When In Doubt, Obfuscate

By MARGARET CARLSON

The facts are different, but the drama surrounding the Kennedys' latest tragedy has a familiar feel to it -- as if their family tradition includes rules on how to behave when they get into trouble. First, confine risky behavior to one of the vacation houses where the local police are malleable. Second, surround yourself with the best lawyers and investigators the combined trust funds can buy. Third, when finally cornered by the press, promise total cooperation and regret that you cannot say more because it might impede the official investigation. Fourth, impede the official investigation.

This strategy was so successful that Senator Edward Kennedy managed to keep his seat in Congress and even run a plausible campaign for the presidency after Chappaquiddick. The Kennedy approach is at work again in the investigation by Palm Beach police into charges that William Kennedy Smith raped a young woman on the grounds of the Kennedy estate during Easter weekend.

The 1,300 pages of official documents released last week show that the Senator initially stonewalled the police and that neither he nor his son Patrick, 23, a Rhode Island legislator, was truthful about what he knew and when he knew it. The first lie was told when the police showed up at the Kennedy home while the family was preparing for lunch, shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday. William Barry, a former FBI agent who was a guest for the weekend, answered the door and told the officers that the Senator was not there and that his nephew might have already left town. In fact, both men were at the house, and a servant later told investigators that Barry and the Senator conferred in the kitchen right after the police left. Police say that when they phoned an hour later, a housekeeper told them Barry had taken the Senator and Smith to the airport. Yet Kennedy did not depart until the next day.

Kennedy maintained that he did not know any rape allegations had been made against his nephew until after he returned to Washington. He later conceded that "Barry indicated to me that he had a call for me from the police," but the Senator never called the investigators back. He did, however, try to call Miami defense attorney Marvin Rosen three times by Sunday night. (Rosen's partner is now representing Smith.) In his sworn deposition, Patrick says he and his father talked about Smith's "whacked-out friend" shortly after the first police visit.

In getting Smith a lawyer, Kennedy acted like any concerned uncle. But in other ways his actions were reckless and irresponsible. It was Kennedy who roused his son and nephew from a sound sleep on Good Friday night to ask, according to the Senator's own deposition, "if they wanted to have a couple of beers." The three men then set out for Au Bar, Palm Beach's hottest club, thus setting in motion the chain of events that ended with the alleged rape. There they met the 29-year-old woman who later accused Smith, and Michele Cassone, 27.

Eventually, the five revelers returned to the Kennedy estate. What happened there is in dispute. According to the victim's deposition, Smith invited her to walk on the beach with him and then, as she attempted to leave, raped her by the pool. Smith refused to give police a statement, but Barry's son says he briefly saw two people lying on the lawn -- which may raise some doubt as to whether force was used. Sometime between two and four in the morning, Cassone decided to leave. The victim, meanwhile, called a friend to pick her up. The next morning, according to Patrick's deposition, Smith told him that he had had sex with the woman.

Once the depositions were made public last week, Kennedy altered his explanation again, saying his failure to call back the police in Palm Beach was a "semantic misunderstanding." He said he was confused because Florida, like many states, uses the term sexual battery instead of rape. Yet the Senator's puzzling words and deeds have given the incident a new and troubling dimension: whatever judgment is ultimately passed on William Smith, Kennedy and others from his household may face obstruction-of-justice charges for misleading police. That would be a novel situation, for facing up to consequences is one thing that has not been part of the Ted Kennedy tradition.