Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

by Maureen Callahan

Muhammad Ali, who sent Gwen and Joe a handwritten letter days after Ted’s televised address to the nation, which he gave shortly after the official inquest—the ill-advised speech in which Ted had offered vague excuses for his actions, acknowledged that they “make no sense to me at all,” and speculated about “whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.” In his letter, dated July 31, 1969, Ali urged the Kopechnes to sue Ted Kennedy—“that no-good son of a bitch,” in Ali’s estimation—for everything he had. Ali also wrote that he believed Ted had intended to force himself sexually on Mary Jo that night, that Ted should be criminally tried for her death, and that nothing Ted said in his speech to the nation, written by Kennedy yes-men, excused what he had done or was remotely credible. In short, Ali’s assessment was withering and correct: There were no mitigating circumstances. His TV speech was written for him by a dozen lawyers and speechmakers and was not his own, the cheap two-bit hypocrite!

Wow! Ali pulled no punches.