My day

The day Mary Jo Kopechne died

"We Can't Find Mary Jo" - Kennedy at Chappaquiddick
The accident which changed his life and ended hers

By Mary Wentworth

Just past midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, just off Cape Cod. The Senator escaped a watery death, but a passenger in his car, twenty-eight-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, below on right, did not.

Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were preparing to be the first human beings to walk on the moon. The Black Panthers were holding a national convention in Oakland, California, while the Vietnam War troubled the consciences of millions of Americans. What brought Kennedy to Chappaquiddick, however, was the Edgartown Sailing Regatta, an event in which the Kennedys had participated for many years.

A police diver examines the inside of the Kennedy car in the water aside the Dyke Bridge in Chappaquiddick.

The accident at Chappaquiddick has cast a long shadow over Kennedy's political life, crippling his quest, for example, for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980.

At the time, and since then, nearly all newspaper and magazine articles, and even books, have concentrated on discrediting Kennedy's account of his actions both before and after the incident.

Nation didn't believe his story

According to a Time-Harris poll (Time 8/6/69), the account offered by Kennedy over nationwide television on the Friday following the accident was not accepted by a majority of the American people. Fifty-one percent felt that it was an inadequate explanation of what he was doing at the post-regatta party and of what he was doing with Kopechne, on right. The responses questioned his honesty. Even for that minority who believed him, the event raised questions about his ability to handle a crisis.

Many questions about this case have never been satisfactorily resolved. At what time did Kennedy actually leave the party? Was his turn on to Dyke Road a mistake as he claimed in his statement to the police and in his television address to the nation? Or was it intentional? After the accident, why didn't he seek help from people in nearby cottages? If he had been, in fact, too traumatized to ask for assistance as he claimed in his television talk, why didn't his friends immediately contact authorities when they were told of the accident?

The lack of credible explanations to these questions touched off speculation that the truth about Mary Jo's death was more shocking than Kennedy's statements about it. Teddy Bare, published by the John Birch Society in 1971, disparages the handling of the case by judges and prosecutors and ridicules the testimony of Kennedy's friends and associates, leaving the reader to believe that Kennedy was guilty of criminal negligence.

A plausible explanation 40 years later

Now, as the fortieth anniversary approaches, it is high time to present a plausible explanation of what actually happened that fateful night. The following reconstruction, developed from general descriptions of the scene, numerous eyewitness interviews, investigative reports, and Kennedy's statements that have been published in newspapers and magazines, explains why events unfolded as they did.

Below is the New York Times story on 7/24/69.

This approach demonstrates conclusively that the only hypothesis that fits the overall picture is that there were three people in the car. This theory has been mentioned in the media from time to time. For instance, Herb Caen, a well-known columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, noted in his column of July 9, 1981, that locals have come to believe that this was the case. In a step-by-step process, however, this reconstruction shows for the first time exactly how such a theory is the only credible explanation.

Kennedy's version is built around the premise that he knew that Kopechne was in his automobile when he only knew that in retrospect - after her body was discovered to be there by a scuba diver.

At a party hosted by Kennedy, attendees included Esther Newberg, an Urban Institute employee, Rosemary Keough, a secretary on Kennedy's staff, Maryellen Lyons, an assistant to Massachusetts Senator Beryl Cohen, Ann Lyons, Maryellen's sister and a Kennedy staffer, Susan Tannenbaum, an aide to Congressman Allard Lowenstein, and Mary Jo Kopechne, an employee of Matt Reese Associates, a campaign consulting firm. All six had worked in what we today would call "the war room" of Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign that ended tragically with his assassination in June of 1968. These young, unmarried women had been looking forward to this weekend reunion (NYT 7/24/1969).

In addition to Kennedy, the other men who attended the party were Charles Tretter, a lawyer who had been on Robert Kennedy's staff, Ray LaRosa, a civil defense official, who along with Tretter, was often a sailing companion of the Senator's, John Crimmins, a Kennedy employee and chauffeur, Paul Markham, an Assistant District Attorney for Massachusetts, and Joseph Gargan, a Kennedy cousin. All but one were married (NYT 7/24/1969).

Edgartown Police Chief Dominick Arena took photos...

of the car recovery.

Kennedy's police statement. A full size version is below.

After an afternoon of watching races from a Kennedy yacht, the party got under way about eight Friday evening with cocktails and barbecued steaks at a rented cottage.

