TheTimes8April2020

the times | Wednesday April 8 2020 2GM 31

Wo r l d

The body of Maeve McKean, the grand-

daughter of Robert Kennedy, has been

recovered by divers after she went miss-

ing last week with her son.

Mrs McKean and Gideon, eight, had

set out in a canoe in Chesapeake Bay

last Thursday to retrieve a football from

the shallow cove behind her mother’s

house in Maryland. Mrs McKean’s hus-

band, David, said they had moved there

from Washington hoping to quarantine

themselves in a place where the child-

ren would have more space.

His wife and son had “somehow got

pushed by wind or tide into the open

bay” where they were spotted far from

shore by an onlooker, who called the

police. Police said they had been over-

taken by the strong winds and heavy

seas. A rescue operation discovered the

retary has also been diminished under

Mr Trump, who prefers to do his own

briefings to the media, either in the

Oval Office or as he leaves the White

House for engagements. He has been

leading the daily briefing on the coro-

navirus in the West Wing press room.

Ms Grisham’s replacement will be

Kayleigh McEnany, 31, who has spent a

year as press secretary of the Trump

2020 campaign. She will be Mr Trump’s

fourth White House press secretary

since his inauguration in 2017.

Ms Grisham’s departure is part of a

shake-up by Mark Meadows, the new

acting White House chief of staff.

Jessica Ditto, the deputy communica-

tions director, abruptly announced she

was leaving her job last week.

The US navy secretary quit yesterday

after being forced to apologise for flying

8,000 miles to Guam to berate the crew

of an aircraft carrier for supporting

their “naive or stupid” captain.

Thomas Modley, the acting secre-

tary, was heckled by sailors on the USS

Theodore Rooosevelt as he explained

why he had relieved Captain Brett

Crozier of command for drawing atten-

tion to a coronavirus outbreak on

board.

The Democratic chairman of the

House armed services committee had

called for Mr Modly to resign or be

sacked and President Trump said he

would intervene because Captain Cro-

zier had had such an impressive career.

The president said: “I don’t want to de-

stroy somebody for having a bad day.”

Mr Modly’s speech to the remaining

crew of the nuclear-powered aircraft

carrier was leaked to Task and Purpose,

a website for armed forces news, which

described it as “unhinged”. About 2,800

sailors remained on board after 1,999

had been moved to shore and 230 had

tested positive for coronavirus.

Mr Modly fired Capain Crozier last

Thursday, two days after the San Fran-

cisco Chronicle published a leaked copy

of an email letter he wrote to navy

superiors warning that sailors aboard

the aircraft carrier would die unless

they were allowed ashore.

The crew cheered their captain off

the ship, chanting his name. He is now

in isolation after testing positive for the

virus.

“If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that

this information wasn’t going to get out

into the public, in this day and informa-

Captain Brett

Crozier was

cheered off his

ship by the crew

after his dismissal

JULIUS KÄHKÖNEN/MEDIA DRUM IMAGES

Navy secretary

resigns over

dismissal of

‘stupid’ captain

tion age that we live in, then he was

either too naive or too stupid to be a

commanding officer of a ship like this,”

Mr Modly told the crew on Sunday

after making the long fight to the

remote Pacific island. “The alternative

is that he did this on purpose. And that’s

a serious violation of the UCMJ [Uni-

form Code of Military Justice], which

you are all familiar with.”

Mr Trump said at a White House

briefing that “I may look into it, only

from the standpoint that something

should be resolved because I’m hearing

good things about both people.”

Referring to Captain Crozier he

added: “I’m going to get involved and

see exactly what’s going on there

because I don’t want to destroy some-

body for having a bad day.”

Mr Modly then issued an apology but

it emerged yesterday that he was

ordered to do so by the office of Mark

Esper, the defence secretary.

Mr Modly said: “I want to apologise

to the navy for my recent comments to

the crew of the TR. Let me be clear, I do

not think Captain Brett Crozier is naive

nor stupid. I think and always believed

him to be the opposite.”

