“It was nearly 50 years ago that an infamous incident finished off the hopes of returning another Kennedy brother to the White House,” says Ray Nothstine in this week’s Acton Commentary.” A film about ‘Chappaquiddick,’ released this month, offers more than a historical retrospective. It reminds us of important truths that lay beneath the tumultuous world of political intrigue.”

The movie revisits the details: The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drove his car off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, resulting in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old political consultant who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign.

Kopechne drowned __ or, in the opinion of the diver who recovered her body, probably was trapped in an air pocket in the shallow water and later suffocated. In fact, there is a line in the film where the diver suggests he might have saved her if he had been notified in time. Kennedy, of course, escaped the car but did not report his involvement to authorities until after the scene was discovered by police 10 hours later.

The full text of the essay can be found here.