Newspaper reports described Mary Jo as being dedicated to politics, particularly where the Kennedys were concerned. Not a "swinger" by any means, she was relatively quiet, perhaps naive, and noted for her "thoroughness, industriousness, and discretion" (Time 8/1/69). The summer sun and ocean breezes combined with the day's activities, one or two drinks, and a full meal could easily have motivated her to look for a peaceful place to nap before the others were ready to call it a night and head back to Edgartown. Since the cottage was a small ranch-style with only three rooms, the darkened and quiet inside of the Olds with its commodious rear seat must have looked inviting.

Kennedy maintained in his statement to the police (NYT 7/26/69) as well as in his address to the nation (NYT 7/26/69) that he and Kopechne left the party at 11:15 p.m. to catch the ferry to Edgartown before its last scheduled crossing at midnight. This claim is not plausible for several reasons. If Mary Jo had decided to return to her motel in Edgartown she did so without bothering to retrieve her purse from the cottage or ask her roommate for the keys to their room. When she stretched out on the back seat of the Olds, however, she had no need for these items because she was not going anywhere. Or so she thought (DHG 4/14/1980).

Judge Boyle doubts story

No less a person then Judge James Boyle, who presided over the inquest, wrote in his report that if Kennedy's destination had, in fact, been Edgartown he would have asked his chauffeur to take him there so that the car could be driven back to Chappaquiddick to provide transportation for the ten remaining guests. They would have only the Valiant, a compact car rented for the occasion by Gargan, to get them back to Edgartown (NYT 4/30/79).

A witness further undermines the Senator's story. Deputy Sheriff Christopher Look got off duty at the Edgartown Yacht Club at midnight, crossed the channel to Chappaquiddick in the club's launch, got into his waiting car, and drove up the Main Road toward his summer home. His claim that he saw the Kennedy Oldsmobile at the intersection of this road and Dyke Road at about 12:45 a.m. has been regarded as reliable.

The Deputy Sheriff got a good look at the car because it crossed the path of his headlights at the sharp curve where the Main Road goes to the right. Entry into Dyke Road for someone coming in the opposite direction also requires a right. The driver was unable to negotiate this very tight turn and ended up on Cemetery Road, a narrow dirt lane that runs perpendicular to Dyke Road. Look continued around the curve at the intersection and braked his car on the shoulder. He got out and started back toward the other car, thinking that the driver must be lost. As he called out, the car backed up with the rear lights revealing the license plate and then completed the turn, proceeding down the unpaved, bumpy Dyke Road.

Look stated that his first impression of the car was that there was something or someone in the rear seat - an article of clothing, a large handbag, or possibly a person. Perhaps Look caught sight of Kopechne's white blouse. Look thought there were two people in the front seat (NYT 7/22/69).

The Dyke Bridge goes off at a left angle as it crosses Poucha Pond. Since it is narrow, hump-backed, and roughly constructed, it is normally traversed on foot or in a jeep or beach buggy. At its end are dunes and a beach. Several members of the party, including Kennedy, had been driven to the beach that day to go swimming (DHG 4/14/1980). The marks on the bridge indicated that the car was driven straight off it with the undercarriage scraping the four-inch high planks along the sides as the right front wheel went over. The car turned, hitting the water on its right side, denting the doors and blowing out the windows. It landed in about seven feet of tidal water, resting on its hood ornament and brow of the windshield so that the rear of the car was slightly more elevated than the front (BG 7/20/69).

Kennedy said he didn't know how he got out

Kennedy maintains that he does not know how he got out but a possible exit for him and his companion, most likely Rosemary Keough since it was her purse that was later found in the car, would have been the almost completely withdrawn window on the driver's side. Then, too, a door could have been pushed open when enough water had gushed into the car to match the inside pressure with the outside (NYT 7/26/79).

The walk to the cottage from Poucha Pond, a distance of one and a quarter miles, would have taken about twenty-five or thirty minutes. This would have brought the twosome, dripping wet if they were fully clothed, back to the cottage shortly before one-thirty. Foster Silva, the neighbor whose cottage was nearest the party house, reported that the rather noisy gathering that had disturbed his family abruptly quieted down at just about that time (NYT 7/24/69).

It is not hard to imagine that Kennedy, consulting with the two people at the party who were closest to him, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham, decided that it would be imperative for him to get off the island as quickly as possible in order that he suffer no damaging political repercussions in connection with his presence at the party and with what appeared to be an accident involving only his car.

The night was clear and warm with the moon shining brightly. Since it was Regatta weekend, there was much activity around the Edgartown harbor. People were strolling about, fishing from the pier, or visiting back and forth amongst the boats moored there. Two hotel employees on the Edgartown pier saw the lights of a car being driven onto the Chappaquiddick landing around one or one-thirty, they thought (LAT 7/29/69).

