Mar 07, 2024 - Sale 2661

Sale 2661 - Lot 90

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
WHEN HIS HERO WINSTON CHURCHILL DECLINED HIS INVITATION TO VISIT WHITE HOUSE KENNEDY, JOHN F. Autograph Note Signed, "JK," as President, to White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, suggesting that he send to the British media the text of JFK's cable to [Winston] Churchill, and remarking that Winston Churchill declined JFK's invitation to visit Washington. Originally intended for another recipient [from page heading ("Tell Pierre about")], but holograph addressee on verso ("Pierre") indicates that the message was to be hand delivered to Salinger. ¾ page, tall 4to, pale yellow ruled paper; faint paper clip stain at upper edge, horizontal folds. (SFC) Np, [14 April 1961]
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"1. The text of my cable to Churchill--which he may want to release, and bring especially to the attention of the British Correspondents.
"2. I talked to Sir Winston Churchill last night on the phone (I telephoned him). I invited him to Washington but he was obliged to leave for England this morning. (He expressed appreciation at the call and the invitation)."
In April of 1961, mere weeks after being inaugurated as president, John F. Kennedy invited Winston Churchill--whom Kennedy had admired since a young man--to visit the White House. Churchill was in New York Harbor at the time aboard the yacht Christina, but considerations of his own health and that of his wife, who was in a London hospital at that moment, compelled Churchill to decline the invitation and fly home on April 14, never to visit the U.S. again.