The last Senator Kennedy
Sir: I'm sorry, but you simply can't win. The very fact that you print a couple of letters (9 August) praising Murray Kemp- ton's article (2 August) impels me to say that I thought it was a lot of poor quality whitewash and quite at variance with the paper's policy of encouraging its corres- pondents to tell the truth and shame the devil. It is a pity if a subscriber of forty years' standing feels that there is too much invective in the paper. It would be a greater pity if people like, for example, Auberon Waugh or John Wells were not aware that other readers say more power to their elbows.
My complaint against Murray Kempton is precisely the fact that his article was redolent of 'compassion and the milk of human kindness'. I fancy that most readers of the SPECTATOR are sufficiently adult to form their own value judgments and supply their own milk—or vitriol as the case may be. What we want from your writers is fact, truth. The truth is that there was clearly a lot of unpleasant fact still unexplained by Senator Kennedy. It is the duty of a writer in a paper like the SPECTATOR to deal with such things fairly of course but fearlessly and openly. His first duty is to enlighten his readers, not to soft-soap them. And in this article I say Mr Kempton failed.
Of course, I appreciate that there is a case for saying that the goings-on of the Kennedys or other public figures is of no consequence and that the American jungle will be pretty much the same place with them or without them. But if he is painting a picture, he must give it us warts and all. And the irony of it all is that at the same time as your writer was reading the two letters of praise, he must also have been aware that other American writers, in an apparently reputable paper, were adducing even more unpleasant evidence. I fear Mr Kempton's face must have been a little red as he listened to the deafening silence on the libel front.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, London NW3 Sir: Mr Murray Kempton's analysis of the Kennedy 'shock' (2 August) casts no new light on this sad situation; albeit he does appear to overindulge in the involved emotional aspects.
In no press release yet seen has there been a factual probe of the ten-hour period between Miss Kopechne's death and Ken- nedy's first contact with lawful authority!
Since Kennedy is primarily a politician, his uppermost reactions seem to be pri- Mat% to take care of himself. It could be. therefore, this 'shock' time-lapse was in- duced by an awareness of, and desire for, an adequate period in which his personal alcoholic content might be naturally eliminated?
The Massachusetts law on a drunken driving suspect is severe and can have drastic results for the guilty. Perhaps he may have needed time to condition himself for such a sequential test, if invoked?
One suspects there is much more to the studied Kennedy ineptitude than meets the eye. Of such is the quality of the United States Senate!
Wm. C. Anthony Cuttingsville, Vermont
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