There was no way that someone like Maureen Callahan was not going to use Mimi Alford. And Callahan used her in two different sections of her book. Even though she presents a myriad of problems. Greg Parker did a nice job outlining the origin problems with Robert Dallek’s surfacing of the story. (Article by Parker at reopenkennedy case.net of 2/7/2012) As he points out there was no ‘intern” program being run out the White House by press officer Barbara Gamarekian--who was Dallek’s original source for Alford. This was likely a term Dallek wanted to use to make a parallel with Monica Lewinsky. Secondly, at first no one recalled Alford, even when Dallek first brought her name up. As Parker notes, after Dallek’s book came out, reporters pieced together a story of her being at the Bermuda summit with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. (Time magazine, May 26, 2003) How do you piece together something from 1961 in 2003? Especially when no one recalled her at first?
Plus the Alford claim is she did not start at the White House until 1962. (NY Times 2/11/62)
But the story is actually worse than that. And Callahan knows it but she just discounts it. Mimi claimed she was in the White House during the Missile Crisis. (Callahan, p. 289) And also that JFK sent his wife and kids away so he could be with her. (Sunday Times, 2/12/12)
As biographer Randy Taraborrelli shows, this is more malarkey. Jackie Kennedy refused Secret Service agent Clint Hill’s request for her to go to a bomb shelter in the East Wing. (Taraborrelli, Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, p. 100) She refused to relocate elsewhere. The reason she gave was that average American citizens did not have that opportunity so she should not either. During the entire two week episode, she was gone for only two days. And this coincided to times when her husband was also gone. And when this happened, it was JFK who called her and said he was returning, so she should also come back. (ibid, pp. 101-02) Jackie clearly stated that if she was going to perish in an atomic war she would do so with her husband and kids. (ibid, p. 104)
But the most jocular part of the Alford story is her statement that not only was she there during the Missile Crisis, but Kennedy told her “I’d rather my children be red than dead.” (The Guardian, 2/10/12)
How can any informed person keep a straight face while reading such rubbish? Kennedy went on national TV and warned the Russians that any missile launched from Cuba would be considered an attack from Russia. He considered the secret installation of a first strike force in Cuba to be a Russian ploy in order for Moscow to make a play for Berlin. And that is where Kennedy had drawn a line in the sand. And any historian can tell that from the preceding year’s Berlin Crisis. Furthering that line in the sand was OPLAN 316, a huge joint Pentagon operation that was designed for land, sea and air operations against Cuba. Thank heaven that did not occur since the Russians had given Castro tactical nuclear weapons with which to incinerate any incoming invasion.
Kennedy’s open determination to go to the brink was part of his masterful diplomacy that saved us from incineration. It has always been part of the conservative agenda to somehow demean Kennedy’s stellar achievement.
II
Callahan’s approach was not going to spare Ted Kennedy. Even though many Republicans called him the most effective Democratic senator of the era. Who can forget his attack on Judge Robert Bork? Kennedy’s call in the night was a warning against that The Federalist Society was hijacking our judiciary system in broad daylight, something that Donald Trump completed, with loathsome results. Equally memorable was his eloquent, unforgettable concession speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention, which seemed to sum up the whole reason d’etre of the party.
Well Callahan can. And she does her usual rigging of the schema. She discounts credible and objective biographies of Kennedy by accomplished biographers like Neal Gabler and John Farrell. Instead she references and uses a book about him by a guy named Richard E. Burke. (p. 361) I strongly recommend the reader go to Amazon and compare the number of books and biographies published by Gabler and Farrell and the number by Burke. You will see many by the first two, I could only find one by the last: the Kennedy book. With likely good reason.
As reviewer Theo Lippman, who wrote a book about Kennedy, said, he got all of Teddy’s staff to talk to him except Burke. Lippmann learned that Burke was a gofer. And he made up stuff like Kennedy sharing cocaine with his children. But what some journalists dug up was that what caused Burke to write the book was a combination of personal bankruptcy, drug dependence and serious emotional problems. (Greensboro News and Record, 10/24/92). It was a sizeable bankruptcy, $875, 230.00. According to another report , numerous people’s names in the book were changed, and composites were used. (Sharon Isaak, Entertainment Weekly, 10/30/92)
Is this the way to write biography? Well, I guess its okay for Callahan.
