It’s a story that has never been told until now, a bizarre piece of history that became public only when I discovered records of the investigation that the FBI quietly released in June in The Vault, the bureau’s online FOIA library. The bottom of the first page contained a stark message: “SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY - VICTIM, CONGRESSIONAL ASSASSINATION STATUTE.”Īn informant had contacted the FBI office in downtown Chicago and explained that a plot to murder Kennedy was being set in motion. What Kennedy, Shrum and a handful of other staffers didn’t know was that one morning that October, teletype machines had clattered to life in FBI field offices across the country with a fresh transmission, seven pages’ worth of new intelligence information. “There were always nuts out there, and that’s just the way it was.” There was always a danger,” Bob Shrum, Kennedy’s former press secretary and speechwriter, remembers. The death threats only multiplied when Kennedy was on the campaign trail in 1980. “Teddy has to die,” promised a note that was once mailed to his father. Anonymous tormentors had been sending Ted Kennedy handwritten threats since the late 1960s. Running for president had also awakened a fear that Kennedy had tried to hide even from his closest confidants: that he would be assassinated, just like his brothers, President John F.
He’d tried to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Carter when that bid failed, Kennedy resorted to playing the role of a good party soldier, summoning the remnants of his family’s old Camelot magic as he crisscrossed the country to win over voters for Carter. It had been a long, tumultuous year for Kennedy, who was then in his late 40s. He’d been expecting these agents to pay him a visit.Ī day earlier, Senator Ted Kennedy had left San Francisco after campaigning for President Jimmy Carter, whose general election showdown with Ronald Reagan was inching closer.
LaVey, the high priest of the Church of Satan, was once rumored to have played a mystical role in the death of a former Hollywood star. They were soon met by a bald, middle-aged man with a goatee: Anton Szandor LaVey.
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