Tag: Kennedy

Is There More To Mary Jo Kopechne’s Life Than Chappaquiddick?

A new book is coming out about the life of Mary Jo Kopechne.

She was a pretty young woman who drowned in a Chappaquiddick Island waterway in 1969 after the United States Senator Ted Kennedy (brother of JFK) reportedly drove his car off a bridge and left the scene.

It is generally considered to be the event that derailed his presidential aspirations.

But that’s about all most people know about Forty Fort, PA native Mary Jo Kopechne, according to her surviving family members.

They believe she deserves a better legacy, and the family is about to release a book about her life.

Kopechne’s family hopes the book, “Our Mary Jo,” and a scholarship fund started in her name at Misericordia University in Dallas will finally give her a proper identity.

“Mary Jo always got lost in the shuffle of Chappaquiddick,” said co-author William Nelson, whose mother was Kopechne’s first cousin. “In many ways, her book and her scholarship kind of take Mary Jo back from Chappaquiddick. They finally bring her back to the Wyoming Valley.”

Kopechne was a teacher who graduated from Caldwell College in New Jersey with a degree in business and education, states timesleader.com.  She got involved with politics, and rose to a key position with Ted’s other brother Bobby Kennedy.

The book doesn’t dwell on Chappaquiddick and how Kopechne died, states standardspeaker.com.

In fact, it’s barely mentioned. The 180-page book focuses on her life, the potential of the rising political operative, and the impact of her death at age 28, her family says.

(Updated post)

Former Colleague Calls O’Reilly A ‘Phony’

In his 2012 best-selling non-fiction book Killing Kennedy, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly writes on page 300 that he was about to interview a man named George de Mohrenschildt, a figure in the JFK assassination.  As a “reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt’s daughter’s home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian … that reporter’s name is Bill O’Reilly,” states Media Matters.

Bill O'Reilly's Killing Kennedy

O’Reilly repeated the tale for the Killing Kennedy audiobook.  In Kennedy’s Last Days, the adaptation for younger readers, O’Reilly wrote, “As I knocked on the door, I heard a shotgun blast. He had killed himself.”

The Fox News host also repeated the tale while promoting his book and movie special on Fox News.

However, numerous pieces of evidence contradict O’Reilly’s claim that he “heard the shotgun blast” that killed de Mohrenschildt.

In comments to Media Matters, two of O’Reilly’s former colleagues at station WFAA in Dallas said that O’Reilly’s version of events is not true.  “Bill O’Reilly’s a phony, there’s no other way to put it,” said Tracy Rowlett, a former WFAA reporter and anchor who worked there with O’Reilly.  “He was not up on the porch when he heard the gunshots, he was in Dallas. He wasn’t traveling at that time.”

Byron Harris, a reporter at WFAA for the past 40 years, said that O’Reilly had not traveled to Florida for the story and accused him of “stealing” his reporting on de Mohrenschildt’s suicide from a newspaper.  He said O’Reilly “was in Dallas. He stole that article out of the newspaper. I guarantee Channel 8 didn’t send him to Florida to do that story because it was a newspaper story, it was broken by the Dallas Morning News.”

Both Harris and Rowlett said O’Reilly never mentioned having been present for the gunshot during his time at WFAA.

“I don’t remember O’Reilly claiming that he was there. That came later, that must have been a brain surge when he was writing the book,” said Rowlett.

Harris further pointed out that WFAA “would have reported it as some kind of exclusive — and there was no exclusive — if O’Reilly had been standing outside the door.”

O’Reilly’s claim of having been present when de Mohrenschildt shot himself was also missing from his 1992 Inside Edition report on documents relating to the Kennedy assassination.

During that report, O’Reilly said, “moments before he was to be interviewed by House investigators, de Mohrenschildt blew his brains out with a 20-gauge shotgun.”

(That statement comes at roughly the 2:37 mark in the video below.)

In comments to Media Matters,  Reporter and University of California (Washington Center) visiting professor Jefferson Morley said O’Reilly’s claim of being present for the gunshot is “just not true” and speculated that it was “just part of the pattern, to embellish the story and make it a sexier story.”  Morley said, “It is what these guys all do, they inject themselves into a dramatic situation,” said Media Matters.

Below is a video of CNN’s Brian Stelter interviewing Morley about O’Reilly’s report on de Mohrenschildt.

(Updated post)

The “Other” Assassination Attempt – General Edwin Walker

Seven months prior to Kennedy’s assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald made a different assassination attempt – on retired Army General Edwin Walker.

Walker was living in the Dallas area and was affiliated with right-wing causes. He had run for governor of Texas in 1962, getting beat in the primaries. He had also pushed the McCarthyism ideals that there were Communists inside the U.S. government. He had orchestrated riots against desegregation at the University of Mississippi and he railed against the “anti-Christ Supreme Court,” etc. You get the picture.

It was April 10th, 1963. Oswald left home that night and didn’t give details to his wife Marina about what he was doing. He didn’t return until very late. He left a note for her, which she kept and hid.

The note was about how he had paid rent and he left her as much money as he could. He also instructed her to throw out his clothes but not his personal documents. The note also told her where the city jail was, if he were “alive and taken prisoner.”

According to sources, Oswald aimed at Walker through a back window at his house. The bullet hit the window frame, was deflected, and passed near Walker’s head. Oswald learned from the radio the next day that Walker hadn’t been killed.

Marina later testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald actually told her that he had tried to assassinate Edwin Walker. Marina also told the Warren Commission about the note he left (which she still had). A handwriting expert confirmed the writing was from Oswald.

Photos of Walker’s house were found that were taken by Oswald’s camera. That year, experts could not say for sure that the bullet fragments were from Oswald’s gun.

Another examination in 1977 concluded that the metal elements in the bullet exactly matched the Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition used in Oswald’s rifle. (The technology for this didn’t exist back in 1963.)

For seven months, no one knew who tried to assassinate Edwin Walker – the evidence came out after Kennedy was shot.

Until he died, Walker believed that Oswald had an accomplice – and Walker spent decades trying to learn his identity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Oswald_Porter
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/walker.txt
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/oswald/more/ps_walker.html
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2544
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Walker