Car lights are a signal to Jared Grant, operator of the ferry, that someone needs to make a crossing. But these lights were quickly turned off. Since the plan was to give the impression that the Senator had spent the night in Edgartown, Markham and Gargan, after driving Kennedy to the landing in the rented Valiant, would not have wanted to reveal the Senator's presence on Chappaquiddick by calling out the ferry at that hour.

But there remained the problem of the Senator finding another means to cross the five-hundred-foot wide channel. He later claimed that after making valiant efforts to save Mary Jo he was in such a state of shock that he impulsively plunged in and swam the distance (NYT 7/26/69). However, it is not at all unusual - in fact, it is customary - for a person in need of getting to Edgartown to borrow a dinghy if it is promptly returned (NYT 7/24/69). In a Jack Anderson column that appeared a couple of weeks after the accident, confirmation of such a crossing came from a group on a yacht who identified Kennedy as one of three men on a boat docking at the Edgartown pier about this time.
The Senator then appeared, dry and calm, before the co-owner of the Shiretown Inn where he was staying, ostensibly to complain about a noisy party, but really to ask the time, establishing his presence in Edgartown at 2:25 a.m. (NYT 7/27/69). Markham and Gargan recrossed the channel in the borrowed dinghy and drove back to the cottage. Esther Newberg confirmed that the two men had left the party at some point but was not sure about the exact time or how long they were gone (NYT 7/24/69).

Was Mary Jo Kopechne unconscious?

What about Mary Jo Kopechne? Did she wake up at any point during the short trip from the cottage to the bridge, but decide not to make her presence known? When the car went into the water, was she momentarily knocked unconscious, only coming to as the others were escaping?

At any point did Mary Jo's friends begin to wonder where she was? Given the atmosphere of the party, its setting, and the activities of party goers, reminiscing, singing, dancing, going in and out of the cottage, and taking walks there was probably no time when someone specifically thought to ask about her whereabouts. There was no way for someone who was inclined to check with the motel to see if she had quietly returned to Edgartown to do so since there was no telephone in the cottage (NYT 7/24/69),

As the night wore on, the accident went unreported. The plan obviously called for someone other than Kennedy to claim responsibility for the car's being in Poucha Pond. It would be better, too--it must have been argued--for that person to wait until morning and face charges of leaving the scene of an accident than to report it promptly, submit to a Breathalyzer test, and risk a drunk driving charge.

The two-car "On Time" ferry began daily operations at 7:30 a.m. Several members of the party, Markham and Gargan and two of the women, Tannenbaum and Keough, made an early crossing that would have taken less than four minutes (NYT 7/24/69). It is likely that the women were driven to The Dunes, their motel, which was not in the center of town, to shower and change before eating breakfast. In the process, it would have been discovered that Mary Jo had not returned there the previous night.

This sobering and unsettling fact was the first indication that something may have happened that was more serious than a car submerged in Poucha Pond.

No doubt alarmed by this news about Mary Jo, Markham and Gargan found Kennedy chatting with Ross Richards, a Regatta winner and old friend, on the inn's deck about eight o'clock. The three immediately went to Kennedy's room for a conference to try to figure out where Mary Jo might be since her body had not yet been discovered in the Oldsmobile.

The game plan changes

The game plan might have to be changed. At one point, Kennedy came to the front desk, ordered newspapers, and borrowed a dime from the clerk to make a phone call, which he was unable to complete, to Burke Marshall, his lawyer and longtime friend of the family (NYT 7/14/74). Surely, they were all hoping that Mary Jo, wherever she was, was safe and sound.

At just about this time, two young men knocked on the door of Mrs. Pierre Malm's cottage near Dyke Bridge to tell her that they could see the wheels of a car submerged in Poucha Pond. Later, she would tell reporters that she read past one o'clock the night before but that no one came to her house seeking help (NYT 7/27/69).

Edgartown Police Chief Dominick J. Arena was notified and left Edgartown at 8:20 a.m. to cross to Chappaquiddick to the scene of the accident. Putting on trunks, borrowed at the scene, he dove into the water, which was less than six feet deep by this time, but the strong current prevented him from getting deep enough to determine if anyone were in the car. He then called John N. Farrar, a scuba diver with the Edgartown Rescue Squad, to come help out (BG 7/22/69).

Even if events had taken place in the manner in which Kennedy depicted them, the nine-hour delay in reporting the accident would have given them more than enough time to come up with a better story than the one that Kennedy and Markham concocted on the spot at the police station, and which was later revised for national television.

