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12:37 Sen. Ted Kennedy writes in 'True Compass': I was haunted by Chappaquiddick tragedy

Ted Kennedy went to his grave a haunted man for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in the 1969 Chappaquiddick car crash that many believe shattered Kennedy's presidential dreams."That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life," Kennedy wrote in "True Compass," his much anticipated memoir, published by Twelve.It was an accident, Kennedy said in his 511-page tome due out Sept. 14, a copy of which was obtained by The News. But he confessed he was "responsible."It's one of several unvarnished passages that sheds new light on the storied life of the late senator, who died last week of brain cancer. Other revelations include:Kennedy insists he was never an alcoholic. But he enjoyed his fair share of stiff drinks, women and fine wine, and "at times I've enjoyed these pleasures too much."As a 9-year-old, Kennedy hid under his bunk at the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, terrified of a dorm master he believed was sexually abusive.He claims a friend cajoled him into taking a Spanish exam on his behalf as a freshman at Harvard, an offense that got him expelled for two years. Kennedy wrote it was a foolish youthful mistake.Kennedy expresses regret that he didn't just take a walk alone on the beach in March 1991, when instead he went to aPalm Beach, Fla., bar with his nephew,William Kennedy Smith - later accused and acquitted of rape. But it is the five pages Kennedy devoted to Chappaquiddick that is likely to garner the most attention.Although Kennedy apologized many times in life for the accident, he almost never revisited the night's details - or the 10 hours it took him to notify police.The new book does not go beyond Kennedy's original chronology, which he gave in a 1970 investigation. It's a timeline that begins with a house party hosted by former Robert F. Kennedy campaign staffers, and ends in the murky waters off Chappaquiddick's Dike Bridge.But Kennedy does open up about his feelings over the night, and he tries to set straight what he calls enduring false speculation about him and Kopechne."We had no romantic relationship whatsoever," he wrote flatly. He insists they were getting weepy over RFK's assassination the year before, and both decided to leave the party.Although he acknowledges some pre-dinner cocktails that night, Kennedy doesn't blame alcohol - just that he was lost on an unfamiliar part of the island.Kennedy admits that he was not proud of the 10 hours it took him to report the accident - a period during which skeptics believe Kennedy worked feverishly to cover his tracks.But he concludes that his brain was addled by concussion, exhaustion, shock and panic - as well as the knowledge that the accident would hurt him politically.The book also offers a full recounting of Kennedy's many legislative victories, and it is spiced throughout with the self-deprecating stories for which Kennedy was famous.Kennedy jovially recalls, for instance, how on his third day as young Bostonprosecutor, he got his first case - a man charged with swilling 26 drinks while watching a Yankees-Red Sox doubleheader, who then crashed his car near Fenway Park.Kennedy figured the case was a slam dunk. But the hometown jury acquitted him in minutes after the man's attorney argued his client's "principal crime is that he cheered for the Boston Red Sox.The book ends on a wistful note, as the dying Kennedy comes to terms with his own mortality and goals not reached - among them health care reform. But the always optimistic Kennedy expresses hope that readers will be inspired to take up the cause."If you persevere, stick with it, work at it, you have a real opportunity to achieve something," he wrote.

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