Chappaquiddick & The Real Reason Ted Kennedy Never Became President (with Pete Holmes)

Summary

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SNAFU with Ed Helms

Episode: Chappaquiddick & The Real Reason Ted Kennedy Never Became President (with Pete Holmes)

Original release date: June 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ed Helms is joined by comedian and longtime friend Pete Holmes to unpack one of the most infamous political catastrophes in American history: the Chappaquiddick incident involving Senator Ted Kennedy. Together, they dissect who Ted Kennedy was, the events of the 1969 accident on Chappaquiddick Island that resulted in the death of young political aide Mary Jo Kopechne, and how this single “snafu” derailed Ted Kennedy’s path to the presidency. Blending humor, empathy, and sharp analysis, the episode explores the Kennedy legacy, media coverage, American nostalgia, privilege, and questions of personal responsibility.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Warming Up — Introductions, Comedy, and The Kennedy “Aura”

Timestamps: [02:12–07:22]

• Pete Holmes and Ed Helms reminisce about the challenges of introducing people on stage and comedic rules for intros.
  • Pete: “You can't unwrap the present for your kid and go, and it's a bike.” [03:39]
  • Ed: “I used to emcee a lot when I was first starting out in standup, and I learned that rule very quickly that, like, the name comes last always.” [03:52]
• Pete shares his experience submitting New Yorker cartoons—how he tried to make submissions mirror the magazine style, and the thrill of his first sale.
  • “The first time I sold one, the cartoon was a guy in therapy...the therapist is taking notes and he says, I think I accidentally suppressed my good memories, which is just so New Yorker.” — Pete Holmes [06:43]
• Establishes the episode’s focus on a major Kennedy scandal—Ed mentions he starred in 2017’s 'Chappaquiddick' film as Kennedy confidant Joe Gargan. [08:06]

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2. The Kennedy Family and Ted’s Upbringing

Timestamps: [08:45–14:47]

• Quick Chappaquiddick geography, Martha’s Vineyard background, and New England “old money” vibes.
  • Described as “as far from chaos as you can get, which makes what happened there in 1969 all the more unsettling.” — Ed Helms [09:05]
• Breakdown of the Kennedy family: nine siblings, infamous patriarch Joe Kennedy, and the shadow of siblings’ deaths.
  • “So Teddy Kennedy has lost three older brothers, all to violence. ...This of course, led to the Kennedy curse as a concept.” — Ed Helms [15:18]
• Analyzing the myth of the 'Kennedy Curse' and humanity’s penchant for pattern recognition.
  • Pete: “I believe in the human mind's obsession with finding patterns and creating meaning.” [16:58]
  • Ed: “We ascribe patterns to things where they just aren't always.” [17:04]

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3. Ted Kennedy’s Political Trajectory and Influence

Timestamps: [14:47–19:46]

• Ted as the emotional and political inheritor after JFK and RFK assassinations; political pedigree and public doubts.
• The Kennedys’ legacy of speechwriting and public image:
  • “The Kennedys had the best writers in political history. Ted Sorensen was famously speechwriter, wrote a lot of JFK's stuff and then RFK's stuff.” — Ed Helms [19:01]
• Humorous attempts to quote JFK:
  • Pete: “Ask not what the United States can do for you, but ask what we as the world can do for the betterment of humankind. Something like that. I fucked it up.” [19:35]

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4. Set-Up: The Summer of 1969 and the Chappaquiddick Incident

Timestamps: [21:28–27:09]

• Ted heads to Martha’s Vineyard for the annual Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta; explanation of the “Boiler Room Girls” - young, capable women pivotal on RFK’s campaign.
  • “These women were badass young women and they were speechwriters. ...Many of them went on to have like phenomenal careers.” — Ed Helms [25:14]
• Pete’s foreshadowing:
  • “You're doing something that people who are telling stories about bad things do—which is giving me a lot of details, a lot of ramp up.” [27:05]

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5. Who was Mary Jo Kopechne?

Timestamps: [30:02–33:02]

• Mary Jo’s background: hard-working, idealistic, deeply involved in progressive politics, admired within the Kennedy orbit.
  • “I think it's just valuable to reflect on the promise of someone like this. …To be a speechwriter in your mid-20s for a presidential candidate.” — Ed Helms [32:37]
• Parallel drawn between political speechwriters and SNL writers—youths at the center of power and influence. [32:44]

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6. The Accident: What Happened That Night

Timestamps: [33:02–43:53]

• Discovery: Two fishermen find Ted's overturned Oldsmobile in Poucha Pond, with Mary Jo's body inside. Car is registered to Ted Kennedy.
• Reconstruction (highly contested, based on multiple sources):
  • Ted and Mary Jo leave the party between 11pm–1am; Ed: "Kennedy would later claim that he was driving Mary Jo back to the Edgartown ferry but they were going in the opposite direction." [35:04]
  • The car veers off an unguarded bridge into the pond. Ted claims to have escaped, attempted to rescue Mary Jo, but ultimately returned to the cottage and did not immediately tell police.
  • With help from his cousin Joe Gargan and friend Paul Markham, failed attempts to save Mary Jo ensue. Ted leaves the scene, swimming across the channel and returning to his hotel.
  • Pete: “How quickly you can come up with a lie...I would have been a good publicist.” [36:39]
• Helms describes the experience of simulating the bridge jump for the movie—how terrifying it was even as an actor.
  • “Diving into dark water and looking into a car, expecting to see a body, it just is, like, so unnerving.” — Ed Helms [40:12]
• Ted does not report the accident until around 10am—over 10 hours later.
  • Ed: “Now back at his hotel, Ted did not report the incident...the following morning he was seen very casually having breakfast with some people in the hotel restaurant.” [41:46]

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7. Cover-Up, Public Fallout & Lingering Questions

Timestamps: [43:53–54:27]

• Police note inconsistencies in Kennedy’s story (timelines, use of credit card for phone calls, lack of autopsy on Mary Jo).
  • “No autopsy was ever performed...before local officials could really even request an official examination.” — Ed Helms [46:03]
• *The coincidence that the moon landing (July 20) overshadowed news of the scandal.
• Ted pleads guilty only to leaving the scene; receives a two-month suspended sentence and loss of license for a year.
• Ted’s primetime TV address written in part by famed speechwriter Ted Sorensen:
  • “My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all.” — Ted Kennedy [51:54]
• Debate over whether Ted truly accepted responsibility:
  • Pete: “That's another. Just concede, just be like, yeah, makes no sense.” [51:56]
  • Ed: “It's like sort of stating the negative without stating the positive. Which is another, like, very savvy bit of, like, linguistic. It's like linguistic jiu jitsu.” [53:06]

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8. Theories, Conspiracies, and the Legacy of Chappaquiddick

Timestamps: [54:27–60:49]

• Alternative narratives discussed: Was Mary Jo really alone in the car? Was a cover-up orchestrated by Kennedy and his insiders?
  • “None of these theories are provable. Right. We just don't know what really happened outside of the testimonies of the people involved.” — Ed Helms [58:37]
• Mary Jo’s family receives a settlement. Ted continues his Senate career, but the presidency is out of reach.
  • In his 2009 autobiography, Kennedy wrote:
    “That night on Chappaquiddick island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life. ... This night I was responsible. It was an accident, but I was responsible.” [60:49]
• Discussion of whether this amounts to real atonement:
  • Pete: “It’s so heavy. It’s hard to joke about. But there is something about saying something just as you’re leaving.” [61:11]
  • Ed: “It’s like a sketchbook. And here’s an email from a dead person.” [61:27]
  • Pete: “The fascination with this story is because we all know we have the capacity to be so self centered and so self serving that you would...Who wouldn't use their money and their power and their influence to get away with something...” [61:26]

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9. Final Twists — The Diver’s Testimony and the What-Ifs

Timestamps: [62:41–64:50]

