AS WE REMEMBER JOE, PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION INSCRIBED BY BOBBY KENNEDY AT CHRISTMAS TO DAVE POWERS, JFK’S LONGTIME CLOSE FRIEND AND CONFIDANT—“JACK LOVED DAVE POWERS LIKE A BROTHER” (EDWARD KENNEDY)

(KENNEDY, Robert) KENNEDY, John F. As We Remember Joe. Cambridge, MA: Privately Printed University Press, 1945. Octavo, original maroon cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $6800.

First edition, second issue (one of only 250 copies privately printed for family and friends), of this tribute to the eldest of the Kennedy brothers, an exceptional presentation/association copy inscribed by Robert Kennedy to President Kennedy's beloved friend Dave Powers, "For Dave, Bob Kennedy, Christmas 1965."

John F. Kennedy edited this collection of 20 essays (and also wrote the first, "My Brother Joe") memorializing his eldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who won the Naval Cross and was killed in action in 1944. Privately printed for family and friends. There were 390 copies printed in the first issue with winged device on title page printed in red, and 250 in this, the second issue, with winged device on title page printed in black. With numerous photographic illustrations. David Powers' "loyalty, sense of humor and contacts throughout Boston's Irish community made him a close friend and aide to John F. Kennedy and a fixture at the Kennedy White House." At Powers' death in 1998, Edward Kennedy wrote: ''Jack loved Dave Powers like a brother, and so did all of us in the Kennedy family.'' The two met in 1946 when JFK was running for Congress and Powers worked "on each of Kennedy's subsequent campaigns, for the House, the Senate and then the Presidency. After winning the 1960 election, Kennedy named Powers a special assistant in the White House… But his real role was First Friend, someone with no agenda of his own who could share a silence, reel off baseball and football statistics or make Kennedy laugh with one of his endless supply of tales and jokes… Powers was in the motorcade in Dallas when Kennedy was killed, and after the assassination, he remained close to the Kennedy family, visiting often with the slain President's children… In 1970 Powers, Kenneth O'Donnell and Joe McCarthy wrote Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, a nostalgic biography of Kennedy" (New York Times). Faint trace of paperclip to front pastedown and upper edge of several early leaves not affecting text.

A fine presentation copy with a especially memorably association.