"FOR SOME TIME I HAVE WANTED TO DO SOMETHING TO PERPETUATE JOE'S MEMORY…": FASCINATING TYPED SIGNED LETTER WITH SIGNED AUTOGRAPH POSTSCRIPT FROM JOHN F. KENNEDY TO A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND, RICHARD FLOOD, ASKING FOR A SHORT ESSAY CONTRIBUTION FOR HIS PROSPECTIVE BOOK ABOUT THE LATE JOE KENNEDY, JR., AS WE REMEMBER JOE
KENNEDY, John F. Typed letter signed with autograph postscript. WITH: As We Remember Joe. Hyannisport and Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 6, 1944 / 1945. Single leaf of letterhead, measuring 7-1/4 by 10-1/2 inches; p. 1. Book: octavo, original maroon cloth. Housed together in a custom clamshell box. $25,000.
Exceptional typed letter by John F. Kennedy to a close family friend, Richard Flood, requesting that Flood write a short essay on Joe Kennedy for the tribute book, We Remember Joe, signed by JFK and with signed autograph postscript reading: "If you have any ideas on this—give me a call—Best Jack—Did [illegible] come through?" Together with a first edition, first issue copy of the book.
The letter, typed on Hyannisport stationery to family friend Richard Flood (a Harvard friend and classmate of Joe and a longtime friend and political campaigner for Jack), reads in full: "October 6, 1944. Dear Dick: For some time I have wanted to do something to perpetuate Joe's memory among his immediate family and his close friends. I thought, perhaps, of getting together some essays, written by those who knew him well, which together with photographs could be placed in book for. It would be primarily as a gift for my mother and father and for anyone else who wished it. As I know you were always a great friend of Joe's and that he held you in very high regard, I was wondering if you would care to help out by writing one. I would suggest that the essay could be any length up to five hundred words and that perhaps you could include in this what to you was Joe's outstanding characteristic and perhaps an anecdote illustrating this on some other side of his character. Nothing is being said to my father or mother, as I should like to see it all together and finished before they are told about it. Warmest regards. Very sincerely, [signed] Jack. [autograph postscript] If you have any ideas on this—give me a call—Best Jack—Did [illegible] come through?" These essays on Joe—including one by Flood—would later become We Remember Joe. John F. Kennedy edited the 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. With original Kennedy printed presentation mailing envelope for As We Remember Joe and a supplied copy (not belonging to Flood) of the first edition of the book. Book is first issue, with winged device on the title page printed in red, one of 390 copies of the first issue (the second issue was of 250 copies).
Fine condition.