• Diver John Farrar believed Mary Jo could have survived for 30 minutes in a trapped air pocket—suggesting immediate action might have saved her.
  • Ed: “This is so, so grim, the idea that Kennedy’s delay may have been the reason Mary Jo didn’t survive.” [63:39]
  • Pete (skeptical): “That very well may be true. But what is he basing that on?...How do you know that wasn’t 30 seconds of air?” [63:44]
  • Ed: “There was, like, scratching on the inside the footwell. ... This is why the lack of autopsy is so critical...” [64:50]

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10. Reflections on Privilege, Power, and Human Nature

Timestamps: [64:55–65:40]

• Why the Chappaquiddick story “echoes through the public psyche”—guilt, shame, privilege, power, and self-preservation. It’s a real-life morality play.
  • Pete: “...it really is...a telltale heart kind of story. ...about, like, guilt, shame, privilege, power, ...and what you would do to save your own ass, which is always, always interesting and then the ramifications of that.” [64:57]
  • Ed: “...there’s some really great resources out there. One is a podcast called Cover Up...” [61:52]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On political privilege and possibility of coverup:
  “We all have this, like, devilish instinct where we're like, or maybe I just keep driving. ...Who wouldn't use their money and their power and their influence to get away with something.” — Pete Holmes [44:25, 61:26]

• On Kennedy’s personal sense of responsibility:
  “That night I was responsible. It was an accident, but I was responsible.” — Ted Kennedy (quoted by Ed Helms) [60:49]

• On the American obsession with the Kennedys:
  “It's like a telltale heart kind of story...guilt, shame, privilege, power, like, and what you would do to save your own ass, which is always, always interesting, and then the ramifications of that.” — Pete Holmes [64:57]

• Helms describes the failures of real justice:
  “There’s no amount of financial settlement to a family that can right this kind of wrong.” [58:37]

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Additional Highlights

• Pop Culture References:
  Frequent references to the Kennedys as American royalty/Camelot, comparisons to "Succession," "The Great Gatsby," and comedic asides about New England, yacht culture, and breakfast alibis.
• Behind-the-Scenes Movie Insights:
  Ed recounts his experience filming "Chappaquiddick," including the challenges of acting out the water rescue scene. [40:12]
• Reflection on the media’s role:
  The incident’s media coverage was briefly overshadowed by the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing—a moment of “serendipitous timing for Ted and his team.” [50:08]

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Resource Recommendations

Further reading and listening:

• Podcast: "Cover Up" by People Magazine & Cadence 13 — “a really deep like multi episode dive into this.” [61:52]
• Film: "Chappaquiddick" (2017) starring Jason Clarke, Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, Kate Mara.

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Closing: Guest Plugs and Lighter Moments

Timestamps: [65:40–67:07]

• Pete Holmes plugs his new kids’ book “Spells to Cast on Your Parents”—all human-made, even the artwork. [66:09]
• He also recommends his YouTube stand-up special “Silly Silly Fun Boy.”
• The conversation ends with mutual appreciation, humor, and a nod to the heavy themes just discussed.

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In Summary

This episode delivers an engaging, nuanced, and at times darkly humorous examination of the Chappaquiddick scandal that destroyed Ted Kennedy’s presidential ambitions. Through storytelling, candid reflection, and expert guest banter, Ed Helms and Pete Holmes explore how privilege, panic, and human frailty ripple through history’s greatest screwups—and why, decades later, the questions around Chappaquiddick still haunt American political memory.

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Transcript

[Pete Holmes]

What's funny is I have all these quotes on my mirror, things that I try to hold in my heart. But every once in a while I'll also write like a joke idea.

[Ed Helms]

Oh cool.

[Pete Holmes]

So right now my mirror says like what's wrong with right now if you don't think about it? And then like right beneath says Plan B pill. But for food

[Ed Helms]

they have that. It's called Ex Lax. Oh my go.

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[Ed Helms]

Welcome to snafu, the podcast about history's greatest screw ups. I'm your host Ed Helms. Each episode I'm joined by a guest and we dive into a wacky story from history. And along the way we shoot the shit and wonder why humanity keeps keeps fucking up so badly. My guest today is standup comedian, podcast host and voiceover artist cartoonist. You might know him from his fabulous HBO show Crashing his New Yorker cartoons, his podcast you made it Weird. His book Comedy Sex God or the Pete Holmes show, which I just spoiled. Who it is, it's the wonderful and the fabulous dear old friend of mine, Pete Holmes. Welcome Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

Happy to be here and I Don't think you broke the rules of an intro. You can do that. You can say from the Pete Holmes show without being like, whoops, I blew it.

[Ed Helms]

I can.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I'm saying? I think you can, because what you're touching on is performers. Like, if you do a gig, which I'm sure you do from time to time, NBC calls in for a favor. They want Ed to give a golden chocolate key to PETA, and you have to be there. The intro is typically awful, and they'll be like, ed Helms is our esteemed speaker. And it's like, there's nowhere to go from there.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Oh, right. You can't say the name first.

[Pete Holmes]

No. And then they go, it's so funny.

[Ed Helms]

That's always a corporate mistake.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't unwrap the present for your kid and go, and it's a bike.

[Ed Helms]

But you're telling me I can't. I am allowed to say the Pete Holmes show?

[Pete Holmes]

You can, but you did it perfectly because you said it at the end.

[Ed Helms]

All right. Yeah. There you go. Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

There's like, a little. Oh, it is him.

[Ed Helms]

I used to emcee a lot when I was first starting out in standup, and I learned that rule very quickly that, like, the name comes last always. It doesn't even matter the context. You can be, like, giving a medical presentation at some.

[Pete Holmes]

The esteemed professor.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, yeah. And always.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you know, speaking of emceeing. And we will get to the premise of the show, but as a Daily show fella, I would be emceeing, and John Oliver was there, and he would say, please, if you say from the Daily show, say my name right away. Don't say John.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, right, yeah. Oh, that's funny. It was stealing. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And he would go out to.

[Ed Helms]

Around, please say my name right away. Right away. Right away. Say my name right away. Don't say John. And then pause because they'll think it's Stewart.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, that's so great.

[Ed Helms]

Here's something that I am not familiar with in your background, and I don't know how significant it is, but I like it a lot. And this is the cartooning. Like, what is. What role did that play? And you did have some published in the New Yorker. So, first of all, kudos. That's very, very cool.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you.

[Ed Helms]

And second of all, I've often wondered this. In what format do you submit?

[Pete Holmes]

It's a great question. I think at my level, which was the new guy, I would turn in 12 to 10 to 15, finished like pieces because they. I wasn't Jack Ziegler. I think if you're Jack Ziegler, it could be more of a sketch. And it's like, this is the gag. But they needed to see that I could do the art. I'd go to the Conde Nast building. I'd have my roughs. Then I would go to the Xerox machine and I would photocopy them with a contrast kick. So the blacks would be really black and the whites would be really white and it would look about a thousand times better. And I would print the caption in the same font that the magazine used in italics just to make it look like I'm legit. All of that is unnecessary. But I was just, you know, I'm 25. I'm looking for, like legitimacy. So I made them look as much as I could like a New Yorker cartoon.

[Ed Helms]

The New Yorker was. Had a very sort of like,

[Pete Holmes]

meaningful

[Ed Helms]

place in my household. This is so cool. My grandmother in Nashville, their kitchen was wallpapered with New Yorker covers from like the 40s and 50s.

[Pete Holmes]

It was like Playboy for culture. Instead of boobs, you saw like a story from like a brilliant author or whatever. It's like New York. The city accepted you. I had hundreds of cartoons that I had drawn at that point. And I was like, I've always wanted to submit. I did it for over a year. So that's over 500 submissions. And they hadn't bought one.

[Ed Helms]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

And the first time I sold one, the cartoon was a guy in therapy and he just has a vacant look on his face. And the therapist is taking notes and he says, I think I accidentally suppressed my good memories, which is just so New Yorker.

