Mary Jo Kopechne: The Girl Next Door

Any suggestion that she might be involved in scandal would have appalled Mary Jo Kopechne. Then it might have amused her, for she was often kidded for not being a swinger. Girlish and gung-ho, she led a life that revolved around the Catholic Church, politics and the Kennedy family. Mary Jo, as everyone who knew her agreed last week, was the girl next door, or perhaps the tomboy, who played catcher on the office softball team. When she took her first Capitol Hill job in 1963, working for Florida's Senator George Smathers, there was...

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