Chappaquiddick incident

The Chappaquiddick incident became the focus of a May 1981 excursion when Andy Warhol and Jon Gould traveled from East Falmouth to Chappaquiddick to retrace the route associated with Ted Kennedy’s accident. The diary presents the visit not as a return to the original event, but as an effort to test accounts of what happened against the place itself—and ends with Warhol and Gould reaching a definite conclusion about Kennedy’s guilt.

From East Falmouth to the Island

The day began at Falmouth Harbor, where Warhol and Gould chartered a 70-foot boat Warhol liked. The crossing to Martha’s Vineyard took an hour. Gould wore a long string of pearls Warhol had given him; Warhol thought the effect beautiful and compared his appearance to that of a deep-sea fisherman. At Oak Bluffs, among its gingerbread houses, they photographed a wedding between an Irish woman and a man from South America.

In Edgartown, hunger interrupted the sightseeing. At the Colonial Inn, people brought out copies of Popism and Interview for Warhol to autograph, and one child produced a Tate Gallery poster of Warhol’s Marilyn. The diary records the lunch as costing $120. From there, they took the ferry with their car to Chappaquiddick, a five-dollar crossing that carried the excursion from social encounters and tourist landmarks toward the purpose of the visit.

Retracing the Route

On Chappaquiddick, Warhol and Gould photographed a man who gave them his full account of where the accident had happened, how it had happened, and why he did not believe the account of it. The encounter supplied a local narrative, but the two visitors did not stop at listening: they retraced the steps themselves to see whether Ted Kennedy was really guilty.

The diary compresses the investigation into its result. Warhol and Gould came to the conclusion that Kennedy was guilty of the accident. It is their judgment after hearing the man and walking the route, not an independently established account of the accident’s circumstances; the entry records the certainty of their conclusion without describing the evidence they weighed along the way.

A Day Trip Recast as Inquiry

The sequence gives the outing a quiet reversal. A pleasure trip by boat, marked by pearls, a photographed wedding, autographs, and lunch, becomes an attempt to examine a politically charged incident on the ground. The ferry crossing makes that change in purpose concrete: the visitors carry their car onto Chappaquiddick and move from collecting images to retracing a route.

The episode’s significance lies in this shift from public story to personal investigation. A man’s account, a physical route, and the pair’s conclusion are the only elements the diary supplies about their inquiry. Its concise ending leaves the basis for their verdict unstated, while preserving the fact that the visit changed their uncertainty into a firm belief.