[Ed Helms]

It's so New Yorker.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so New Yorker. It's perfect. You laugh a little. It's like a subway polite laugh. Like you're not gonna dist anyone on the subway with this. Perfect. Just a chuckle. And when I sold my first one, I was living in Park Slope. I woke up like super early, it was still dark. And walked to the newsstand and bought the Cop, like several copies of the Maker. It was a thrill. What a thrill.

[Ed Helms]

That's so, so cool. I'm proud of 25 year old Pete in that moment. That's really sweet. Well, hey, we gotta get into this snafu. I could talk all day about this and your amazing, your really wonderful career and all the cool stuff you've been doing, but that's a different podcast. Today's snafu is an interesting one because I came into it with a little bit of a head start, because I starred in a freaking movie about this snafu in 2017. Now, I know you have my entire filmography memorized, so I'm gonna give you one guess. Do you know any idea what movie this is?

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just gonna name Ed Helm's movies Cedar rapids. That's like 2007.

[Ed Helms]

I was in a movie in 2017 called Chappaquiddick and Jappaquiddick it is.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't know you were in that.

[Ed Helms]

Yes. Jim Gaffigan and I sort of play Ted Kennedy's. We're sort of like the two guys that go through this whole thing with him. Perfect. It's a tragic. It's a messy, deeply controversial incident from 1969. I mentioned Ted Kennedy. Of course, he's played by Jason Clarke fabulously in the movie. I actually play his cousin Joe Gargan, who we will meet in a bit. And like, a lot of snafus, this is just a lot of bad decisions were made and things went terribly.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I say, Ed, I'm thrilled. I'm from Boston, so I'm from New England. I don't know this story.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, great. All right. This is perfect.

[Pete Holmes]

And I should.

[Ed Helms]

And you're gonna have, like, more like, probably some better insight, especially into the sort of Kennedy context, being a Bostonian. So first, a quick explanation of the word Chappaquiddick. It's the name of a small, quiet island right off of Martha's Vineyard, which is a large island right off of Cape Cod in the great state of Massachusetts. Right. Home to vacation.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Where in Cape Cod?

[Pete Holmes]

Or we would go to Cape Cod and we would take the Island Queen, which was a ferry to Martha's Vineyard.

[Ed Helms]

Perfect.

[Pete Holmes]

We'd just spend the day there.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. And which town do you remember in Martha's Vineyard? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Chappa something.

[Ed Helms]

Chappaquiddick. Just kidding. Well, Chappaquiddick's interesting because it's not a town that you. That most people go to, or it's not a town, it's an island. And it's a little bit off the beaten path. It's chappy to the locals. It's known for its secluded beaches, chappie dirt roads, very low key, old money summer vibes. It's beautiful and remote and about as far from chaos as you can get, which makes what happened there in 1969 all the more unsettling. Martha's Vineyard is a really nice, I think, very diverse mix of vacationers from all different backgrounds. There are enclaves within Martha's Vineyard that are just real old money. Like really, really wealthy. And then of course, Chappaquiddick has so few homes on it. But it does have a number of. But they're more sort of cottagey. And some of that is also very old money. But it's sort of like low key old money. Do you know what I mean? It's that it's like the billionaire who wants kind of a windswept cottage instead of like a. Let's pivot to the Kennedys here. Of course, most folks are familiar with John F. Kennedy. Phenomenal career and legacy. A president, of course. But the youngest brother of the Kennedy family was Edward M. Kennedy, nicknamed Ted, born February 22, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. And he was the youngest of nine children. That's right. Yes, nine. Which is a lot. How many in your. How many siblings?

[Pete Holmes]

Two.

[Ed Helms]

You're one of two.

[Pete Holmes]

Good old fat Protestant. Well, it's funny, my parents were Catholic. I don't know why they didn't have more kids. I guess after they had us, they were like, that's enough. That'll do.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. But are you the younger? Are you the younger one? I'm the younger, yeah. Same here. I'm the youngest of three and I think we're both that kid that. They're just like, cut it off, cut it off. We can't. We can't.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm doing like a streaks on the china or this kid's paying out. We got enough show. We're out. We're done.

[Ed Helms]

So the roster of Kennedy kids included Joe Jr. The. The eldest brother, of course, John F. Rose, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Gene, and then good old Ted. Here's a nice vintage photo of Teddy. This is not a childhood photo. I just want to be clear.

[Pete Holmes]

There's gimlets just off camera.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, yeah, they're trash.

[Pete Holmes]

Pickled onion. Like, I don't know the story. And I actually don't really follow the Kennedys, so I wasn't even making a. Ted loves to drink.

[Ed Helms]

I think he's also just of a generation that. That.

[Pete Holmes]

That's sort of where I was going.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like pickled onions and little vodka.

[Ed Helms]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Are nearby. And cigarettes.

[Ed Helms]

This was my. I have photos of my dad exactly like this.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, of course.

[Ed Helms]

And he was trashed a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Which back then, like, you just were like, hello, good to see you, Irene. You know what I mean?

[Ed Helms]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Like anybody at that level of drunkenness. Now you'd be like, I shouldn't be here.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

I don't know how they did it because, like, the hangovers alone are just like. I don't know, I don't even drink anymore just because I can't handle it. Not that because of it.

[Pete Holmes]

Just. I have an old joke where I was like, in the Wild west, for example, you know how they're always drinking whiskey? I'm like, you're in the desert.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

This is why you're shooting each other. You're dehydrated. Like, get some water. That's how I feel about this time. These guys were eating red meat exclusively. Maybe a wedge salad covered in blue cheese that was like. What are you, a health nut?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And like seven vodka gimlets and a cigarette before the meal.

[Ed Helms]

Just imagine how dissipated they were all the time. Just like, not a lot of fiber in these diets past the age of seven.

[Pete Holmes]

None of them had a glorious BM.

[Ed Helms]

No. So we gotta keep going. Born February 22, 1932, Ted was bred for American politics and high society. Now I'm talking Harvard, then a quick stint in the Army, 1951-53, then back to Harvard, then University of Virginia Law School. Now this resume is looking very respectable and on brand for society's upper crust at the time. Then in 1962, he was elected to the US Senate, stepping into the Massachusetts seat his older brother, John F. Kennedy, had vacated after, you know, becoming President of the United States. Did your parents breed you for anything or any aspirations they bred you for?

[Pete Holmes]

Should I stop using the word breed so funny? He was bred.

[Ed Helms]

He was basically bred. He was a thorough man.

[Pete Holmes]

Imagine the shadow you're taking a chair that John F. Kennedy.

[Ed Helms]

Well, also their father, Joe Kennedy, was. Was just a crazy, intense motherfucker. Oh, really? There's a great biography on him. But he was like. He was a Hollywood producer. He was kind of Mafia related. And then he became obsessed with sort of raising his children to become sort of citizen activists, politicians.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like Tiger woods when you breed a child to do a certain thing, or the Jackson 5 or whatever it was, that level of. You're gonna be upper crust, basically. That's what it was.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. And then I think he also was involved in bootlegging at some time. So he was like. He was dodgy, but he sort of knew the lane that he wanted his family to be in. He became an ambassador, I think, to the uk. Anyway, his story is wild. And he just became this grand puppeteer of Massachusetts politics. So Ted certainly made his time in Congress count as he backed some genuinely consequential causes. He championed the Civil Rights act of 1964. He supported economic Opportunity act to fight poverty, and he helped usher in a national health center system in 1966. These guys were very progressive, especially at the time, all the Kennedys were. People all over liked Ted. He was charming, he was easy to talk to, he was passionate. He was able to forge relationships across party lines to get shit done. He eventually died in 2009 with a reputation as the lion of the Senate. That was sort of his nickname because he got so much legislation done over the course of his career. But being a Kennedy, it's a lot of luck. It's a lot of privilege and it's a lot of legacy sort of carrying you forward. But Also, Ted lost three of his older brothers. Joe Jr. The oldest, died as a pilot in World War II in 1944, which was. That was the first Kennedy death. President John F. Kennedy, of course, assassinated on November 22, 1963. Then RFK, who really was beloved and really was like, people were so passionate about him and working hard for him. And he's actually. His shadow is sort of cast over Chappaquiddick in an interesting way that we'll get to. But he was a former attorney general, eventual Democratic presidential candidate, and he was gunned down on the campaign trail on June 5, 1968. So Teddy Kennedy has lost three older brothers, all to violence. Right. I mean, even being downed as a pilot in a war is a violent demise. This of course, led to the Kennedy curse. As a concep, people thought, oh, the Kennedys. There's a band named the Dead Kennedys, of course. Oh, yeah, this is. Do you believe in curses, Pete? Are you a curse guy? Are you?

