Nation: THE KENNEDYS: INQUEST OF SUSPICIONS

THE authorities investigating the death of Mary Jo Kopechne have caused nearly as much uncertainty as Edward Kennedy’s own partial explanations of the accident that killed her. At first, there was almost total reluctance in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., to press the inquiry. Kennedy’s plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident seemed to end the legalities. Now, at least one more chapter in the tortured proceeding is assured.

Exactly 21 days after Kennedy’s Car plunged off the narrow Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, District Attorney Edmund Dinis and District Court Judge James Boyle met last week to resolve procedural confusion over whether or not to hold a belated inquest. The conference ended with Boyle’s announcement that an inquest would be convened in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, on Sept. 3. At the same time, Dinis continued his efforts to have Mary Jo’s body exhumed so that an autopsy could be conducted.

Official Curiosity. Dinis’ role in the investigation has been at best inconsistent. A flamboyantly aggressive lawyer and ambitious Democratic politician, Dinis has had cool relations with the Kennedys. They have declined to help him in his campaigns for higher office. Yet initially he remained aloof from the case, even declining to order an autopsy when the body was still in his legal jurisdiction. He made no move for an inquest or thorough investigation while witnesses were still in easy reach. Official curiosity overcame Dinis only after the press demanded more information and a national mood of skepticism about the whole affair put both Kennedy and the authorities on the defensive. Even now,, it is questionable how thorough the inquest will be. At week’s end, Dinis said he had “no intention at this time” of calling Kennedy to testify—although Kennedy obviously knows more about what happened than anyone else. Edgartown Police Chief Dominick Arena was making arrangements anyhow to provide police protection in case Kennedy is called. When reminded of Dinis’ statement that Kennedy would not be summoned, Arena remarked: “That’s what he said today. But if you know that guy [Dinis], you know why we have to arrange for every possibility.”

Even with Kennedy’s testimony, it is doubtful how much clarity an inquest could now bring to the case. The ten other surviving members of the Chappaquiddick party could be subpoenaed. It would be extremely difficult, however, for the court to compel those out of state to appear. Kennedy’s friends Paul Markham and Joseph Gargan, both lawyers, might attempt to avoid the witness chair on the ground that they had acted as Kennedy’s counsel.

An inquest might determine at what time Kennedy and Mary Jo left the Chappaquiddick party and how much they had had to drink. But it is problematic whether such a hearing could legally consider some of the larger lacunae in Kennedy’s account. Why did Gargan and Markham not report the accident and why did they permit Kennedy, clothed and presumably dazed, to plunge into the channel to swim from Chappaquiddick to Martha’s Vineyard? Was Kennedy trying to establish an alibi when he appeared fully and dryly clothed before a hotelman in Edgartown and pointedly asked the time? (It was 2:25 a.m.)

Without Jury. In Massachusetts the inquest is a seldom-used procedure, normally held in private before a district judge who calls witnesses one by one to testify under oath. Reporters, however, will be admitted this time. Such a hearing is “not accusatory,” and if no evidence of criminality is found, no further proceeding need follow. But if a judge does find fault, such as negligence, his report is passed on to a grand jury and could then lead to a criminal process. The inquest itself has no jury and no provision for cross-examination of witnesses.

Some lawyers argue that an inquest could not be held without an autopsy on Mary Jo Kopechne’s body, since presumably the medical cause of death must be established before legal cause of death is considered. Yet last week, Mary Jo’s parents, while agreeing that an inquest might be helpful, bitterly opposed an autopsy. Said Mrs. Joseph Kopechne: “No one is going to disturb my baby.” Since Mary Jo is now buried near her home town of Plymouth, Pa., Dinis will have to persuade the Dukes County District Court to request the Luzerne County, Pa., court to order exhumation and an autopsy. By Pennsylvania law, autopsies can be performed, even against the wishes of “near relatives,” if there is suspicion of a serious crime.

Elaborate Conjecture. What could an autopsy prove now, weeks after death? It could disclose whether or not Mary Jo was pregnant, though probably not whether she had had sexual intercourse in the hours before she died. Judging from her character, however, those matters are unlikely to be a consideration. An autopsy could determine more firmly whether she died by drowning or some other cause. It could not establish whether she had remained alive for a time, breathing in an air pocket, after the Kennedy car sank to the bottom of the saltwater pond.

Speculation, meanwhile, has not died down. An inquest of suspicions has been in session since the accident. In a grotesque way, the situation is reminiscent of the aftermath of Dallas: around certain known but maddeningly opaque facts, imaginations elaborated conjectures possibly far worse than the truth. In an attempt at normality, Ted was back in the Senate and his wife Joan appeared at the Tanglewood Music Festival to narrate “Peter and the Wolf.”

Columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson became the first to publish a widely circulated notion that Kennedy, immediately after the accident, had Joe Gargan, his cousin, agree to “admit to driving the car.” The columnists said that Ted Kennedy, Markham and Gargan returned to the Dike Bridge “to make certain that Gargan would be totally familiar with the circumstances surrounding ‘his’ unfortunate accident.” But “in the cold light of dawn,” say Pearson and Anderson, the Senator “decided to face the consequences himself.” Whatever its implausibilities, the story would explain why Kennedy might have wished to establish an alibi by showing himself at the motel at 2:25. Both Gargan and Kennedy immediately said that the story is false. Another rumor had it that Gargan was indeed driving the car, but everyone who has known the Kennedys agreed that it would be more likely for Joey to take the rap for Ted than the other way around.

Gossip. In another version now in the gossip stage, a federal agent secretly assigned to guard Kennedy saw Mary Jo wearily leave the cottage party about 11 p.m. and curl up to sleep in the back seat of Kennedy’s 1967 black Oldsmobile. Some time later, according to this theory, Kennedy and another girl at the party, Rosemary Keough, got into the car without noticing Mary Jo asleep in back and drove off toward the Dike Bridge. Rosemary and Kennedy escaped safely from the submerged car, unaware that Mary Jo was drowning. This theory would account for Rosemary Keough’s handbag being found in the car. It is unlikely, however, that Mary Jo would not have awakened during the 1.2-mile drive from the cottage to the bridge, part of it over dirt road. It is also unclear how and when Rosemary and Kennedy would have become aware that Mary Jo had indeed been in the back of the car. Could they have returned on foot to the cottage and been told that someone at the party had earlier noticed Mary Jo sleeping in the back seat? The story was not so much a measure of truth as an index of how elaborate the speculation had become in the absence of an adequate explanation from Kennedy.