A letter from John F. Kennedy to his Swedish mistress arranging a romantic rendezvous behind Jackie Kennedy’s back has emerged 71 years later.
The future US president, a serial adulterer, wrote to Gunilla von Post saying that he was heading to Europe and he hoped to see her.
He first met the Scandinavian aristocrat in Cannes, just weeks before marrying Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. JFK was planning his return to Europe two years later and told Gunilla “write to me right away.”
He said he hoped to stop off in Stockholm and would “like to say hello.”
He ended the June 1955 letter by congratulating her on her engagement to Swedish landowner Anders Ekman, although this seemingly did not deter him from wishing to rekindle their romance.
“I am writing you both in Bastad + Stockholm as I do not have your new address,” JFK wrote.
“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.”
Gunilla revealed in her memoirs that they ended up spending an “intensely intimate and joyful” week traveling through Sweden together.
JFK even reputedly considered leaving Jackie for her but changed his mind after she suffered a miscarriage.
The hand-written, one page letter, signed Jack, has emerged for sale for $29,700 (£22,000) at RR Auction, of Boston, US.
“This is a handwritten letter from Senator Kennedy to his Swedish mistress, Gunilla von Post, arranging plans for a romantic reunion,” an RR Auction spokesperson said.
“Gunilla von Post was a Swedish aristocrat Kennedy had met by chance in Cannes, France in the summer of 1953, just weeks before his wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier.
“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.”
Gunilla’s husband was killed in a plane crash in 1960.
JFK, the 35th US President who was also romantically linked with Marilyn Monroe, was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while his motorcade passed through Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
The sale takes place on March 27.