In addition to Burke, she also says that the late Leo Damore’s book about the Chappaquiddick tragedy is the best on the subject. (Callahan, p. 348) Yet Senatorial Privilege was rejected by its original publisher, Random House. Even though they had given Damore a $150,000 advance. This ended up in a court action since Random House wanted their money back. Damore said this was all caused by pressure from the Kennedy family. The judge in the case stated that that there were no extenuating circumstances: that is, the Kennedy family exerted no pressure. He also said the publisher had acted in good faith rejecting the manuscript. Another problem was that Damore was accused of practicing “checkbook journalism” paying off a witness, i.e. Bernie Flynn. (Read Lisa Pease’s discussion of Damore.)
So what happened to Damore’s book after this? Rightwing literary agent Lucianna Goldberg came to the rescue. She found him a home at the conservative house Regnery. One of the most bizarre aspects of Damore’s book is that he suggests that the drowning victim, Mary Jo Kopechne, survived for hours after the crash due to an air pocket in the car. And she appears to borrow this. (Callahan, p. 106) This is utter nonsense. Because three of the windows in the car were open when the car hit the water. (Chappaquiddick: The Real Story, by James Lange and Katherine DeWitt, p.41) Also, Damore all but dismissed the effect of hypothermia in this case.
Another problem with Damore is his use of Joe Gargan, a Kennedy cousin, as a witness. Gargan had a falling out with Ted Kennedy in the early eighties. As Pease notes, even the NY Times took issue with this: “What undermines Mr. Damore’s account is that these accusations, while seeming to come from a firsthand source, are not direct quotes from Mr. Gargan, nor are they attributed directly to the 1983 interviews.” The accusation is that Kennedy wanted Gargan to say that it was him driving the car. The problem is that there is no evidence in the original record that Kennedy ever said or even implied such a thing. (op. cit. Pease)
But the worst part of Damore’s book was its title. Because as James Lange and Katherine DeWitt point out, Ted Kennedy did not get any special treatment as a result of this case. Lange was a personal injury lawyer, and he concluded that Kennedy got what any other person who could afford a good lawyer would. He had to pay a combined indemnity to the Kopechne family of in what is today well over a million dollars, he got his license suspended, and a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident. (Lange, p. 151, pp. 160-62)
Callahan, I think borrowing from the cheapjack film that was made of this tragic episode, tries to say that Ted Kennedy really did not need the neck brace he was wearing . (Callahan, p. 121) Again, this is malarkey. Both doctors who examined Kennedy told him to wear that brace due to cervical strain. That would be Dr. Watt, a trauma specialist, and Dr. Broughan, a neurosurgeon. (Lange, p. 51, p. 120) I think they know something more about such injuries than Callahan.
In fact they both concluded that, among other injuries, Kennedy suffered a concussion so severe that he had both retrograde amnesia and post traumatic amnesia. (ibid, pp. 120-21) In fact Brougham wanted to do a lumbar puncture, popularly called a spinal tap. This was a dangerous operation at the time; but he suspected there was blood leaking into Kennedy’s brain. (ibid, p. 51, p. 72)
Kennedy had almost always used a driver to get him around. That night was about a one in a hundred exception.(Lange, p.195) And this was the first time he had even been on the Chappaquiddick Island.(Lange, p. 191) In fact, he had been driven to the cottage where the Robert Kennedy memorial cookout was taking place.(Lange, p. 201) In his original statement given to the police it is revealed just how unfamiliar he was with Mary Jo. (p. 100) He could not spell her name correctly. (Callahan notes Mary Jo was not wearing panties; she should have noted that she was wearing slacks. Lange, p. 42).
