For the past eight months, Pamela Hamill has pushed for a public apology from Vice President Joe Biden who she claims besmirched her late father, Curtis C. Dunn.
Hamill is still awaiting Biden’s act of contrition.
But she is taking some comfort in a recent CBS News broadcast that set the record straight, marking a victory for Hamill who, acting as family spokeswoman, has campaigned to clear her father’s name.
In the segment, which lasted a minute and 36 seconds, CBS news correspondent Bob Orr clarified that Dunn wasn’t drunk at the time of a Dec. 18, 1972, traffic accident that killed Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, less than six weeks after Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate.
Hamill told CBS during an on-camera interview that the fatal accident in Delaware haunted her father, who lived in North East with his wife, Ruby, and their seven children, including Hamill, at the time.
Dunn died in 1999.
Hamill also explained that Biden’s public misrepresentation, which was brought to her attention in August and triggered her campaign, continues to torment her family.
That’s why the March 24 CBS News broadcast brought relief to Hamill, who lived in Cecil County for 31 years before she and her husband, Kevin, moved to Newark 13 years ago. Today, Hamill works as a hair stylist at a North East salon.
“I felt a calming from that national retraction, that my father’s truth was finally out there,” Hamill explained.
Also soothing was an apologetic e-mail from CBS anchor Katie Couric, who had repeated Biden’s erroneous account on the air during last year’s Democratic Convention and again during the inauguration in January.
“I was wrong to repeat it and to trust the sources that reported it … I am deeply sorry that I have caused your family additional pain because I’m sure it was a burden for your father and all those who loved him,” Couric wrote.
Hamill said she treasures Couric’s correspondence.
“Her personal acknowledgement has eased our heavy hearts and has restored our faith in the media,” she said.
Biden had characterized Dunn as a drunken driver when speaking publicly about the fatal collision — even though investigators found no evidence that alcohol contributed to the accident and filed no charges.
According to Delaware Superior Court Judge Jerome O. Herlihy, who oversaw the police investigation 36 years ago as chief prosecutor, there is no evidence supporting Biden’s claim.
Police determined Biden’s first wife drove into the path of Dunn’s tractor-trailer, possibly because her head was turned and she didn’t see the oncoming truck.
Dunn, who overturned his rig while swerving to avoid a collision, ran to the wrecked car and was the first to help.
“The rumor about alcohol being involved by either party, especially the truck driver (Dunn), is incorrect,” Herlihy said last fall in response to media questions about the crash after then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tapped Biden to be his running mate Aug. 23.
Obama’s selection placed Biden, and his erroneous version of the fatal crash, in the national spotlight.
During a speech in 2001, Biden told an audience at the University of Delaware that a drunken driver had crashed into his family.
He told a similar story during a public appearance in 2007.
After Obama tapped Biden as his running mate, the senator’s misrepresentation found its way into major newspapers, including The New York Times, as well as accounts of the accident provided by radio and television news outlets.