From The Independent:
A month before marrying Jacqueline Bouvier, the future President was writing amorous notes to another woman.
If there was ever any doubt that John F Kennedy, the slain American President, was a hopeless romantic, if not an out-and-out rake with a foggy grasp of the commitments of marriage
, a newly revealed collection of love letters written in his own hand to a straw-haired Swedish siren will surely put it to rest.True, the then young senator from Massachusetts first met the woman in question, Gunilla von Post, before his marriage to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier – but only one month before. It was the summer of 1953 and the pair – he 36 and she just 21 – were both on holiday on the French Riviera. They danced all night and parted with a moonlit kiss.
Most about-to-be-married men might consider such a night as a last fling of bachelorhood with no prospects for continuation, particularly if they are in public life with aspirations one day to lead their country. But Mr Kennedy did not think like most men. So he was to begin corresponding with Ms von Post, mostly in the hope of organising a clandestine reunion, a dream that was at first thwarted but finally resulted in a week-long assignation in Sweden.
The details of the affair were made public by Ms von Post herself in a book and an interview with ABC News in the US in 1997. But only now are the 11 letters written by Mr Kennedy, many filled with swooning language (and showing a blithe disregard for the most rudimentary rules of English punctuation), coming to light. More than that, they are up for sale on an online auction site based in Chicago.
[Read more at The Independent]