Callahan also tries to imply that Kennedy was drunk and speeding at the time. She says he had four coke and rums. He had two all evening. (Lange, p. 138, p. 205) As for speeding he was driving around 20 miles per hour upon entry to the main road and slowed down to about 7-8 MPH as he took the right turn onto Dyke Bridge, which was the wrong turn and on a bridge with no lights and no guard rails. (Lange, p. 201)
Kennedy made numerous efforts to save Mary Jo. But the current was so powerful he was unsuccessful. (Lange, p. 87, p. 208-10) The same thing happened when he enlisted Gargan and Paul Markham to help.
The third book that Callahan uses is a biography of Ted Kennedy’s first wife Joan. The book was written by Joan’s administrative assistant for three years, Marcia Chellis. What I thought was interesting in this book is that although Callahan criticizes Ted for being a cheater, its pretty clear from Chellis’ descriptions that Joan cheated on Ted also. (Living with the Kennedys, p. 47). What is also interesting is that Ted supplied Joan with a lot of help in the house, maid, cook etc. And somehow, that is supposed to be a bad thing? (Ibid, p. 38)
Finally, that book closes with Joan’s recovery from alcoholism and her return to normality after the finalization of her divorce from Ted Kennedy. The implication being that it was all Ted’s fault and Joan would now go on to fulfill her potential both personally and professionally.
Chellis spoke too soon. That is not what happened. In 1988 her car crashed into a fence on Cape Cod. This earned a 45 day license suspension, with an order to go to meetings about her alcoholism. Three years later, she was arrested for drinking vodka straight out of a bottle while weaving her car along an expressway. She was later sent for rehabs at McLean Hospital and also at St Luke’s in New York. The latter specializes in celebrity treatments. She said she finally felt free around this point. (Boston.com, “The Fall of Joan”, 5/15/2006)
Then in 2006 she was found with blood on her face trying to get up after a fall on a Beacon Street sidewalk. Someone called for an ambulance. She sustained a concussion and a broken shoulder. Her blood alcohol was above the legal limit. This episode eventually led to her three children setting up the equivalent of a conservatorship over her affairs and assets. For one thing, she was hiding her addictions from her own caretaker. (ibid)
Just recall, 2006 was well over 20 years after her divorce from Ted Kennedy.
III
Maureen Callahan’s book is so imbalanced, so agenda driven, that even if you are a Kennedy relative who is innocent, you are guilty. A good example of this is the William Kennedy Smith/Patricia Bowman incident from 1991 . Callahan touches on this case in passing three times. (p. 180, pp. 268-69, pp. 313-14) And she clearly sides with the accuser Bowman without describing any of the evidence that caused the jury to acquit Smith. In March of 1991, the two met at a bar in Palm Beach, Florida and according to Smith, Bowman offered to drive him home. Smith was the nephew of Senator Ted Kennedy, the son of Jean Kennedy Smith who was appointed ambassador to Ireland in 1993. What happened after they arrived at home was a subject of dispute. It was finally decided in court over a broadcast by the Courtroom Television Network, their first jury trial. Bowman’s claim was that Smith sexually assaulted her; Smith insisted that it was consensual sex. Smith said this happened on the beach. Bowman said it happened near the pool closer to the house; there he tackled and assaulted her. Smith called her story an outrageous lie. (Miami Herald, 5/12/91)
At first it was believed that there would be no trial since Bowman’s case largely consisted of her word against Smith’s. But prosecutor Moira Lasch decided to file charges. This did not occur until May 12, almost six weeks later. (ibid) Smith told his cousin Patrick Kennedy that he felt he was being set up. And the fact that the woman took an urn and framed photograph out of the house suggested to Patrick that such might have been the case. (Miami Herald, 5/15/91)
The problem with Lasch’s case was simple. Defense attorney Roy Black took apart Bowman’s key corroborating witness. Anne Mercer met Bowman at the Kennedy estate that following morning. Mercer’s story was shown to be a bit inconsistent. For example, in prior statements Mercer said that the victim told her she had been assaulted twice, on the beach and inside the estate. She also said that Ted Kennedy had been watching the first time. (ibid) It came out on Black’s cross examination that she had sold her story to A Current Affair for 40,000 dollars and, with that money, she had taken a trip to Mexico with her live in in boyfriend. This was after she was in receipt of a subpoena for the trial, and after the jury had been selected. Some observers felt this was a turning point in the proceedings. Another fascinating factor Black brought out was this: the accuser was able to find her way to Mercer’s home afterwards--even though this was the first time Mercer said she had ever been there. Black’s cross-examination of Mercer was so effective that legal commentators ended up calling her “his witness”.
