Sold For $41,604
*Includes Buyers Premium
ALS as a Massachusetts Senator, signed “Jack,” one page both sides, 6.25 x 9.25, personal United States Senate letterhead, postmarked June 1955. Handwritten letter to his mistress, Gunilla von Post, a Swedish aristocrat Kennedy had met by chance in Cannes, France in the summer of 1953, just weeks before his wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier. In full: “I am writing you both in Bastad + Stockholm as I do not have your new address. I am coming to Stockholm, I hope, around the 7th of September. Is there any chance you shall be there – as I would like to say hello. Write to me right away as I shall be leaving for Europe in 2 weeks. Congratulations.” This parting expression is likely a reference to von Post’s engagement to the wealthy Swedish landowner Anders Ekman, whom she married later that year in 1955. Kennedy adds his address below, which incorporates his signature: “Sen. J. F. Kennedy, Hyannisport, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA.” Includes the original mailing envelope, written in Kennedy’s own hand. In fine condition, with a few minor ink smudges.
As detailed in her poignant memoir, Love, Jack, von Post recounts that she and Kennedy spent an intensely intimate and joyful week together while traveling through Sweden in August 1955. Von Post later wrote that in the year following their affair, Kennedy sought to end his marriage and bring her to the United States, but these efforts were blocked by his father, his political ambitions, and the couple’s shared sensitivity to Jacqueline Kennedy’s miscarriage in 1955 and pregnancy in 1956. Gunilla von Post and John Kennedy would see each other only one other time, this by chance at a gala at the Waldorf Astoria in 1958 while von Post was pregnant with her first child. Her husband died while piloting a plane in 1960, and Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963; von Post remarried and lived the rest of her life in Florida, where she published her memoir in 1997.
This item is Pre-Certified by PSA/DNA
Buy a third-party letter of authenticity for
$200.00
*This item has been pre-certified by a trusted third-party authentication service, and by placing a bid on this item, you agree to accept the opinion of this authentication service. If you wish to have an opinion rendered by a different authenticator of your choosing, you must do so prior to your placing of any bid. RR Auction is not responsible for differing opinions submitted 30 days after the date of the sale.
