JFK Letter to 'Alleged Lover' Up For Auction

Boston, MA - An October 1963 letter from John F. Kennedy to family friend Mary Pinchot Meyer is going up for auction -- four pages of the former president pressing his alleged mistress to meet with him.

RR Auction, based in Boston's North End, is auctioning the letter - along with numerous other JFK artifacts - on its site this month, as first reported by The Boston Globe. The auction house expects bidding to reach $30,000 or higher.

The letter, as posted by RR Auction, reads in full:

“Why don’t you leave suburbia for once—come and see me—either here—or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th. I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it—on the other hand you may not—and I will love it. You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years—you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes.”

Read in retrospect a half-century later, it feels uncomfortable -- not just for the adultery, but the pressure the most powerful man in the country is exerting on a woman who seems to have said "no."

In any case, the letter was never sent -- kept by White House Secretary Evelyn Lincoln. The auction house describes it as revealing "JFK’s personality and the somewhat cavalier manner in which he conducted his affairs."

RR Auction extols the faded presidential seal watermarks visible under bright light and the presence of Kennedy's signature, "J." It is accompanied by a full unused sheet of White House stationery, and comes from the estate of Robert White.

Kennedy was killed the following month, likely making this letter among the last handwritten communications from his presidency.

RR Auction describes Kennedy's history with Meyer, "one of JFK’s alleged lovers," like this:

"After first meeting Kennedy while he was in high school at Choate, Meyer was reacquainted with him in 1954 when the Kennedys moved into a Georgetown home nearby. A socialite and painter, she became friends with Jackie; her husband was a CIA agent, which has piqued the interest of some conspiracy theorists. Once Kennedy was in office, Mary is said to have visited the White House frequently when Jackie was out of town. Nevertheless, they managed to keep the affair secret.

"... Mary Pinchot Meyer, too, was murdered under mysterious circumstances a year later, fueling the imaginations of investigators amateur and otherwise."

The letter will be up for auction June 16-23. Details here.

>> Photo via RR Auction