Forensically, Black called Charles M. Sieger, an architect who examined the house for acoustic properties. He concluded that noises would travel far inside the confines of the home. But the accuser previously said that she screamed that night about 15-20 feet from the property. But none of the dozen people inside heard her. Sieger said, on the contrary, he heard a conversation from the second floor coming from the beach area.(Miami Herald, December 8, 1991) Forensic scientist Henry Lee testified that he could find no grass, or mud stains or major damage on the accuser’s clothes, which he expected to be there from a struggle on the lawn. He even used a microscope. (Chicago Tribune, 12/8/91).
In fact, and a point which Black accentuated, when Mercer arrived to pick her up, the accuser was in the house at the top of a stairs. She had not run away, or locked herself in her car.
But here was the real problem with Lasch’s case. Bowman had removed both her shoes and pantyhose before she entered the house. Black effectively used this fact during his cross examination of both Mercer and Bowman: the suggestion being that she intended to have relations with Smith from the start. We will never know if, as Smith told his cousin Patrick Kennedy, he was being set up. But Black managed to put the possibility out there.
In a bit over an hour, the jury acquitted Smith. Needless to say none of this is mentioned by Sullivan.
IV
The problem with the Smith acquittal can be explained in two words: Dominick Dunne. Dunne was writing for Vanity Fair and editor Tina Brown at that time. She allowed him to write a story in the March 1992 edition of that magazine saying that Smith was acquitted because of the Kennedys’ “pageant of piety in Palm Beach”. It was this belief that formed part of the motive for his years long crusade to convict Michael Skakel in the cold case of Martha Moxley’s 1975 murder in Greenwich, Connecticut. Skakel was a nephew to Ethel Kennedy, the widow of murdered Senator Robert Kennedy. Sullivan spends about 17 pages on the Moxley case. But she does not even begin to describe the true roles of Dunne and LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman. (Sullivan, pp. 180-196). To anyone familiar with that massive and prolonged media event, this is startling. Because without those two men, in all probability, there would have been no trial of Michael Skakel
Sullivan suggests that somehow the leaders of Greenwich had little interest in the wake of 15 year old Martha Moxley’s bloody murder during Hell Night in 1975. She also implies that one of the elite was involved.(Callahan, p. 186) There is an evidentiary problem with that implication. There was no hard evidence in the case to convict anyone: no matching blood samples, no DNA, no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, no shoeprints. Therefore, prosecutor Donald Browne did not file charges. But he did commission inquiries. The two main suspects were Ken Littleton--the Skakel family tutor—and Michael’s older brother, Tom Skakel. Tom was allegedly having some kind of an affair with Martha and was the last known person to see her alive. But—and it’s a big but-- on Hell Night, Halloween Eve, there was and is a large influx of youngsters on the streets and in alleys who party, imbibe in liquor, and smoke dope. (Robert Kennedy Jr, Framed, p. 19).
Dunne would have none of this. How bad was Dunne in both cases, i.e. the Smith and Moxley cases? During the former case, he dropped a rumor that William Kennedy Smith had been in Greenwich the night Moxley was killed, and that Browne wanted to do forensic tests on him. This was false, but it indicates the jihad that Dunne had against the Kennedys. (Vanity Fair, October, 2000)
Another point that Sullivan leaves out: in 1993 Dunne wrote a novel, A Season in Purgatory, based on the Moxley case. It featured a cover up by the police caused by a wealthy family’s power. Incredibly, the killer is a camouflaged John Kennedy Jr. Between the rubbish about Smith and this incendiary novel, could Dunne make his intention any more clear? Also ignored by Sullivan: the novel was then made into a mini-series in 1996, and this gave Dunne an even larger platform on the Moxley case.
