Extraordinary pairing of two books highlighting John F. Kennedy's presidential speeches, signed by their authors and affiliated figures—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Buzz Aldrin, John W. Gardner, and Nicholas Katzenbach. Includes:
Signed book: To Turn the Tide. First edition. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Hardcover with dust jacket, 6 x 8.5, 235 pages. Signed and inscribed on the first free end page in fountain pen by the president, "For Rosalinde Kaufman—with thanks and best regards, John Kennedy,” and the editor, “To Lin—with my sincere thanks for your valuable help in preparing this volume, John Gardner." Kaufman is one of four people thanked in Gardner's editor's note that opens the book. The volume collects several of Kennedy's greatest speeches and addresses, ranging from his oft-quoted inaugural to his famous commitment to 'landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth'—this speech signed at the conclusion in blue ballpoint by America's second moonwalker: "Mission Accomplished! Apollo XI achieved President Kennedy’s goal before the end of the decade, Buzz Aldrin, July 16-24, 1969, Apollo XI LMP." Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: VG+/VG, with edge nicks and creasing to dust jacket.
Signed book: The Burden and the Glory. First edition, specially bound deluxe presentation issue. Hardcover bound in navy blue goatskin with gilt-stamped presidential seal on front board, all edges gilt, 5.75 x 8.25, 293 pages. Signed on the first free end page in black ballpoint, "Jacqueline Kennedy," and on the first page of a speech entitled 'The Moral Issue of Equal Rights for All Colors,' JFK's response to the desegregation crisis in Alabama, by JFK's deputy attorney general, "Nicholas deB. Katzenbach." Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: VG+/None, with trivial spots of rubbing to spine head and corners.
Both books are housed in handsome custom-made half-leather clamshell cases with marbled boards and gilt-stamped spines. John F. Kennedy had an enduring voice that captured the dreams and imagination of a nation. Aside from his youth and charisma Kennedy’s popularity has endured due to his inspirational rhetoric. To Turn the Tide holds his ever-popular Inaugural Address, with so many memorable lines: 'Let the word go forth…the torch has been passed,' along with the famed clarion call to higher purpose and patriotism, 'And so, my fellow Americans, Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.' The Gardner book concludes with Kennedy's foreboding address to the United Nations of September 25, 1961: 'Today every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be inhabitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculations or madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.'
The Burden and the Glory picks up with speeches starting in November 1961 and ends with Kennedy's famous 'unspoken speech' intended to be delivered before the Dallas Citizens Council on November 22, 1963. Among these is his enduring space speech at Rice University ('We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard'), his televised address on the Cuban Missile Crisis, his historic address at American University desiring a world peace, and his famed 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech given at the Berlin Wall. Katzenbach signs the address given by Kennedy after the 'Stand in the Schoolhouse Door'—the moral crisis of Civil Rights on June 11, 1963, when Governor George Wallace of Alabama threatened to block the registration of two African American students to the all-white University of Alabama. Katzenbach and the federalized National Guard confronted Wallace on the steps of Foster Auditorium, where the registration was to take place, and eventually Wallace backed down. That night Kennedy addressed the nation: 'If an American, because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for public officials who represent him, if in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of want, the who among us would be content to have the color of skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay.' Together, these two multi-signed books represent the trials and triumphs of John F. Kennedy's presidency, as well as his enduring legacy.
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