[Pete Holmes]

I believe in the human mind's obsession with finding patterns and creating meaning. Yeah, I like that.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. But also our ability to kind of like manifest things that we believe are with you. You just hit the nail on the head. Really what we're good at and I think to a fault, is pattern recognition. And we ascribe patterns to things where they just aren't always.

[Pete Holmes]

That's absolutely true.

[Ed Helms]

And that could be interpreted as a curse.

[Pete Holmes]

It is a curse. I would actually get incredibly liberal with this saying. It's not just that curses ripple out and change the course of history. Everything ripples out and changes human history.

[Ed Helms]

Okay, Pete, that's too far. You took it too far, man. No, bro, Come on, man. What are you talking about, bro?

[Pete Holmes]

See you saying that more likely to smoke weed later.

[Ed Helms]

That's my favorite character. Weed smoking guy. After the back to back assassinations of JFK and rfk. Hubert Humphrey took the Democratic nomination, but lost to Richard Nixon, leaving the party scrambling for a new identity. And they were ready for another, the third Kennedy to step in. There was a lot of sort of groundswell and momentum to just be like, we love the Kennedys. Let's get Tedd in there now. Teddy was reluctant. He was not sure about taking the baton. And he admitted, quote, the disadvantage of my position is being constantly compared with two brothers of such superior ability. I love that quote because it does so many things. It's simultaneously reverent to his two brothers who were really amazing in a lot of ways. And also it's self deprecating in a sort of cheeky way, which kind of lowers the bar for him. And then it also sort of chastises the media for even making the comparisons in the first place.

[Pete Holmes]

Totally.

[Ed Helms]

It's such good writing. And the Kennedys had the best writers in political history. Ted Sorensen was famously speechwriter, wrote a lot of JFK's stuff and then RFK's stuff. And we'll meet some of the people that worked at in speechwriting for RFK in a minute.

[Pete Holmes]

Take a note, Baldwins.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, there you go.

[Pete Holmes]

Take a note.

[Ed Helms]

Exactly. But a lot of John F. Kennedy's speeches are so famous for good reason. They're really sort of poignant expressions of values. And whether you agree with them or

[Pete Holmes]

not, and to the nations of the world, ask not what the United States can do for you, but ask what we as the world can do for the betterment of humankind. Something like that. I fucked it up.

[Ed Helms]

It's close. It's close enough. And by the way, I also thought that was more Mayor Quimby than John F. Kennedy.

[Pete Holmes]

Shout out.

[Ed Helms]

Wait, so this is funny to me. Part of what makes your podcast so fun to listen to and also makes you such a great guest on podcasts, is you have an encyclopedic memory for quotations and citations. And I wonder, and I have the memory of a goldfish. Like, I can't remember. I can't even remember the podcast I did last week. And so I wonder, is there a process to that? Do you take notes or is it sort of effortless? Like, what is the.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what's funny about that? You and I have talked about that before. Cause I remember it being meaningful, a meaningful compliment to me the last time we spoke about it. It is from effort somewhat. I'm a big highlighter and I write things on my bathroom mirror. You get white chalk, markers and I write. What's funny is I have all these quotes on my mirror, things that I try to hold in my heart. But every once in a while I'll also write like a joke idea.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, cool.

[Pete Holmes]

So right now my mirror says like, what's wrong with right now if you don't think about it? And then like right beneath it it says plan B pill. But for food

[Ed Helms]

they have that. It's called Ex Lax. Oh my God, that's. So now I'm picturing your home is like, is very much serial killer vibe with just like writing all over the mirrors.

[Pete Holmes]

You just have to own it. You just have to own that.

[Ed Helms]

Like, that's awesome.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm a crazy person that writes on my mirror, but it's not. It's me, Good Will Hunting, Jesse Eisenberg in the Social Network. And the thing we all have in common was we remember a lot of quotes.

[Ed Helms]

That's awesome. I really envy that. Of the two brothers, it seems Robert F. Kennedy had the strongest impact on Ted's political identity. A 1972 New York Times piece notes that when Ted entered the Senate at 30 in 1963, he was bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to play ball with the establishment. But by the time RFK was assassinated in 1968, Teddy had veered noticeably left picking up RFK's anti Vietnam crusade and as the Times put it, quote, embodying the Kennedy legacy of concerned activism. Now, despite Ted's reluctance at first to be the Democratic party's poster boy, by 1969 he was on a fast track to political stardom, which was no small feat in a year marked by surging counterculture and widespread unrestricted over the Vietnam War. With his eye on the 1972 presidential race, he was poised to make a real impact. But first, a little vacation. On a hot July weekend in 1969, Ted headed to Martha's Vineyard, a familiar family refuge for the Kennedys and just a very short trip from their fabled compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. Hyannis put Hyannis Point, the summer White House, as it was called. It was the Mar A Lago of its day. Oh yeah, it really was it. So I feel like Mar A Lago is sort of a descendant of Hyannis Port because, yeah, you want to have

[Pete Holmes]

your own RFP place.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, John F. Kennedy did a lot of presidential work from that compound in Hyannisport because what is the one that

[Pete Holmes]

all the presidents have?

[Ed Helms]

It's like a Camp David. Camp David, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But you know, only the hacks go to Camp David.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, you gotta have your own.

[Pete Holmes]

Like W. Bush at his ranch.

[Ed Helms]

You gotta have your own. Now, come on. You gotta have your own. So this particular weekend, Teddy was planning to race in the 43rd annual Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta aboard the family boat, the Victura. These are beautiful old wooden sailboats, by the way. We got to do this. In the movie we depicted the regatta and they're just these gorgeous old one design sailboats that they had these regattas with. He was joined by former U.S. attorney Paul Markham and his cousin, Joe Gargan. That's who Jim Gaffigan played. Paul Markham and I played Joe Gargan in the movie.

[Pete Holmes]

I feel like everything sounds like a cheese. Garganzola ricotta in the boat.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, Victoria. Victoria ricotta sounds like a cheese. That's New England for you. That's like. That's white bread New England culture.

[Pete Holmes]

Bring in the cheese.

[Ed Helms]

Just a little background on Joey Gargan. He had been orphaned as a young child and was. Was Rose Kennedy was the Kennedy family matriarch. Her sister was Joey's mother. And Joey lost his parents when he was young, moved in and basically was raised as a sibling. But he was on the outside. And so he became a little bit of like the fixer. So he was never quite in the family, but he was like a first cousin and very much in the mix. It's a very interesting dynamic. So we'll get back to Joey Gargan. For now, all you need to know is that Ted placed ninth in the this regatta in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. This is where things get real interesting. Later that evening, a small gathering came together that included several of Ted's advisors, along with six women who had worked on Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign. These women were known as the boiler room girls. Now here's. I just want to sort of dispel, I think what's a very easy assumption here, which is that these are just sort of like a gaggle of wacky secretaries out to have a great time. These women were the boiler room girls, as they were sort of affectionately known within the campaign. These were badass young women and they were speechwriters. They were a tight knit team of strategists, staffers, right at the heart of RFK's campaign. They were very well educated, they were motivated, and many of them went on to have like phenomenal careers. Part of the sort of framing of this evening is that it's a reunion. They had just lost RFK in 1968. He'd been assassinated and they were all such passionate, hard workers on his behalf. And of course, it was all very traumatizing. And this was a little bit of a reunion from that team that had worked so closely on his campaign and a chance to say thank you from the Kennedy family. I'm not saying that maybe hormones weren't also a part of it, but I just wanted to dispel.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't spell cheap in it.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. I just want to dispel the sort of easy assumption that this was like a bunch of powerful men with a bunch of floozies kind of having a crazy party night. These were all very accomplished people. So the group met at a cottage a small ferry ride from Martha's Vineyard on Chappaquiddick Island, a quieter, more secluded spot. It's right across a narrow channel from Edgartown and it's accessible only by this very small ferry. The ferry holds like two or three cars. It's a tiny little flatbed ferry. The mood relaxed, drinks, a cookout, music, dancing. Just a summer night with friends and again, a chance to reconnect after this very traumatic presidential campaign they'd all been through. Are you getting a bad feeling yet?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I was gonna say you're doing a good job and I love my level of knowledge for this because I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that you're doing something that people who are telling stories about bad things do.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is giving me a lot of

[Ed Helms]

details, a lot of ramp up.

