Lot 50

JFK'S Former Lover & Suspected Spy Inga Arvad Christmas 1943 TLS To JFK: "I don't know what to say - except take care of yourself, and get a furlough, beat the Japs and - come home”

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JFK'S Former Lover & Suspected Spy Inga Arvad Christmas 1943 TLS To JFK: "I don't know what to say - except take care of yourself, and get a furlough, beat the Japs and - come home”

Estimate: $3,000 - $4,000

Current Bid: $1,000

(1 Bid)

by University Archives
July 28, 2026 10:00 AM EDT
Live Auction
88 Danbury Road
Suite 2A
Wilton, CT, US 06897

John F. Kennedy
Hollywood, CA, December 25, 1943
JFK'S Former Lover & Suspected Spy Inga Arvad Christmas 1943 TLS To JFK: "I don't know what to say - except take care of yourself, and get a furlough, beat the Japs and - come home"
TLS

A 2pp typed letter signed by Inga Arvad (1913-1973), the Danish-American newspaper columnist and former lover of John F. Kennedy, as "Your, Inga-Binga" in bold red marker on the second page. Also hand-inscribed by her in matching red marker as "Jack dearest!" at the beginning of the letter, and with two hand-corrections in red found in the first and sixth paragraphs. December 25, 1943. Hollywood, California. Typed on both sides of a sheet of watermarked paper. With numerous contemporaneous spelling, punctuation, and typographical errors and/or re-typed corrections. Expected wear including flattened paper folds and a few extra wrinkles. Even, light toning. Else near fine. 8.5" x 11.125". Comes with a copy of Inga Arvad's newspaper article profiling JFK shortly after his return from the Pacific Theatre, in January 1944, printed on glossy Canon photopaper, 8.5" x 11".

Arvad was four years older than the 24-year-old Jack and then married to her second husband when she and John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) met and enjoyed what Arvad later described elsewhere as a "passing affair." At the time, JFK was an Ensign assigned to the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C.; Arvad was the "Did You Happen To See…" columnist at the "Washington Times-Herald." As described here in this very loving and nostalgic letter, neither Arvad nor Kennedy expected to embark on such a brief but pleasant romance.

Arvad had worked as a correspondent in Berlin in the 1930s, and had interviewed Hitler and other leading Nazis. Due to Kennedy's social standing and his work in the Navy, the affair soon came to the notice of the FBI. Arvad's home and phone lines were wiretapped, and the affair was closely scrutinized. JFK's father disapproved of the relationship. Although Kennedy ended the short-lived affair, the two clearly stayed in touch, as evidenced by this letter. Three letters from JFK to Arvad dating from this period sold at Christie's in 2007 for $144,000.

Arvad wrote this very warm, thoughtful, and sensitive letter to her former lover on Christmas Day, 1943. In it, Arvad reflects on meeting Jack around the same time two years previously, during their brief romance, from late 1941 to early 1942. She refers to mutual acquaintances, including Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy (1920-1948), Jack's younger sister, who had introduced the pair in the early 1940s through her job at the "Washington Times-Herald" newspaper. Arvad congratulates Jack on his recent promotion to full lieutenant, which had occurred in Fall 1943, and speculates about his future naval career. Last, she offers some deeply insightful comments about the World War II home front, including observations about how the ongoing international conflict is shaping the young, fighting-age, American psyche.

Arvad wrote in full, with original usage:

"Jack dearest!

It is Christmas day, the 25th. of December 1943 - I don't know what the time is where you are, but here in Hollywood it is six minutes of eleven in the evening. I am in bed, just scrubbed my face with soap and water (a very oldfashioned method of retaining or aquiering beauty as the case may be)

My day has been a quiet one - just as I wished it. Mother and I have been for a little drive in the car, we have eaten delicious things to our hearts content, have had a rather stiff egg nogg — which I made of my last drops of brandy — taken a walk, opened dozens of presents, given a few, and talked to some friends. I have knitted during the evening, read the papers and the bible, in the latter the sermon on the mount. And - I nearly forgot - I wrote a column.