Putting on his equipment on the way to the scene, Farrar quickly entered the water and saw Mary Jo Kopechne's feet through the rear window of the overturned automobile. He swam around to the right side window and found her with her head cocked back and pressed up into the foot well with her hands gripping the edge of the rear seat. He thought that the position of her body indicated that she had found an air bubble in her struggle to stay alive. Even though the car was upside down with the open windows allowing the seawater to rush through, it was possible, he thought, for an air lock to form. Air bubbles that emanated from the car when it was hauled out and the lack of water in the trunk were further indications of an air lock. Farrar felt that it would have been extremely difficult for Mary Jo to extricate herself from this situation without help (NYT 7/22/69, USN & WR 11/3/69).

If Mary Jo had been one of the two people that Deputy Sheriff Look saw in the front seat, how would she have gotten to the rear of the overturned car? Even in its quest to disprove Kennedy's rendition of the accident the press did not expend ink on examining this mystery. Given the manner in which the car had overturned, it is unlikely that someone would have been thrown from the front to the rear. It is even more unlikely that a passenger could have crawled from the front to the rear once the car was submerged. Mary Jo's body was found in the car's rear section because that is where she was when the accident happened.

By now, the area was buzzing with news of the car accident and the commotion that it had caused. A wrecker had been contacted to come pull the Oldsmobile out of the water. Assistant Medical Examiner Donald Mills had been called to the scene to determine the cause of death and a local undertaker had also made the trip over. It would take almost half an hour to remove the body from the car.

While these activities were taking place, Kennedy, Markham, and Gargan caught the ferry to Chappaquiddick. Kennedy claimed at the inquest, probably truthfully, that he returned to Chappaquiddick in order to have more privacy in calling Burke Marshall (NYT 5/1/70). Then, too, they may also have been intent on locating Mary Jo.

After waiting around for twenty minutes, hoping maybe that his phone call would be returned, Kennedy and his entourage left the shelter of the landing house on the Chappaquiddick side just about nine o'clock. When a ferry operator asked them if they knew about the accident, one of them replied that they had just learned of it. Upon getting back to Edgartown, Kennedy, accompanied by Markham, went directly to the police station (LAT 7/22/69).

It is not clear exactly when the three learned that Mary Jo's body was in the car. It might well have been that Kennedy and Markham had it confirmed for them at the police station. In any case, Gargan, after leaving the landing house, got into his Valiant and driving up Main Road found Newberg and the Lyons sisters heading for the ferry landing. He drove them back to the cottage, where he told them, "We can't find Mary Jo." Perhaps he did not want to be the person to break the news of Mary Jo's death to her friends at that time or perhaps he really didn't know that she was dead. Later, after depositing them at their motel, he telephoned to tell all five that Mary Jo had drowned in the car and that Senator Kennedy had tried to save her (NYT 7/24/69). At least one of the group would have known that this last bit of information was not true.

The car had been quickly identified as belonging to the Senator. Look, who was at the scene, recognized two "L"s and a "7" as being on the plate of the car he had seen hours earlier at the intersection. After Farrar's discovery, Arena called the police station to ask that Kennedy be contacted although he did not know then that Kennedy had been the driver. He immediately left the accident scene when he was told that the Senator was at the station and wished to see him. Since Arena assumed that the purse that had been found in the car after it was pulled from the pond belonged to the dead woman, when he arrived at the station he asked Kennedy if Rosemary Keough's relatives had been notified of her death (DHG 4/18/80).

The discovery that Mary Jo Kopechne had drowned in his Oldsmobile changed everything. Kennedy now had to acknowledge responsibility for the accident since it was out of the question for someone else--that someone else most likely would have been his cousin, Joseph Gargan--to claim to be the driver.

The effort that had been made to show that Kennedy had been in Edgartown for the night--his conversation with the motel owner at 2:25 a.m.--now became a major sticking point in preparing a new version of events. How could it be explained that Kennedy was in Edgartown at that hour when a young woman had met her death in a car he acknowledged he had been driving in an accident that he had not reported?

Kennedy and Markham sat in the Edgartown police station, cobbling together a story that would incorporate an improbable answer to this question, generate some amount of sympathy for the Senator, and provide him with a defense--"I don't remember" and "I can't explain this"--in the event that criminal charges were brought against him.

Later, an added feature of his television statement was its attempt to cast him in a hero's role through his valiant but imaginary efforts to rescue this young woman.

