Lot 650

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Description:

JOHN F. KENNEDY
(1917-1963) Thirty-fifth President of the United States. Kennedy faced-down the Kruschev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, re-invigorated NASA, and signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Assassinated November 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. Excessively rare signed book, a signed first edition, first printing of Kennedy's first book Why England Slept, New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940. Boldly inscribed on the front flyleaf: "To a very old friend of the Kennedys with warmest regards Jack Kennedy" and presented to stockbroker Arthur Goldsmith, a Harvard roommate of Joseph Kennedy, Sr. and a long-time family friend. Pastedowns toned a bit, spine slightly worn and soiled, a little frayed at ends, else very good in a clipped, possibly later book jacket. Overall very good to fine condition. This political treatise is the published version of a thesis written by Kennedy while in his senior year at Harvard College. The book examines the failures of the British government to take steps to prevent World War II and is notable for its uncommon stance of not castigating the appeasement policy of the British government at the time, instead suggesting that an earlier confrontation between the U.K. and Nazi Germany could well have been more disastrous in the long run. As Ambassador to Britain, father Joseph Kennedy supported Chamberlain's policy of appeasement during the late 1930s, which may have skewed his son's thinking; Kennedy lived with his father in Britain at that time and witnessed the Luftwaffe's bombings of Britain first-hand. This is the rarest of Kennedy's signed books, and while later printings appears in signed copies from time to time, this is the only signed first printing we have ever seen come to market.

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May 13, 2009 10:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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