Auction Date:2013 Feb 13 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Autograph and typed manuscript, unsigned and possibly incomplete with extensive handwritten notations in pencil by Kennedy, including a reference to him as "Mr. Kennedy" and one full page in JFK's handwriting, 10 pages total consisting of: four typed pages corrected by Kennedy; four pages in pen and pencil in an unidentified hand; and one page in pencil in Kennedy's hand, no place, no date, but most likely Fall of 1952.
Speech begins with four typed pages, and reads, in part: “It was my intention tonight to discuss certain questions which are important to you, the people of Massachusetts, in selecting your representative in the United States Senate. All this has now been changed. In the last two days, my opponent Mr. Lodge has made charges against me of such a serious personal nature they cannot go unchallenged. On Saturday, in New Bedford, Mr. Lodge said that Mr. Kennedy does not take Korea seriously. Yesterday in Lowell Mr. Lodge went so far as to suggest that the heavy burdens placed on our people by the Korean War are a matter of indifference to Mr. Kennedy…No American is indifferent to the Korean War or any other war in which our boys and the boys of our friends and neighbors have fought and died. War, with all its sorrows and miseries, has a deep personal meaning for me. I saw it at close range in the waters of the South Pacific during the early days of World War II, where some of the noblest pages in our history were written. I know as one who lived it—the lonesomeness, the heartbreak, and the bitter cost of war in lives taken and bodies broken. Great sorrow was visited upon my own family. My older brother, Joe, dear to me as only an older brother can be [struck through by Kennedy] lost his life in a volunteer mission over the English Channel in 1944. Two months later my sister's husband died in action in France. I have some understanding of what the loss of a boy in Korea or in any war means to those who loved him. I don't need to be told about it by Mr. Lodge. I have been as seriously concerned about the Korean War as any man could be. I have been to Korea but [added by Kennedy: to the best of my knowledge] I have never seen any record that Mr. Lodge was ever there…To me the important question is this: What can be done now about Korea?”
On the last page, Kennedy writes, in pencil, beginning: “I think we have every right to expect that the other members of the United Nations should bear their proportionate share of the burden of the fighting. The only way this can be done is by insisting that all of the assistance that we give them should be on a reciprocal basis—that we will help them if they will help us. This, I have long believed, should be the motivating force behind our entire foreign policy.”
In very good condition, with archival repairs to three pages and scattered toning and soiling. Accompanied by a copy of Kennedy Versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race by Thomas J. Whalen.
Battling for the Massachusetts Senate seat in 1952, incumbent Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. publicly questioned Kennedy’s attitude toward the Korean War, most likely hoping to highlight his own celebrated military service in World War II. In doing so, he opened the door for this passionate response, bringing to the forefront the Kennedy family’s personal tastes of the “bitter cost of war in lives taken and bodies broken.” While Kennedy was witnessing the horrors of war firsthand “in the waters of the South Pacific during the early days of World War II,” his older brother Joseph was killed in action. Two months later, his brother-in-law William Cavendish was also killed in action while serving as a major in the Coldstream Guards in France. Suffering these losses with his family, Kennedy responds to Lodge’s attack with vigor: “I have some understanding of what the loss of a boy in Korea or in any war means to those who loved him. I don't need to be told about it by Mr. Lodge.” An intensely heartfelt speech written by the soon-to-be Massachusetts Senator, building his foreign policy upon the foundation of his own family’s losses which would tragically grow in the coming years.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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