings would beryllium impossible.”

“This is simply a proceeding that would beryllium the biggest happening … and would get crossed to the public, successful a mode that adjacent the proceedings itself won’t do, the enormity of the violations of laws and rights,” Y argued. “When a gross impropriety similar the Watergate crippled occurs, it is overmuch much important to get to the bosom of the matter, hole eventual work … and to guarantee that the full process is cleansed.”

The 3rd memo, by “Z,” contained a cautionary, mediate approach, outlining the way that Kennedy yet chose: to support investigating, but to forego hearings. It was temperate, liable — and timorous. To the sizeable exasperation of McGovern’s statesmanlike campaign, and immoderate connected his ain staff, Kennedy chose not to springiness the voters a afloat relationship earlier the November election. “I don’t privation a circus oregon to look similar a header hunter,” Kennedy told a newsman from National Journal.

And truthful the infinitesimal passed. Americans would not perceive earlier the predetermination what Baldwin had to say: that Attorney General John Mitchell and different high-ranking Nixon medication officials were progressive successful the break-in, that McGovern office had besides been targeted for bugging, oregon however the cover-up began.

Baldwin yet gave an interrogation to the Los Angeles Times, but it lacked the punch of a televised legislature proceeding and faded from the nationalist debate. Things seemed settled until, connected October 10, Woodward and Bernstein disclosed that the Watergate break-in was but portion of a widespread, well-funded run of governmental sabotage and espionage coordinated by White House officials.

This gave Kennedy a 2nd accidental — a tract of enquiry that would not endanger the defendants’ rights successful the upcoming Watergate trial. His unit would motorboat a “preliminary inquiry,” Kennedy announced. Flug went backmost to work.

Bernstein was invited to interrogation the senator. He recovered him guarded, cagey. “I cognize the radical astir Nixon,” Kennedy told him. “They are thugs.” But helium had nary illusions astir what helium could execute this precocious successful the election. At best, his probe would beryllium a “holding action,” helium said, to support Nixon’s unit from destroying the evidence, and to support immoderate vigor connected those moving the cover-up.

Politically, determination was “no percentage” successful it, Kennedy confided to the reporter. The White House would spell “with everything it had to smear him,” helium said. He was susceptible connected Mary Jo Kopechne’s decease and different “nickel-and-dime stuff.”

Indeed, Nixon’s allies — Strom Thurmond, Barry Goldwater and Clare Boothe Luce — would soon rise Chappaquiddick anyway.

“There is inactive that small truism which says radical who unrecorded successful solid houses should not propulsion stones,” Goldwater said. In an op-ed successful the New York Times, Luce quoted the bumper sticker slogan: “Nobody was drowned astatine Watergate.”

Flug was permitted to proceed. Subpoenas were issued. Bank records were collected. Kennedy’s unit ran down the caput trickster, Donald Segretti, and the paymaster — Nixon’s idiosyncratic lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach. But, erstwhile again, nary hearings were held. At a climactic gathering with his unit successful December, Kennedy decided to enactment disconnected the confrontation.

“Since the expected result was truthful uncertain, and the imaginable of EMK falling connected his look was truthful possible, nary determination was made,” an interior bureau memo noted.

At the White House, arsenic Nixon’s concealed taping strategy captured their remarks, the president and his men chortled. Kennedy was backing off, Haldeman told the pleased Nixon, due to the fact that helium had been compromised astatine Chappaquiddick.

On Nixon’s birthday, successful aboriginal January, his unit sent him a telegram. Allegedly from Kennedy, the “Director of Water Safety,” it invited Nixon to “a quiescent play astatine Chappaquiddick” for a “homey household barbeque” and added, “P.S. Bring your bathing suit.”

From the publication TED KENNEDY: A Life, by John A. Farrell, published by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a part of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2022 by John A. Farrell.