He added: “I believe, precisely

because he is not naive and stupid, that

he sent his alarming email with the

intention of getting it into the public

domain in an effort to draw public

attention to the situation on his ship.”

Adam Smith, chairman of the House

armed services committee, had said

that he no longer had confidence in Mr

Modly’s leadership.

Mr Modly, a businessman who

served for six years in the navy and was

appointed by Mr Trump in 2017 as

under secretary, has been acting as the

secretary after Richard Spencer was

ousted in November over his handling

of a row with Mr Trump about the pros-

ecution of Eddie Gallagher, a retired

Navy Seal whom the president wanted

exonerated.

Last month Mr Trump nominated

Rear Admiral Kenneth Braithwaite as

his next navy secretary, but Congress

has yet to confirm the appointment.

United States

David Charter Washington

Swirling sky A lone explorer does not need his head torch to see an aurora borealis on the Norwegian island of Senja

Wisconsin’s primary descends into farce

Long queues of voters formed at polling

stations in Wisconsin yesterday as the

state pressed ahead with its Demo-

cratic presidential primary vote despite

supposed Covid-19 restrictions.

Tony Evers, the Democratic gover-

nor, cancelled in-person voting on

Monday, moving the choice between

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders to June.

However, Republicans mounted a

legal challenge, and Wisconsin’s top

court ruled that Mr Evers did not have

the authority to postpone the election.

The Supreme Court in Washington

then overturned an earlier ruling that

had given voters an extra six days to

return postal ballots, meaning that

people who had not yet sent their votes

back, or had only just requested a postal

vote, had to turn out in person yester-

day or skip the primary. The votes will

not be counted until at least April 13.

The rulings resulted in streams of

mask wearers queueing in some cases

for hours to vote. The 180 polling sta-

tions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest

city, were reduced to five after poll

workers quit in fear for their health.

In Waukesha, a city of about 70,000

people, there was only one polling

station. Five minutes before voting

opened there was a queue of 100

people, only some of whom were keep-

ing a distance from their neighbours.

A “safer at home” order had prohibited

all non-essential travel in Wisconsin

since March 25. People are only

allowed to leave their homes to buy

groceries or care for family members.

As of yesterday morning, the midwest-

ern state of about six million, had 2,500

confirmed cases of coronavirus and 85

deaths.

As well as the primary, Wisconsin

was holding state and local elections,

including to its Supreme Court.

President Trump tweeted yesterday

morning: “Wisconsin, get out and vote

NOW for Justice Daniel Kelly. Protect

your 2nd Amendment!” The second

amendment protects US citizens’ right

to keep and bear arms.

Henry Zeffman

Trump’s press chief goes

back to work for Melania

David Charter

Divers recover body of missing Kennedy

canoe, capsized, about six miles to the

south that night.

Aircraft and sonar imaging techno-

logy were used to scan the bay and the

body of Mrs McKean was found on

Monday evening about two

and a half miles south of

the house, in seven

metres (25ft) of water,

Maryland depart-

ment of natural re-

sources said. The

search for her son

continued yester-

day.

Mrs McKean,

40, had two other

children. She was

the grandniece of

President Kennedy and the daughter of

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the

former lieutenant-governor of Mary-

land. Her husband described her as an

ebullient, “magical” personality who

spent her endless energy in

community work and as the

director of the George-

town University global

health initiative.

Mrs McKean’s

cousin, Joe Kenne-

dy, a congressman

in Massachusetts,

said the day before

she disappeared

she had sent her

family a poem by

Laura Kelly Fanucci,

looking forward to a

time after the corona-

virus pandemic.

Will Pavia New York

Stephanie Grisham is to depart as

White House press secretary and com-

munications director without ever

having held a press briefing.

Ms Grisham, 43, who replaced Sarah

Huckabee Sanders last June, is to

return to the East Wing of the White

House to work with Melania Trump as

her chief of staff. She had kept a low

profile in her two West Wing roles,

making only rare appearances on the

Fox News channel.

Her role was undermined by the

return to the White House in February

of Hope Hicks, a former communica-

tions director and close confidante of

President Trump. The role of press sec-

outh of

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