Kennedy also claimed in his television address that he had alerted Gargan and Markham concerning the accident and they, too, had tried to rescue Mary Jo. This may have been an effort to explain their absence from the party. But the claim that they undertook rescue efforts are just as ludicrous as Kennedy's, since none of them knew at that time that Kopechne was in the car.

Even if they had known that Kopechne was in the car and Kennedy had been incapacitated as he claimed, it is inconceivable that one of them would not have alerted the authorities. After all, the firehouse with its alarm was across the street from the cottage. Clearer heads than Kennedy's would have understood that, come morning, the body would not have disappeared from the car.

Even if events had taken place in the manner in which Kennedy depicted them--that he and Mary Jo had been on their way to the ferry, he had taken a wrong turn, he, and then Markham and Gargan, had tried to save her and had failed--the nine-hour delay in reporting the accident would have given them more than enough time to come up with a better story than the one that Kennedy and Markham concocted on the spot at the police station, and which was later revised for national television.

Within five days of the accident, his lawyers arranged for him to be charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving personal injury. He pleaded guilty, thus avoiding any possibility of a cross-examination, received a two-month suspended sentence, was placed on probation for one year, and had his driver's license temporarily revoked. An inquest was held the following winter, as well as a grand jury investigation in the spring, but no further charges were brought against him.

Why didn't Kennedy simply tell the truth in his statement to the police? In doing that, he would have had to admit that he and a young woman, not his wife, were going to the beach for a midnight swim (that they were both under the influence of alcohol could not have been proven), that he did not have his automobile under control, and that because he, along with everybody else at the party, did not know that Kopechne was in the car no attempt was made to save her, and that since he did not know this, he planned to foist responsibility for the accident on to someone else.

Could the truth have been worse than being stuck with the image of being a cold-hearted monster as well as a liar that many people have retained of him to this day? Like many politicians before and since, he did not want to 'fess up to anything that made him look other than honorable and upright. But like many before and since, he came off looking worse than if he had come clean.

In general, people find it easier to forgive the truth-teller than the liar. By telling the truth early on he might have won his bid for the presidency in the 1980 campaign. By telling it now, he can remove a stain from his own legacy as well as from his family's.

This originally appeared as an Op Ed for capecodtoday.com. Notes: NYT - New York Times, BG - Boston Globe, LAT - Los Angeles Times, USN & WR - U.S. News & World Report, and DHG - Daily Hampshire Gazette.

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Honduras: The Ham in the Sandwich

American imperialism in Latin America today

In April 2002, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, was kidnapped from the presidential palace and in due course flown to Orchid Island, off the coast of Venezuela. An announcement was made that he had resigned. Within days those who had engineered this US-backed coup were forced by huge demonstrations and by divisions in the military to restore him to office.

In February 2004, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, president of Haiti, was kidnapped, forced onto a plane and flown to Africa. It was announced to the media that he had resigned. Unfortunately, the people of Haiti have not been able to undo this US coup against their national sovereignty.

In June 2009, Mel Zelaya, above on right, president of Honduras, was kidnapped from the presidential residence in Tegucigalpa and flown to Costa Rica. An announcement has been made that he signed a letter of resignation. It remains to be seen whether international condemnation and internal protests will be enough to restore him to his post as the rightful president of his country.

Where "the rich don't sleep
and the poor don't eat."

Why Honduras? Why now?

In 1983 I was part of a Fellowship for Reconciliation delegation that had been sent on a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua and Honduras to ascertain what was going on in these two countries and to report back to the American people.

After flying into Tegucigalpa from Nicaragua one morning, our trip from the airport to our hotel convinced us that Honduras was, indeed, one of those countries where “the rich don’t sleep and the poor don’t eat.”

A monster pickup truck, outfitted as a police/military vehicle, had followed us from the airport, staying three or four cars behind us. Once in the city, a voice over a loudspeaker commanded the driver to stop. Several officers came forward to inspect us, our driver’s papers, and give us a warning.

As we continued on our way, we observed men in camouflage, carrying machine guns, at every major intersection. They stood ready to block off the street at a moment’s notice. Nearer our hotel I caught a glimpse of a man being arrested at rifle point on a crowded street.

We discovered that there was a police station catty-corner from our hotel. Men went in and out or stood around on the street with their guns. In Nicaragua we had seen men with guns, guarding official buildings or waiting for transportation to the border to fight the “contras,” Reagan’s mercenaries that were out to topple the Nicaraguan government. They mingled casually with the general population, chatting with adults or playing with the children. We had talked with several one day in a café where we were having lunch. But here in Honduras, we noticed that people who came along the sidewalk toward the police immediately crossed to the other side to avoid walking past them.