[Pete Holmes]

And these women weren't just floozies.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

No. Good women, hard working women. And I'm like, what happens to these women

[Podcast Announcer]

since he got out? Bad things keep happening.

[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

Cape Fear, a new series is streaming June 5th on Apple TV. Why would I want to hurt you? Starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and academy award nominee Amy Adams.

[Podcast Announcer]

He is coming after my family.

[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

Cape fear streaming June 5th on Apple TV.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do.

[Podcast Announcer]

@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate, first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full [e-mail]

[Ryan Seacrest]

hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible it from Chobani, Vitamin Water, Jelly Belly, Nutella, Haagen, Dazs, Nestle, and Outshine. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Hello? Hello, this is Malcolm Glebel from Smart talks with IBM Today. We're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.

[Stefano Pallard]

Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.

[Malcolm Glebel]

I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans. In the digital age.

[Stefano Pallard]

Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something.

[Pete Holmes]

So.

[Stefano Pallard]

So they want to be part of a community, and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.

[Malcolm Glebel]

You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.

[Stefano Pallard]

When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology, and digital channels are enabled to create a deeper connection with our fans.

[Malcolm Glebel]

To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.com ferrari

[Ed Helms]

let's introduce one of the boiler room girls who will become very central to our story, Mary Jo Kopechne. I think it's not only important to understand why she was at the party, but also to really honor her life and work. Mary Jo was born.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a tell right there.

[Ed Helms]

But let's. But before we get there. Mary Jo was born in Pennsylvania in 1940. She was raised in New Jersey and later spent time in Alabama teaching as part of a civil rights project. She volunteered for JFK's presidential campaign while in college, then worked for Florida Senator George smathers before joining RFK's Senate office after his 1964 election. Smathers actually recommended her.

[Pete Holmes]

Smathers.

[Ed Helms]

Smathers. Great name. I mean, it's like a sitcom name. Yes, it is. Smathers actually recommended her to rfk, noting her strong admiration for the Kennedy family. Ethel Kennedy later recalled Mary Jo being the one who stayed up all night writing Roberts 1966 Vietnam speech again. These are badass young women. Mary Jo went on to serve as a speechwriter on RFK's 1968 campaign and of course, became part of the Boiler Room girls. Then in September 1968, Mary Jo was hired by Matt Reese Associates, a firm that managed dim Democratic campaigns nationwide. She was now a political organizer and damn proud of it. Those who knew her described her as talented, industrious, and wholly devoted to her work. I think it's just valuable to reflect on the promise of someone like this. She's so like to be a speechwriter in your mid-20s for a presidential candidate. I think in the same way that you and I felt. I don't know. When I was starting out in comedy in New York City, I was drunk on this world I just loved. I was so thrilled to be a part of it. It was all the things that I'd seen on tv. And then suddenly I'm in New York City and I'm seeing my heroes, and I'm on stage in the proximity to them. And I think Washington, D.C. is very similar for a lot of people. A sense that these are very aspirational people, the candidates that we admire. And I'm not taking a strong stand on the Kennedys. I do admire the Kennedys, but they are controversial. But someone like Mary Jo Kopechne, who very much admired the Kennedys and wanted to help their cause, is suddenly not only in the trenches with them, but really having an effect on RFK's campaign in such a cool way. In her 20s.

[Pete Holmes]

That's amazing.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, in her 20s. To me, the version of that that I know is SNL writers in their 20s.

[Pete Holmes]

No, you're not wrong. Politics is show business. And I'm not saying that sometimes people say show business to disregard it. Anything that's about perception and public speaking, it's all performing. It's a performance. And she was, in a way, like a writer for snl. She was writing in a very powerful public way.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. So when Mary Jo received an invitation in the summer of 1969 for this reunion with her fellow Boiler Room Girls and a few of the other advisors and staffers, she jumped at the chance. Now, unfortunately, Pete, tragedy awaited. Okay, cut to the next morning, July 19, 1969. Two young fishermen discovered an overturned black Oldsmobile submerged in Poucha Pond. Now, I'm gonna say Pouch a pond. In the movie, I think we said Poocha Pond. I'm not positive of that. Yeah, Pouch A Pond. This car is submerged and it's upside down in the Pond. Now, this is a tidal pond, to be clear. So there's current that goes in and out under this really low bridge. These fishermen, they see this car, they call the police chief, Dominic Jim arena, who arrived and he called in a local diver, John Farrar, to jump in and investigate. Now, inside the car, they found the body of Mary Jo Kopechne, deceased and very likely drowned. No evidence of illegal activity was found, but the car was determined to be registered to. Any guesses?

[Pete Holmes]

Ted.

[Ed Helms]

Ted Kennedy. The car was registered to Teddy. Holy shit.

[Pete Holmes]

So she drove his car.

[Ed Helms]

Well, it's interesting you say that. Why was Mary Jo in Ted's car? Who was driving? And why the fuck is the car flipped over upside down in this pond?

[Pete Holmes]

This is the Great Gatsby. This is who was driving.

[Ed Helms]

To. Andy, to answer all of these questions, let's go back to the night before July 18, 1969 and walk through what we think happened. Now, the timeline we have comes from a mix of sources. Police reports from that weekend, contemporaneous news coverage, lots of subsequent news coverage and sort of, like, looks back and reflective reporting, Ted Kennedy's own statements in the days that followed and a judicial inquest that was conducted in early 1970. I just wanna be clear, even with all of that source material, the full picture of the night of Chappaquiddick and part of the reason it's so locked into the American political consciousness is that the full picture never really came into perfect focus. There are gaps, there are contradictions, there are lingering questions, some of which we'll get into. But I just wanna reiterate, even though this reconstruction that I'm gonna share with you is fairly widely accepted and it's what we depicted in the movie, it does remain very controversial. And there are a lot of people. There's a lot of conspiracies around it. And there's room, unfortunately, there's, like, room for conspiracy because there are open questions. So let's get into it. We're at the party in the cottage. Exact times are disputed, but sometime between 11pm and 1am Ted and Mary Jo departed the cottage in Ted's car. Kennedy would later claim that he was driving Mary Jo back to the Edgartown ferry but they were going in the opposite direction. Now, Chappaquiddick is a rustic. We shot there for the movie. And so this is firsthand. It's dirt roads. It's very. It's just a lot of open space. And so it's easy to have made a wrong turn, theoretically. But wait, what we don't which turn was it?

[Pete Holmes]

Were they? I'm picturing it like Maui. Like if you're not going towards the airport, you're going the other way. Is it like that?

[Ed Helms]

It's hard to buy that he made a wrong turn.

[Pete Holmes]

Unless this is something trashed, disturbed. How quickly you can come up with a lie. It's because it's like this kniving. I would have been a good publicist.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like maybe he's with this young lady. They're enjoying themselves. Let's take the scenic route. Let's go the long way. Because if you're on an island, there is no wrong turn. There's just a longer way to where you're going.

