Ted Kennedy
The grand Pooh-Bah of Cape Wind opponents; the wind farm would be located roughly eight miles from his family’s Hyannisport compound. Consulted with archconservative Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska before Stevens proposed a legislative provision that would have allowed Massachusetts to scuttle the Cape Wind project, which would be constructed in federal waters. (The provision failed.) Kennedy’s explanation for his opposition, according to an exchange quoted in Cape Wind: “That’s where I sail.”David McCullough
Cape Wind begins with the Martha’s Vineyard resident prolific historian (Truman, John Adams, Brave Companions, etc.), and host of PBS’s American Experience (a WGBH production!) voicing his opposition to the Nantucket Sound wind farm. “It’s outrageous!” says McCullough. “This is a preservation issue. It’s not an environmental issue.”
Rachel “Bunny” Mellon
Resident of Oyster Harbors, a gated community on Nantucket Sound; granddaughter of the inventor of Listerine; widow of the astoundingly rich Paul Mellon; confidante of Jackie Kennedy; former mother-in-law of Senator John Warner (R-Virginia). In Cape Wind, she accuses a wind-farm supporter of being a “traitor to [his] class.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Other environmentalists have urged him to drop his opposition to Cape Wind, but Ted’s nephew — who cites commercial, environmental, and aesthetic concerns — isn’t budging. “Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views,” Kennedy wrote in a 2005 New York Times op-ed. “The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore ... the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the Cape and nearby islands.”
Senator John Warner
Former son-in-law to Bunny Mellon and ex-husband of Elizabeth Taylor; attached an amendment to a 2004 defense-appropriations bill that would have stripped the US Army Corps of Engineers of its oversight authority on the project. The amendment didn’t make the cut.
Mitt Romney
If the former Massachusetts governor becomes president in ’08, don’t be surprised if he throws new obstacles in Cape Wind’s path. “I’ve seen wind farms,” Romney said during a 2006 Army Corps of Engineers hearing on the project. “They’re not pretty.” As an alternative location, Romney suggested Boston Harbor.
Christy Mihos
The Big Dig whistleblower and failed independent gubernatorial candidate is also a leader of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. His swanky West Yarmouth home faces the Kennedy compound.
Walter Cronkite
Formerly featured in anti-wind-farm Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound TV ads, Cronkite — who owns a home on Martha’s Vineyard — eventually had second thoughts. “I will confess . . . that I did not do my own homework as I should have before making the statements,” Cronkite explained. “I did not and I can only regret that now.”
