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Danish-American journalist (1913-1973) who attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a guest of Adolf Hitler and later had a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy in 1941-42. This unusual combination sparked wartime suspicions that she was a Nazi spy, though U.S. investigations found no evidence, and her reputation remained intact. By 1945, she was working as a screenwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and as a Hollywood gossip columnist. World War II-dated TLS signed “Your, Inga-Binga,” one page both sides, 8.5 x 11, December 25, 1943. Intimate letter addressed to John F. Kennedy as “Jack Dearest,” in full (spelling retained): “It is Christmas day, the 25th. of December 1943 — I don’t know what the time is where you are, but here in Hollywood it is six minutes of eleven in the evening. I am in bed, just scrubbed my face with soap and water (a very oldfashioned method of retaining or aquiering beauty as the case may be)
My day has been a quiet one — just as I wished it. Mother and I have been for a little drive in the car, we have eaten delicious things to our hearts content, have had a rather stiff egg nogg — which I made of my last drops of brandy — taken a walk, opened dozens of presents, given a few, and talked to some friends. I have knitted during the evening, read the papers and the bible, in the latter the sermon on the mount. And — I nearly forgot — I wrote a column.
That was today — I distinctly remember two years back — in the capital of the United States, a city by the name of Washington, where not so long before Christmas, I had met an Ensign in the Navy, whose sister I was deeply devoted to — he was nice, but that seemed about all. He took me home at night, when we had dinner together, and slowly but rather surely he started paying attention to me. That didn't seem so odd to me, what did seem queer was that I became hopelessly attached to him. Then the world turned upside down in a thousand respects, but I remember that lovers knot I had for Christmas — I even remember that you said ‘It isn't much, but honestly I never thought I would see you again.’
A letter arrived some time ago. It wasn’t a bit cheerful, you missed home, but didn’t exactly say so — I was so sure you would be here by now, but you are not, and the twenty days are ahead of us and not behind — maybe that is a cheerful thought.
Congratulations. You are a full lieutenant now. Last time I saw you in New York, you had just received half a gold strip, and the color was so different from the one already there, that we both laughed, when we walked in Central Park.
In six days the New Year will be here. I don't know what to wish. When I was a youngster home, we used to drink French Champagne at the stroke of midnight, and hope for the future, while promising ourselves, deep down in our hearts, to be a far better person during the New Year. We kept that promise the first few days, then forgot conveniently about it. And the result is right here today: We are at war — the President said a lot in his speech yesterday — as you probably heard — and I saw a picture called something like ‘War Department Report’ and in that it is evident that we have to do a lot, before we can drink French Champagne again.
Two years ago you asked me to go to New York and celebrate New Years Eve — I didn't. In a way I regretted it all evening — in a way not. Had I been able to look ahead — I would have said yes. Too bad you are not here to repeat that invitation, there is a slight chance that I would accept, if you would make the destination a little nearer than New York.
Last time I saw Thorb, was at my house in New York. He is a very handsome yo young devil. He said ‘I am sure I am not coming back’ that made me very certain that he would. I know you thanked God when he returned, and so did I. Will you give him my love, I am very fond of him, partly because I have heard a great deal about him from Kick, and also from you, but mostly because he is so nice.
Yes! Darling I know you are not sitting with your hands in your lap. I don't know much about politics and as little about geography, but still — there is a limit to even my ignorance, and since I got a globus for Christmas I shall keep better track — as much as I can and am allowed to.
I think of you every night before going to sleep. Though it isn't night where you are when it is here, I still pray God to help you. From where you are sitting, I guess that Texas Ranch looks pretty rosy, or doesn't it?
It is an odd world — everybody is living in the future or the past and sort of squirming through the present. I talk to a lot of the boys who come through this place — if coming or going — they seem in a dreadful hurry — not to get there — but to go back home, back to that job they never had, because most of them are too young ever to have done anything else but fight, but back to their parents, to the girl they left behind, and are afraid won't wait — back to the corner drug store, and that little lot, which they will buy and build a house on, where they will take that girl, provided she does wait, and if she doesn't, queer as it may seem, there will be another. Then they will settle down, have children, work like fiends, and die in their beds.
I dont know where you are — I just know you are somewhere in the world where the sun rises and sets — wherever it be Darling, I send you all my love and please be home and let us drink a toast to 1945 — this year, to the one right before us, I don't know what to say — except take care of yourself, and get a furlough, beat the Japs and — come home.” Arvad writes the salutation and a couple of text corrections in her own hand. In fine condition.
John F. Kennedy began an affair with Danish journalist Inga Arvad in 1941 while serving as an ensign in the Office of Naval Intelligence, playfully nicknaming her “Inga Binga.” Their relationship quickly drew the attention of the FBI, which suspected Arvad – who had attended the 1936 Olympics as a guest of Hitler – might be a Nazi sympathizer or even a spy. Her home and phone lines were wiretapped, and agents monitored the couple’s interactions. Though no evidence of wrongdoing was ever found, Kennedy’s father intervened, fearing the relationship could damage his son’s future political career, and the affair was brought to an end, though the two evidently remained attached.
This December 1943 letter dates to a pivotal moment in the aftermath of Kennedy’s PT-109 ordeal. Following the August 1943 collision in the Solomon Islands, Kennedy briefly returned to duty commanding PT-59. Still, his health deteriorated, and he was relieved of command on November 18th and hospitalized on Tulagi.
By the time of this correspondence, Kennedy was preparing to leave the Pacific; he departed soon after, arriving in San Francisco in early January 1944. There, he reunited with Arvad, now working as a journalist. After hearing Kennedy recount the destruction of PT-109 and his rescue of his crew, she turned the story into a newspaper feature published under the headline ‘Lt. Kennedy Saves His Men As Japs Cut PT Boat in Half’ in the Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and other papers—of course, without revealing her personal connection to her ‘skipper hero.’
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