[Ed Helms]

No, not, not this way.

[Pete Holmes]

Not like this.

[Ed Helms]

No, not this particular road. The way that they were driving was towards a beach. It's a dead end, basically. I mean, it's a long road and it goes along, but to get to the ferry, you have to literally go the opposite direction.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. So, yeah, so he seems to be lying.

[Ed Helms]

But it's a very rural feeling place, so there's not a lot of landmarks and so forth.

[Pete Holmes]

But they're going to the beach to maybe smooch a little bit. With respect, maybe.

[Ed Helms]

I don't think that's an unfairest assumption, but we just, we don't know. At some point while they're driving, the car veered off of this small dyke bridge and the car flipped over and sunk upside down into the murky waters of Pow Chapan below. Now, to be clear, this was a low bridge with absolutely no guard rails of any kind. Here's a photo of it with some spectators after the accident.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Yep. I don't like this bridge.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, that. That bridge, obviously it's very easy to. To veer off of. I don't think any of the vehicles we're seeing are the actual vehicle that went off the bridge.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

So Ted recalled, quote, struggling as the water flooded the car and quickly submerged him and Mary Jo. And the details are still unclear on this, but Ted somehow escaped the car and he claims to have made repeated efforts to rescue Mary Jo. In his statement, he basically, he admits to driving the car, but his rescue attempts were unsuccessful. And here's where our man Teddy starts to make some really bad decisions. Instead of going to the police, Ted walked back to the cottage. Once there, it is believed that Ted told Joe Gargan and Paul Marcum what had happened. Now, what's interesting is that according to Joe Gargan's later testimony in the inquest, Ted only Said the car has gone off the bridge down by the beach, and Mary Jo is in it. He did not say, I drove a car off the bridge.

[Pete Holmes]

The most use of passive voice in American history. The car is in the.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Yes.

[Ed Helms]

Now, this speaks to one theory as to a possible version of the story that Teddy might have been trying to start to build, which is that he wasn't even in the car. So immediately, Joe, Paul and Teddy go back to the bridge, and Joe and Paul strip down and they dive in and they make multiple attempts to save Mary Jo. Obviously, they were unsuccessful to cover her body.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Now, I can tell you, in shooting the movie we recreated, we were on a set in a giant water tank in Mexico, and they built this bridge and they submerged a car upside down. And Jim Gaffigan and I jumped off the bridge. This is in the middle of the night, and swam down to a car that's like three or four feet under the water, but it's upside down. And we tried to look in the windows of the car and. And basically perform this. What's happening here? And I can tell you, it was so terrifying. Even under the most controlled circumstances, like diving into dark water and looking into a car, expecting to see a body, it just is, like, so unnerving.

[Pete Holmes]

And to find your good side, and you're like, wait, how am I being framed?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. And by the way, the version I'm doing is fake, and these guys are doing it for real.

[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But this is interesting because you said rescue. They're clearly jumping in.

[Ed Helms]

They don't know. There may have been an air pocket. Pete, we'll get there. What? All right. Yes. Hold on. It gets crazy. So afterwards, Joe and Paul told Ted that he needed to inform the police. Interestingly, Joe first recommended that Ted call his administrative assistant, Dave Burke, and also a lawyer close to the family, a man by the name of Burke Marshall. So a couple of burks, couple of perks.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yep.

[Ed Helms]

Okay, so, yes, definitely tell the police that this woman is dead in a car accident. But make sure you call your lawyer and your assistant first. According to Joe Gargan's testimony, Ted told Joe and Paul he would, quote, take care of it, and urged them to go back to the cottage and not upset the girls with this terrible news. Yet at this point, it's so late at night, there's no ferries running. Kennedy allegedly swam across this narrow channel back to Edgartown. And Joe and Paul, of course, are believing he's going to the police to report this.

[Pete Holmes]

Who did this?

[Ed Helms]

Teddy swam back to Edgartown, shut Up. Yeah. And so, I mean this is the account that we're going with. It's not that far. It's like a couple. It's maybe like a couple hundred yards.

[Pete Holmes]

I'll swim it.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, he says, and it is. A lot of people do swim it. It's not that insane. It's not like rough.

[Pete Holmes]

But he's in like a suit.

[Ed Helms]

No, he's in beach attire. He probably stripped down to his shorts. Who knows? But, and if. And he's staying, remember his hotel is in Edgartown. So that's part of what I mean. He's got clothes waiting for him over there. He's headed back to Edgartown. And Joey and Marcum believe that he's going to tell the police. Now back at his hotel, Ted did not report the incident. He later claimed in court that he was up all night, kind of like, like in this fever state, hoping that Mary Jo was somehow still alive, like in denial. Hotel staff claimed later that Kennedy. This is very interesting. Kennedy made a noise complaint at 3am about some revelry going on in another room. And that the following morning he was seen very casually having breakfast with some people in the hotel restaurant. Now this is all very interesting because it sort of, it starts to feed this idea that perhaps Teddy was trying to establish that he was. Yeah, that he was like. That he never was even there and that he was actually in Edgartown. And so like now he's on the record at 3am making a noise complaint. You can see how this, this kind of starts to feel like he's building an alibi. Yeah, but it's also sort of like the worst possible post incident way to handle this. So then Joe and Paul show up at ted's hotel at 8:30. They find him at breakfast, fresh as a daisy, like, you know, showered and like all wearing nice clothes, having just a chipper breakfast with some other people. They asked if he'd reported the incident. He had not. So they drove him back to Chappaquiddick, you know, took the ferry. And now at this point the car has been discovered by the police. After trying and failing to reach Burke Marshall, Ted, quote, fully realized what had happened and he came clean to the police around 10am that was Kennedy's language in his police statement that he, quote, fully realized what had happened over 10 hours later.

[Pete Holmes]

And a big breakfast. Sometimes you're just not yourself until you

[Ed Helms]

have your coffee, I guess. I guess so.

[Pete Holmes]

This seems like a no open and closed. Like he did this. He's in a very powerful family and a Lot of people are going, like, maybe this didn't happen. We're in this island. Maybe we can clean it up. I think that's probably what makes this story so compelling, is we all have this, like, devilish instinct where we're like, or maybe I just keep driving. You know, like, that sort of thing. These things happen all the time. Hit and runs and all that sort of stuff.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

So we had a guy going, oh, no, I was driving. I was drunk. Maybe we were going to the beach to fool around. There's lots of bad things happening. We don't know any of that. But she dies. And then he spent a good while talking to everybody except the police. Can I get out of this? Which I think, again, is what makes this a good. It's not a ghost story, but, like, a ghostly kind of story is you're like, wait, would I do that? Would I also try to cover my own ass? Like, it's. We go very quickly to, like, this person is dead. Nothing is gonna bring them back dead. You know what I mean? So we can protect you. Like, it's like. I'm not saying that's right.

[Ed Helms]

Obviously, it's wrong. And it's that old adage that, like, this was clearly an accident. Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

And had he come clean immediately and, like, gone straight to the police and

[Pete Holmes]

stuff didn't happen until way later, they

[Ed Helms]

would have tested him for alcohol.

[Pete Holmes]

But back then, it was like, sing Yankee Doodle Dandy.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, right.

[Pete Holmes]

Smoke this cigarette. Now. Tell me your mother's name. He's sober. He wasn't the same.

