LESS well remembered than Lord Acton's celebrated aphorism about the corrupting effects of power is his dictum that "Everything secret degenerates; nothing is safe that does not show it can bear discussion and publicity." Carl Jung agreed that "all personal secrets have the effect of sin or guilt." These statements aptly define the attitude of a democratic society—particularly the U.S.—toward its leaders. The man in public life has a private life that is not exclusively his own. It is assumed that the people's right to know includes the right to know all, or almost all, about their chosen leaders: health, habits, character and foibles. The public's curiosity is insatiable, and often for good reason. If a politician behaves badly in private matters, he might act the same way in his public duties. That, at any rate, is the theory that has always linked scandal and history, low gossip and high statesmanship.
Empires have been shaken and governments have fallen because of private indiscretion. Thwarted in love as well as politics, the bitterly frustrated young Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, killed himself and his mistress at the resort of Mayerling in 1889. The royal family did its best to hush up the scandal, but rumors rocked the empire and speeded up the pace of its dissolution. Home rule seemed all but assured for Ireland until the chief advocate in Britain's Parliament, Charles Parnell, was haled into court as a corespondent in a divorce case. Because of his affair with Kitty O'Shea, which outraged Irish Catholics and British Nonconformists alike, Parnell was ruined and home rule was set back for more than 30 years.
The Relativity of Scandal
The death of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island last month does not belong in the same category as these and similar scandal-tinged tragedies. Edward Kennedy has denied all charges of indiscretion with the young woman, and there is neither proof nor convincing speculation to the contrary. Yet his inconsistent and clearly incomplete explanations have allowed doubts to persist that involve much more than Kennedy's political future. The fortunes of the Democratic Party in the 1972 presidential election have been affected; so, perhaps, have been some of the liberal causes that Ted Kennedy espoused.
The reaction to the Chappaquiddick mystery once again illustrates that in the processes of public judgment, perhaps the most powerful factors are appearance and imagination. Scandal is a relative matter. How people react to an alleged or suspected indiscretion depends on time and place, on who knows and who tells, on the prestige—and vulnerability—of the persons involved. Pure caprice is often a factor. What one man gets away with for a lifetime may destroy another overnight. Charles Parnell fell from power because of the honest love of a married woman, while his near-contemporary, David Lloyd George, remained Prime Minister of Great Britain despite many love affairs and several illegitimate children. As his son almost boastfully put it: "He was probably the greatest natural Don Juan in the history of British politics. To portray his life without taking into account this side of his personality is like failing to depict Beethoven's handicap of, deafness during the composition of his greatest works."