John F. Kennedy had many alleged mistresses, and Marilyn Monroe was not the only blonde bombshell among them — the tragic former president’s love letters to 21-year-old Swedish socialite Gunilla von Post, spilling all the salacious details in his own handwriting, have been auctioned.
The letters, most written on official Senate stationary, date from June 1954 through August 1956, and sold for $15,000 through Doyle New York on Monday.A previous bundle of presidential mash notes to Gunilla sold for $115,000 in 2010.
Kennedy was a 35-year-old senator just weeks away from marrying Jacqueline Bouvier in the summer of 1953 when he met the 21-year-old Gunilla on a trip to Cannes, France. The pair exchanged letters for the next three years, and Kennedy even planned to leave his wife, according to Gunilla’s 1997 memoir, “Love, Jack.”
“I was relatively inexperienced, and Jack’s tenderness was a revelation,” she wrote. “He said, ‘Gunilla, we’ve waited two years for this. It seems almost too good to be true, and I want to make you happy.’”
But JFK’s plans to divorce Jackie were quashed by his domineering father, Joe, as well as Jackie’s 1955 miscarriage and then her pregnancy the next year. One auctioned note, dated 1955, features Kennedy openly begging to hook up. “I am anxious to see you — is it not strange after all these months?” he wrote.
“Perhaps at first it shall be a little difficult as we shall be strangers — but not strangers … It is a long way to Gunilla — it is worth it. Jack.”
The last letter was written after Kennedy learned about Gunilla’s engagement to Swedish landowner Anders Ekman: “In any case let me know what you are going to do. If you don’t marry come over as I should like to see you. I had a wonderful time last summer with you. It is a bright memory of my life — you are wonderful and I miss you. Jack.”