[Ed Helms]

He's got coffee on his breath. He's sober. Here's the thing. Police flagged a number of his inconsistencies in Kennedy's account. Deputy Sheriff Christopher S. Huck. Look. Junior reported seeing a dark, seemingly lost car the night before, only to later realize it was the same vehicle involved in the accident. He placed that sighting around 12:45am which is 90 minutes after the time Kennedy said the incident occurred. Notably, this was long after the last ferry stopped running. So I guess the implication is that maybe Kennedy changed the timeline to make his, oh, we were driving to the Edgartown ferry story, like, more plausible because in real life, the time they were driving the ferry had long stopped running. So, interesting details to mention here. The New York Times report confirmed credit card records tied to that night showed calls from the cottage and hotel to Kennedy's family, lawyers, and staff. Other Reports indicate that 17 total phone calls were charged to his credit card that night. In addition, the purse of one of the other boiler room girls, Rosemary Keough was in the car for some reason. And here's a really interesting detail. No autopsy was ever performed on Mary Jo Kennedy's team. Kennedy had called this guy, Dunn Gifford, who came and basically took the body right away, flown to Pennsylvania for burial just almost immediately before local officials could really even request an official examination. So unsurprising. And there's a. You'll hear why. That's even more controversial than it sounds. It seems like cut and dry how she died. It's not so unsurprisingly. The news of the incident took America by storm. Would Kennedy be held responsible? And would the real truth ever come out?

[Podcast Announcer]

Since he got out, bad things keep happening.

[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

Cape Fear, a new series is streaming June 5th on Apple TV. Why would I want to hurt you? Starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. Why? And Academy Award nominee Amy Adams.

[Podcast Announcer]

He is coming after my family.

[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

Cape Fear, streaming June 5th on Apple TV.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Monster Energy, Kettle Chips, Craft Best Foods, and Kellogg's. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.

[Malcolm Glebel]

Hello? Hello, this is Malcolm Glebel from Smart talks with IBM. Today. We're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.

[Stefano Pallard]

Your pronunciation is it's strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.

[Malcolm Glebel]

I'm still working on rolling my arm, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age.

[Stefano Pallard]

Ferrari fans and superfans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.

[Malcolm Glebel]

You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.

[Stefano Pallard]

When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology. And digital channels, are they enabled to create a deeper connection with our fans?

[Malcolm Glebel]

To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.com Ferrari

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[Ed Helms]

On July 20, 1969, just a day after Mary Jo Kopechne was discovered in Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile, two gentlemen by the names of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface of our very own moon. Have you ever heard of those guys?

[Pete Holmes]

Ever snared of it? Yes.

[Ed Helms]

Yes. So with those steps, so too did they absorb most, if not all of the news coverage about what happened at Chappaquiddick. Serendipitous timing for Ted and his team, of course, but that only lasted for a short while. After the moon landing coverage subsided, Chappaquiddick became front and center in the media. On July 25, Ted Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of the accident. That was his only charge and received a two month suspended jail sentence and the loss of his driver's license for one year. That's it. That's it. The same day he delivered a statement on TV to his constituents. And interestingly, interestingly, the author of this statement, Joe Gargan, presumably was trying to have strong influence on it in a way that would sound like he was taking more responsibility. But most of what Teddy said in this statement was actually written by Ted Sorenson, the same speechwriter that wrote so many of JFK's incredible speeches. So listen to this quote from Teddy's TV statement. I remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head, that I was for certain, dreadful drowning. Then water entered my lungs and I felt the sensation of drowning, but somehow I struggled to the surface alive. I made immediate and repeated efforts to save Mary Jo by diving into the strong and murky current, but succeeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm. My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Ed Helms]

I. It's so.

[Pete Holmes]

That's another. Just concede, just be like, yeah, makes no sense.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, I don't get it either, guys.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't get it.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But you know, again, maybe I would have been good in, like, a crisis management team, because that is valid. It's like, concede the point. All of my behavior after that fact is completely irrational. I was in an irrational state. Oh, that's what. I could have been a lawyer. That's what a lawyer would say. He was completely insured. His friend had just died. He tried to save them. And then from that state of confusion, he's swimming back to his hotel. This guy is not okay.

[Ed Helms]

Obviously, that statement is very kind of obtuse. And the question remains, did he take responsibility at all for his actions? Here's another quote, I believe, from later in the same TV address. Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident or on anyone else. So he's saying.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is a way of saying, yes, I am. Yes.

[Ed Helms]

But it's a way of saying, I'm not avoiding. It's like sort of stating the negative without stating the positive. Which is another, like, very savvy bit of, like, linguistic. It's like linguistic jiu jitsu.

[Pete Holmes]

That's. That's like, textbook how to say the opposite of what you're saying.

[Ed Helms]

You have lots of these kinds of incidents in your past. This is why you're such an expert on this.

[Pete Holmes]

This is why you had me on. Just can't stop whoopsie doodling.

[Ed Helms]

So this is interesting. There was a lot of pressure on Teddy Kennedy after this incident to resign from Congress, as we've. We've seen so often with these kinds of scandals, like, there's always a big outcry, especially from the opposition. But even from within his own party, a lot of people thought, like, this is insurmountable. You really fucked up. It's time to resign. But here's how he handled that. He ended the statement with a very curious appeal to his Massachusetts constituents. While considering whether to resign from Congress over the accident, he asked them to, quote, think this through with him. Though he acknowledged the decision was ultimately his. He asked whether they believed he should remain in the Senate. So he sort of kicked it. He punted it to the constituents, and turns out his strategy was successful. His constituents did want him to stay, and he kept his seat in Congress. He did announce later that he would not run for president, as had been the plan in 72.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's a little suspicious.

[Ed Helms]

Which part?

[Pete Holmes]

I guess what I'm looking for is what is the alternate narrative like? If he said, okay, I'm not gonna run for president, that sounds like somebody that's like, I don't wanna drudge that up. Right. I don't want you to look at that more closely. I don't want you to throw that in my face. Maybe investigate more. That makes it seem like there might have been foul play. But I still don't see, I think,

[Ed Helms]

what the sort of, like, Kennedy inner circle, or Camelot, as it was known, like, what? I think what they were afraid of, that scrutiny would bring a lot of clarity to just how terrible this was handled.

[Pete Holmes]

I see.

[Ed Helms]

This is my take on it. It's just that, like, Teddy was very selfish and very irrational and was clearly avoidant. And that's, I think, a generous takeaway. Like, if not. If not. Because there's a version of this where he's fully guilty of manslaughter, Right? The unintentional killing of Mary Jo, especially if he had been drinking and all sorts of things. So had he run for president, there would have been even more scrutiny. There just wasn't the support for him to do that. But he's not quite out of the limelight yet. District Attorney Edmund Denise requested a judicial inquest into Mary Jo's death, which occurred in January 1970. The testimony in this judicial inquest is a lot of what gives us the ability to construct a narrative here. They spoke to hotel staff. They spoke to, obviously, Joe Gargan and Paul Marcum. Kennedy gave a statement. It's almost 300 pages of testimony. And they spoke to the police and all the locals, local folks. The diver. The judge wound up determining that the likely cause of Mary Jo's death was simply negligent driving, which a lot of people think that this judge was just participating in. The institutional urge to sweep this under the carpet, more or less. Numerous theories have floated around over the years about possible other explanations for what happened that night and why Kennedy waited a full 10 hours to report the fact that Rosemary Keough's purse was inside the car. Made some wonder if Rosemary and Ted were in the car together on their way to do some canoodling, perhaps, and that they didn't realize that Mary Jo was asleep in the backseat. In this version, of course, the car would have crashed. Both Rosemary and Ted would have escaped, and then Mary Jo would have passed away. I don't think a lot of people believe this, but there are.

[Pete Holmes]

There's not the owl theory in the staircase.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, there's just a. All of the evidence for this is simply that Rose, Mary's Purse was in the seat of the car. Another version of the incident pitched in. The book Chappaquiddick what Really Happened by Kenneth Capel, claims that Ted accidentally rammed the car into a tree while he was intoxicated. And thinking that Mary Jo had been killed, submerged the car in the pond with the help of Joe Gargan and Paul Markham to avoid prosecution. I think this theory is insane because it'd be virtually impossible to flip the car into the pond on purpose. Purpose. There's even speculation in Leo d' Amore's bestselling book, Senatorial Privilege, which is a very exhaustive account of all of this. That speculation is that Ted tried to loop Joe Gargan into a plot to tell everyone that Mary Jo was just the driver of the car alone and that Ted wasn't even in the car. And this version, I think, has some, like. There are some things that lend a little credence to this version. For example, Teddy going back to the hotel and trying to establish that he was at the hotel by calling and making a complaint about noise and that sort. And then, like, pretending the next morning like everything's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

And basically, like, establishing witnesses to say, like, what? Teddy was at the hotel the whole night. So this is an interesting one, and

[Pete Holmes]

I think that's what they do in succession is that they say, remember, Kendall kills.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, of course. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you weren't driving. He was driving.

