May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 149

Price Realized: $ 2,210
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
DRAFT OF PART OF HIS LAST NEWS CONFERENCE: YALE PROFESSOR HELD BY KGB KENNEDY, JOHN F. Typescript, unsigned, with 10 words in holograph, as President, draft of a statement [delivered as part of a news conference held on November 14, 1963]. The typed statement begins, "We are deeply concerned about the detention of Professor Barghoorn by Soviet authorities . . ." and, written between two lines in holograph: "His arrest is wholly unwarranted--and unjust." In lower margin is noted a phrase in holograph: "not consistent with." 1 page, 4to; "Russia" written in unknown hand at upper right, staple holes at upper left, minor creases. (TFC) Np, 14 November 1963

Additional Details

In November of 1963, Igor Alexandrovich Ivanov was arrested in NY; U.S. government officials alleged that he was a spy working for the KGB. Shortly thereafter, Frederick C. Barghoorn, a Yale professor of political science, was arrested during a visit to the USSR. Barghoorn later explained that a stranger handed him a roll of papers and immediately Soviet officers handcuffed him and deposited him in Lubyanka prison on the charge of espionage. 17 days later, he was released after the protestations of the President, American diplomats, students and faculty at Yale, and others.