Viewing this armed camp, it was hard to believe that President Reagan had had the gall to hold up Honduras as a model of democracy.

Our first appointment for the day was at the US Embassy. We had considered ourselves fortunate that rather than Ambassador John Negroponte we would be meeting with Chris Arcos, the American Consul for Public Affairs for Honduras. He was a Chicano from Texas, a former campus radical married to a Honduran citizen. Rumor had it that he, a holdover from the Carter administration, would be a straight shooter.

Ambassador Negroponte, always willing to serve wherever the US Empire has problems, had flown over to Guatemala to attend to any fallout from a coup d’etat that had brought in an army general to replace the Guatemalan president, a born-again Christian who took his orders from God rather than the CIA. Negroponte had cut his diplomatic teeth in Vietnam alongside Richard Holbrooke, who is now US Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both men have successfully worked their way up the foreign policy food chain.

Arcos began by explaining that Honduras by virtue of its geographical location had become the focal point for US operations in Central America. With Nicaragua along its southern border, Guatemala sprawled across its long northern one, tiny El Salvador nestled alongside both in the west, Arcos’s description of Honduras as “the ham in the sandwich” was apt.

To our consternation, Arcos suddenly switched gears, proceeding to detail the usual false claims.

To our consternation, Arcos suddenly switched gears, proceeding to detail the usual false claims: Nicaragua was shipping arms to the rebels in El Salvador, Nicaragua was the aggressor in the conflict with Honduras (Reagan employed the old bugaboo that with help from the Soviets, we Americans were about to be attacked by Nicaraguan tanks rolling into Harlingen, Texas), and that Cuba was training Hondurans to launch an internal revolt. 

Reagan’s policy, Arcos explained, was aimed at helping the Hondurans consolidate their new democracy by providing them with the minimum security that they needed to protect and develop their economy, referred to as a “dessert economy” because it was based on coffee, bananas and sugar. Four of the five largest corporations in the country were American-owned — Texaco, Amex, Standard Brands, and United Fruit.

Testimony to the reality that few Hondurans benefited from these export crops is the following: In 1983, the 4.1 million people of Honduras had a life expectancy of fifty-seven years, forty three percent were illiterate, ninety percent of the children under five were malnourished, and eighty-three percent of the homes had no electricity.

At the end of the session we followed Arcos out into the hall and demanded to know why he had given us such a bunch of baloney. Away from his colleagues, he replied that two men had come into the room and, standing at the back, had monitored our questions of him and his answers. One had been sent from the White House, he said, just to keep an eye on him. 

That evening in an unscheduled activity, we climbed a dark staircase to enter a dimly-lit daycare center where three women waited to speak to us. It had all the elements of a clandestine meeting — which it was. The women were relatives of a young man who had been arrested and detained by the police. As a member of the United Federation of Students, he had been teaching peasants (small farmers) to read and write under an extracurricular program funded by the US Agency for International Development. Now they knew that he was one of the desaparacidos, the disappeared, because they could not find him among the living or among the dead.

Two of the women in tears, we realized how dangerous it was for them to meet with us.

At the end, two of the women in tears, we realized how dangerous it was for them to meet with us and offered to destroy our tapes and notes, but they insisted that we not do so. “Please tell Reagan of our situation. You must get him to do something.” We promised that we would try.

We knew that the CIA had built a huge listening post/communications center in the country, had improved its seaport to accommodate larger vessels, and had constructed a 60-bed military hospital as well as new roads. It mattered not a whit that the new Constitution forbid foreign troops on Honduran soil.

There is little reason to believe that the plight of the people of Honduras has improved. Their chance to be in charge of their destiny, to reap the benefits of their natural resources and of their own labor appears now to have been taken from them with yet another coup d’etat.

It seems pertinent to ask whether this ham-handed interference in Honduran affairs is a sign that the US is gearing up to roll back the progress made by the people of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador (and perhaps even Peru and Chile) in throwing off the yoke of Yankee imperialism and becoming free and independent states?

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DO YOU BUY BOTTLED WATER?

If you do, think about the following:
The French bottled water Evian is naive spelled backwards for good reason

They are found floating in the Pacific Ocean in a mass of other non-biodegradable debris that is twice the size of Texas and is known as the Garbage Patch.

    • It’s a rip-off — big time.
        Coca-Cola was forced to admit in 2004 that Dasani is just tap water. Nestle’s has had to add “Public Water Source” to the label of their Pure Life brand.
        The upshot is that you pay multiple times more for a product that is available to you at minimal cost from the faucet in your kitchen.

