Oswald was the lone assassin. JFK wanted a way out of Vietnam. And Bobby’s death brought a bout of self-destructive drinking around the time Mary Jo Kopechne died at Chappaquiddick Island in an “inexcusable” car accident.
Those are some of the insights in a forthcoming memoir by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died last week but lives again in print as a leading figure in American politics.
In the book, “True Compass,” which Teddy completed while suffering from the brain cancer that claimed his life, he admits “terrible decisions” at Chappaquiddick in 1969 and says those events may have shortened the life of his father, Joe. 
Teddy hardly knew Kopechne, who had been a young aide to Bobby, and was not romantically involved with her.
But after driving off a Chappaquiddick bridge with her as a passenger, he was dazed, afraid and panicked. He left the scene and didn’t report the accident until her body was discovered inside the car a day later.