That was today - I distinctly remember two years back - in the capital of the United States, a city by the name of Washington, where not so long before Christmas, I had met an Ensign in the Navy, whose sister I was deeply devoted to - he was nice, but that seemed about all. He took me home at night, when we had dinner together, and slowly but rather surely he started paying attention to me. That didn't seem so odd to me, what did seem queer was that I became hopelessly attached to him. Then the world turned upside down in a thousand respects, but I remember that lovers knot I had for Christmas - I even remember that you said ‘It isn't much, but honestly I never thought I would see you again.'

A letter arrived some time ago. It wasn't a bit cheerful, you missed home, but didn't exactly say so - I was so sure you would be here by now, but you are not, and the twenty days are ahead of us and not behind - maybe that is a cheerful thought.

Congratulations. You are a full lieutenant now. Last time I saw you in New York, you had just received half a gold strip, and the color was so different from the one already there, that we both laughed, when we walked in Central Park.

In six days the New Year will be here. I don't know what to wish. When I was a youngster home, we used to drink French Champagne at the stroke of midnight, and hope for the future, while promising ourselves, deep down in our hearts, to be a far better person during the New Year. We kept that promise the first few days, then forgot conveniently about it. And the result is right here today: We are at war - the President said a lot in his speech yesterday - as you probably heard - and I saw a picture called something like ‘War Department Report' and in that it is evident that we have to do a lot, before we can drink French Champagne again.

Two years ago you asked me to go to New York and celebrate New Years Eve - I didn't. In a way I regretted it all evening - in a way not. Had I been able to look ahead - I would have said yes. Too bad you are not here to repeat that invitation, there is a slight chance that I would accept, if you would make the destination a little nearer than New York.

Last time I saw Thorb, was at my house in New York. He is a very handsome young devil. He said ‘I am sure I am not coming back' that made me very certain that he would. I know you thanked God when he returned, and so did I. Will you give him my love, I am very fond of him, partly because I have heard a great deal about him from Kick, and also from you, but mostly because he is so nice.

Yes! Darling I know you are not sitting with your hands in your lap. I don't know much about politics and as little about geography, but still - - there is a limit to even my ignorance, and since I got a globus for Christmas I shall keep better track - as much as I can and am allowed to.

I think of you every night before going to sleep. Though it isn't night where you are when it is here, I still pray God to help you. From where you are sitting, I guess that Texas Ranch looks pretty rosy, or doesn't it?

It is an odd world - everybody is living in the future or the past and sort of squirming through the present. I talk to a lot of the boys who come through this place - if coming or going - they seem in a dreadful hurry - not to get there - but to go back home, back to that job they never had, because most of them are too young ever to have done anything else but fight, but back to their parents, to the girl they left behind, and are afraid won't wait - back to the corner drug store, and that little lot, which they will buy and build a house on, where they will take that girl, provided she does wait, and if she doesn't, queer as it may seem, there will be another. Then they will settle down, have children, work like fiends, and die in their beds.

I dont know where you are - I just know you are somewhere in the world where the sun rises and sets - wherever it be Darling, I send you all my love and please be home and let us drink a toast to 1945 [sic] - this year, to the one right before us, I don't know what to say - except take care of yourself, and get a furlough, beat the Japs and - come home."

Arvad writes in the letter that she has no idea where Jack currently is. In about two weeks' time, on January 11, 1944, Jack would return to the United States - actually in Arvad's neighborhood, Los Angeles - on medical leave. Kennedy's experience as the commander of torpedo boats PT-109 and PT-59 in the Pacific Theatre in 1943 had resulted in glory, but also significant health problems, including chronic back pain. Arvad interviewed Kennedy sometime shortly after he returned to the West Coast, as evidenced by her newspaper article, "Lt. Kennedy Saves His Men As Japs Cut PT Boat in Half." The profile was published under Arvad's byline by the North American News Alliance newswire on January 13, 1943.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.5" x 11.125"
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