    • Tap water is regulated, but bottlers face few regulations and plants are rarely inspected.

    • Bottled water is an environmental disaster.
          While these bottles can be recycled, eighty percent end up in landfills where they take a long time to degrade. They are found floating in the Pacific Ocean in a mass of other non-biodegradable debris that is twice the size of Texas and is known as the Garbage Patch.
        Since three times more water is used to produce the bottle than the amount of water it will contain, it is a process that wastes a life-giving resource.
        Bottled water also consumes significant amounts of non-renewable fossil fuels in extracting and transporting it to plants and then to distribution points. The entire process adversely impacts air quality and adds to climate change.

Nantucket Bottled Waters uses a public source while Chilmark Spring Water Co. uses water on family-owned property.

    • If you buy bottled water believing it tastes better than tap water, maybe you are buying the “hype”?
        For example, when ABC’s Good Morning America blind-tested its studio audience by asking them to taste samples of New York City’s tap water, Poland Spring, Evian and oxygenated 02, the Big Apple won hands down.

    • What is the likely long-term impact on a community’s water supply?
        Closer to home, Nantucket Bottled Waters, Inc. uses a public source for its operations while Chilmark Spring Water Company uses water on family-owned property. The thing is that underground water sources are not easy to map and any of them may well be part of a large network that supplies more than one community.

Like oil, we are beginning to realize that our supply of water is not inexhaustible.

Unlike oil, however, there is NO substitute.

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Part II - Power Clashes on Beacon Hill

Why we elected GOP Governors for the last sixteen years

Before Deval Patrick came to our rescue, how did it happen that over a sixteen-year stretch Republicans were elected governor in a heavily-Democratic state like Massachusetts?

Last week’s op-ed noted that legislative leaders have successfully ruled the roost by keeping at bay the State Party and its platform. They decide which issues will be addressed, ignoring the wishes of grassroots Democrats, and leaving us with a Party that is an empty shell.

Legislative leaders have another battle to win in order to retain their dominance. If a Democrat aspires to the Corner Office, he or she must defer to them. If a Republican becomes governor, then they automatically control the Democratic agenda.

In the years when statewide elections are held, we delegates decide which gubernatorial candidate gets our nod as well as which candidates will be on the September primary ballot. The ourpose of the 15% rule is to narrow the field so that the winner comes out of the primary with strong enough support to prevail in the November election.

However, Party leaders try to short circuit the efforts of strong independent candidates by giving them the kind of primary competition that will weaken their chances or by withholding support if they win.

Take Robert Reich. He entered the 2002 race late in 2001 with little start-up money. But he built enough momentum to make a good showing in the February caucuses. The assets that made Reich attractive to many Democrats — being new to state politics he had no political debts, his name recognition, his national standing as Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, his history of fighting for working people — were the very assets that sent chilly winds blowing through the State House.

By the time the convention rolled around there were five Democrats looking to pass the 15% requirement — Senate President Thomas Birmingham, state Senator Warren Tolman, Steve Grossman, former chair of the DNC, State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, and Reich. Tolman did not have even 100 pledged delegates when 600 were needed. But he had value to the powers-that-be because if he were on the primary ballot he would split votes with Reich and allow Birmingham or O’Brien to emerge the winner.

Ignoring the 15% rule’s objective, Birmingham and O’Brien in a Stop Reich move asked some of their delegates to vote for Tolman on the first ballot. O’Brien went on to win the endorsement. (Grossman dropped out during the summer but his name remained on the ballot.)

O’Brien was a candidate that the state legislators felt confident would play their kind of ball. She won the primary with only 33% of the vote. Only 58,000 votes separated her vote total and Reich’s. Tolman got 132,00. O’Brien lost to Mitt Romney. But the legislative leaders won their fight.

Democratic Party honchos had hoped to scuttle Patrick’s bid the way they had Robert Reich’s in 2002. So how did Patrick make it in? He began his campaign early enough to raise money and get his supporters elected at the February caucuses. Patrick, too, had served in the Clinton administration as a civil rights attorney in the Department of Justice. He appealed to voters because he did not talk down to us, did not indulge in boilerplate rhetoric, and addressed issues head on. At campaign stops he stayed until the last person had left the hall. With a catchy tune, a moving video, and hundreds of placards and balloons, he took the convention by storm with 58% of the vote.

The only other pre-caucus candidate, Attorney General Tom Reilly, favored by the status quoers, had a weak campaign organization, had been revealed to be carrying some baggage, and had proved to be an uninspiring speaker. No match for Patrick, the newcomer.