[Ed Helms]

Yes, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

You weren't even there.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. So I think this is an interesting theory. Reporter Jack Anderson also claimed that Ted actually asked Joe at one point to take the fall, which Joe Gargan emphatically denied. None of these theories are provable. Right. We just don't know what really happened outside of the testimonies of the people involved. All these rumors aside, was there any justice served? Well, the Kopechne family did receive approximately $140,000 in settlements, according to some reports. In 1974, it was paid in full by Kennedy's auto insurance. Other sources claim it was paid perhaps in part by Kennedy himself. Of course, there's no amount of financial settlement to a family that can right this kind of wrong. Ted would try to run for president one time only, in 1980, when he bid for the Democratic nominee against Jimmy Carter. But he lost. What's complicated here is that Ted would go on to live a long and very productive life. As a Massachusetts senator, he helped usher in countless pieces of vital and substantive legislation. He played a major role in advocating for reforms across health care and education, civil rights and immigration. According to the United States Senate website. He authored over 2,500 bills, several hundred of which became law. That's insane. I mean, that's just an epic political legacy. After he passed in 2009, President Obama said of Ted's legacy, quote, for five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. That same year that he died, Ted released an autobiography where he confirmed the incident remained a burden through his whole life. He wrote, and this is a quote, and this is wild to me, this quote is really interesting. He says, that night on Chappaquiddick island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life. I had suffered sudden and violent loss far too many times. But this night was different. This night I was responsible. It was an accident, but I was responsible.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Ed Helms]

Does that feel like he took responsibility? I mean, he's literally saying I was responsible. Is it too little too late? I don't know. Where do you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's. Look, I like it. I like that there's some ownership there. And given the time, like that's pretty good, right? It's so heavy. It's hard to joke about. But there is something about saying something just as you're leaving.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, it's something. That's the part that feels like he's not responsible, that he didn't take responsibility. He said the word words, but he was on the way out. It's like a sketchbook.

[Pete Holmes]

And here's email from a dead person.

[Ed Helms]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow. Clearly he was haunted by it. I believe when he's like, I was haunted by it. And it seems really, I think I'm gonna say it again. The fascination with this story is because we all know we have the capacity to be so self centered and so self serving that you would. Who wouldn't use their money and their power and their influence to get away with something that's again, what they did on 16 session. We love stories like this.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, yeah. I just want to just tell our listeners, if you're interested in the story, there's some really great resources out there. One is a podcast called Cover up that People magazine did with Cadence 13. It's hosted by Liz McNeil and it's a really deep like multi episode dive into this. She talks to a lot of people who were there. Yes, she talks to a lot of primary sources, if you will, like people who were actually there or involved. And it's fascinating and it doesn't necessarily clarify A lot. But it does give you a much deeper set of. Of information. Yeah, I. I'm not. I'm not trying to make. But the. But the podcast does make a splash on how. No, but that's great. And then, of course, the movie Chap.

[Pete Holmes]

Rock bottom here.

[Ed Helms]

Rock bottom. Really? Come on. So. And the movie is the movie I'm very, very proud of, and it's very good. And I don't even think I mentioned Kate Mara yet. She plays Mary Jo Kopechne beautifully and very movingly. I think it's a very strong depiction that's rooted in a lot of what is sort of more consensus take on this narrative. But again, it is all very controversial. Now, here's the last bit of controversy. I'm gonna leave you with. The diver. Yes. So John Farrar, the diver who recovered Mary Jo's body, testified in court and maintains to this day that he believed Mar Joe survived in an air pocket within the car, possibly for as long as 30 minutes before suffocating. In other words, had authorities been notified immediately, she may have been saved. This is so, so grim, the idea that Kennedy's delay may have been the reason Mary Jo didn't survive.

[Pete Holmes]

Look, that very well. I sound like a lawyer. That very well may be true. But what is he basing that on?

[Ed Helms]

He based it on the position of her body in the car and that she had found an air pocket in the footwell of the car.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's fine.

[Ed Helms]

That her head was up there.

[Pete Holmes]

And how do you know that wasn't 30 seconds of air?

[Ed Helms]

I mean, these are knowable things, like the volume of air. But then the other thing is that the. I mean, this is really dark, but there was, like, scratching on the inside the footwell. And he believes that she had positioned her body in such a way as to. To, like, swim upwards and had accidentally found this air pocket, which then kind of like, disoriented her and prevented her from actually swimming out of an open window. And this is why the lack of autopsy is so critical, because the autopsy would have told a lot more detail about how she died, whether it was lack of oxygen from, like, you know, the air pocket running out or drowning, both of which have different effects on your life. Lungs. Anyway, that's the story. It's obviously very insane. It's been really fun to have you on this podcast and.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And I always love seeing you, even if it's. I mean, this is a dark. This is a dark one.

[Ed Helms]

I took you down a dark road.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I know. It's Good. It's an interesting. I. I can see why it resonates and has echoed into the public psyche, because it really is. It's like a telltale heart kind of story. It's a story about, like, guilt, shame, privilege, power, like, and what you would do to save your own ass, which is always, always interesting and then the ramifications of that. So it's really interesting. I do think that diver couldn't have possibly known that she was alive for 30 minutes. That's just something you say to get in People magazine. I'm gonna say it. Shots fired. Ed, thank you so much, my man. I really love doing this. And you're far more handsome than I even remember. And you're always as funny as I recall. This is snafu, where I take the.

[Ed Helms]

I'm wrapping it up. You're wrapping it up? I don't know why I'm doing that. Pete, tell us something where we can see you or what's happening with you right now.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, it's funny. I'm. This is not a plan. I have it. This is my first kids book right here. Spells to cast on your parents. Unfortunately, it's not in here. This my daughter drew in here, but I made. So I still do art. I did the art and the words for this. It's a book that obviously the kid gets to cast spells on you. The grownup that's reading it. So it's a funny book and a silly book.

[Ed Helms]

We know it was all chatgpt, but. But keep going.

[Pete Holmes]

This is 100% human made. In fact, you know how in kids book, they. Kids books, they say the medium. Do you ever, like, look like it'll say in the fine print the medium that they made the art in?

[Ed Helms]

I've never noticed that. And I've wondered that. I've looked through books and, like, wonder like, oh, this is clearly collage.

[Pete Holmes]

Or like, yes, look on the copyright page. It'll be at the bottom.

[Ed Helms]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

And ours. I did the art in my book in tape, in masking tape, different colored tape, and Sharpie and I wrote at the bottom of it. And this book is 100% human made. Isn't that weird?

[Ed Helms]

That's very, very cool.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my. Oh, I got my light. My Special is on YouTube. All you have to do is type Pete Holmes into YouTube. It's a website. And the special is called silly, silly fun boy. It's my newest hour, and I'm very, very proud of. And I'm so happy people are finding it for free. You can go watch on YouTube.

[Ed Helms]

That's so badass. Congrats. And I can't wait to see it.

[Pete Holmes]

I hope you like it. Thank you for having me.

[Ed Helms]

Thank you Pete. It's been a goddamn delight to have you. Snafu is a production of iHeart podcasts and snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Post production and creative support from Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gossen and the collected Works legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Terry Lieberman and Nikki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book snafu the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to Snafu Book. Thanks for listening and see you next week.

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[Cape Fear Promo Voice]

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[Pete Holmes]

No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged.

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Experience the ultimate account of World War II War II. Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are. World War II with Tom Hanks new episode Monday at 8. Part of History honors 250 only on the History Channel.

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.