In addition to downplaying Dunne’s rabid crusade and erasing Fuhrman, Sullivan does not mention Tom Sheridan. Yet it was through Sheridan that Michael now became a suspect. It was attorney Sheridan who talked Michael’s father Rushton into doing “purposely prejudicial” inquiries into Tommy, Michael and Littleton on the Moxley case. Sheridan edited those files to spin them against Michael. (Kennedy, pp. 145-46) It was Sheridan who requested that, after a DUI and accident, that his father place Michael in a kind of bootcamp reform school called Elan. Michael was regularly beaten up there, and he tried to escape more than once. He ended up suffering from PTSD because of this house of horrors. Not noted by Callahan: That school was eventually closed down, partly due to the efforts of former students. (Ibid, p. 138)
Dunne- with help from the late rightwing literary agent Lucianna Goldberg--was rehabbing Fuhrman after his calamity in the O. J. Simpson trial. The pair convinced the former detective to write a book on the Moxley case. Fuhrman visited this school and he found some of the people who said they knew Skakel. No surprise, they said he confessed to the Moxley killing. Two of them testified at Skakel’s trial. Michael’s defense was so bereft that the school administrators were not summoned. One of them, Mr. Ricci, called this testimony preposterous. He never heard about it and he should have. He then would have called in the attorneys. (p. 193) One of the trial witnesses named a corroborator. When this person was finally found, he said it was all invented. He then called the two trial witnesses liars. (ibid, pp. 199-200) Callahan uses these witnesses. (Callahan, p. 192)
The inquiries paid for by Rushton eventually got out to at least three people. This included Dunne, and he gave them to Fuhrman to write his book, Murder in Greenwich. Dunne also wrote a long article based on them for the October 2000 issue of Vanity Fair. If you are counting, that is a novel, a mini-series, a non-fiction book, a major magazine article and –we should not leave it out-- there was also a broadcast film made out of Fuhrman’s book. Plus both Dunne and Fuhrman made TV appearances. Finally, Dunne gave the files to the investigator on the case, Frank Garr.
Under this unremitting pressure from outside forces the local authorities succumbed. (Hartford Courant, November 14, 2002, article by Roger Catilin) They indicted Michael using a one man grand jury, they rewrote the statute of limitations, and they tried him as an adult, even though he was a juvenile when the crime occurred. To top it all off, Michael had a defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, who was somewhat less than zealous, yet he charged Rushton 200,000 dollars for media appearances. (Kennedy, p. 222) Surprisingly, although charging a 2.5 million overall fee, Sherman did not hire a jury selection expert. With this kind of defense, with Dunne and Fuhrman infesting the new DA’s office, and the media arrayed against him, in 2002 Michael was railroaded to conviction.
In an appeal for a new trial, Skakel was paroled in 2013. His conviction was overturned in 2018 on the grounds that Sherman did not provide an adequate defense. In the appeals process an alibi witness was found for Michael who proved he was not at the scene of the crime. Callahan spends one sentence on this witness. (Callahan, p. 195) The DA could have retried the case. They declined. Again, Callahan left that out.
She also does not mention the following: Michael Skakel has filed a lawsuit against both the town of Greenwich and lead investigator Frank Garr. The primary grounds are malicious prosecution and violation of legal rights. Part of that lawsuit states that Garr threatened witnesses, hid evidence, and was attempting to profit from a book and movie deal. (CNN report of January 4, 2024 by Syllla and Sabrina Souza) Michael’s lawyer termed what happened to his client a “railroad job”. He called Michael an innocent man who never committed the crime. (News 12 Connecticut, January 3, 2024)
For Callahan to not fully reveal this side of the story is inexplicable. Perhaps because if one does, in tandem with the Smith case, it counters her thesis. The indications are the two men were prosecuted because they were Kennedy related.
In baseball, there is a term called “taking the collar”. That means a batter goes zero for four in a nine inning game. That is he got no hits or walks in four trips to the plate. As the reader can see, from parts 1 and 2, Callahan has gone zero for seven. Which is more like the equivalent of taking the collar in a double header. Quite a negative achievement.
In Part 3: Former lawyer Megyn Kelly cheerleads Callahan’s trashy book.