That left the legislative/state committee cabal with the problem of figuring out how to get Chris Gabrieli his 15%. It was not an easy task because Gabrieli had entered the race in April so he had virtually no pledged delegates. But maybe, just maybe, Gabrieli with his millions could win the primary or, hopefully, take enough votes from Patrick to give Reilly the win.

We delegates twiddled our thumbs for over an hour while those behind the blue curtains, under the pretense that some districts were late in handing in their roll call votes, worked at getting Gabrielli his 15%. They barely made it. He got 15.36%.

Patrick easily won the primary and went on to win 56% of the vote to Republican Kerry Healey’s 35% in the general election.

Soon after his election, it was revealed in a Boston Globe article (12/15/06) that Senate President Travaglini had bragged at a luncheon speech to a group of business types that he had informed the governor-elect that he, Travaglini, would determine the legislative agenda — and not the Governor. When the remarks were made public via the Globe article, Travaglini was forced to “make nice” at a joint press conference with Patrick.

By using his bully pulpit and threatening to use his veto power, the Governor is now battling with the legislature to pass several much-needed reforms. We’ll see who wins.

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Fighting for democracy at the Democratic State Conventions

Part I - Convention Delegates Struggle To Make Their Voices Heard
Some delegates claimed the new platform would pass muster at a Republican convention

The leaders of the Democratic State Committee tried to pull a fast one on the delegates, elected last February from towns and cities across the state, by dropping support for single-payer health care from the party platform that was up for adoption at last Saturday’s convention in Springfield.

...When delegates objected to his determination that the "Nos" had it on a voice vote,
he refused to allow a vote by show of hands.

Concern about single-payer was not the only reason that a motion was made from the floor to keep the old platform rather than adopt the new one. Some delegates claimed the new one would pass muster at a Republican convention. Perhaps it was an effort to be bipartisan that is so popular nowadays. The old platform was developed when Massachusetts had a Republican governor and it let voters know where Democrats stood on the issues.

Now Governor Patrick’s former campaign manager, John Walsh, who had gotten the nod to be the new Chair, abdicated moderator neutrality and lobbied from the podium against such a vote. When delegates objected to his determination that the “Nos” had it on a voice vote, he refused to allow a vote by show of hands. Later, after James Roosevelt, the Party’s parliamentarian, came from the wings to stand at his side, he did go for it on other proposals when he judged a voice vote to be unclear.

Since there are no statewide or national elections this year, this was an “Issues Convention,” held in accordance with our Charter. One might suppose that we delegates would spend a major portion of the day discussing matters of concern to grassroots Democrats. I had asked Walsh at last year’s convention if we could actually discuss issues this time around. He snorted, “You can’t do that with 3000 people.”

State legislators, who basically control the actions of the State Committee, intensely dislike these conventions (and, by extension, us delegates except when we go into campaign mode) and were noticeably absent on Saturday. Over the years, they have tried to squeeze out a vote at one or another convention to do away with them and have in its place a day that is devoted to workshops on how to elect Democrats to office.

In the past, a state legislator has often served as Chair of the State Committee and, therefore, as Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Not only is this improper but no legislator should even be a member of the State Committee because it is a conflict of interest for them to do so.

State legislators have succeeded in sidelining the State Committee and our Party's platform.

State legislators have succeeded in sidelining the State Committee and our Party’s platform, leaving them free to decide the legislative agenda. Of course, this also leaves them, the representatives of the people, open to pressure from corporate interests. Wouldn’t life be easier for them (although less lucrative for some) if they could reject the lobbying efforts by simply saying, “No, I can’t do what you want because it is against my party’s platform”?

While we did not get to keep the old platform, we did have the votes to reinstate the single-payer healthcare plank along with other amendments such as support for using strong diplomacy to resolve conflicts and cutting the military budget by 25%. We added a measure to protect our state’s wildlife and natural habitats. An amendment to our charter was passed that added the word “disability” to the Charter’s anti-discrimination section.

Resolutions were passed that asked our state congressional delegation to work for appointment of a special prosecutor to hold accountable those who have violated our Constitution. We also passed a resolution that rejected legalizing predatory slot machines and other activities that promote addictive gambling. In other words, a “no” to casinos.

My main point is that we had to work hard to force Walsh and other Party leaders to give us even a minimum amount of time to debate these proposals. They could only have been brought to the floor by following a thicket of rules established by the State Committee and overseen by the Sergeant-At-Arms.

Is this the western-style democracy that we are trying to impose on other people? If it is, it is easily gamed to serve everyone except the people.

Stay tuned for Part II – Power Clashes on Beacon Hill

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