JFK’s secret letters to Swedish mistress put up for auction: ‘You are wonderful and I miss you’

Former president wrote intimate notes Gunilla von Post weeks before marriage in 1953

One autograph signed letter and two partial handwritten letters are currently listed for auction on RR auction, and are dating between 1955 and 1956 (Getty Images/ RR Auction)

Secret letters written by John F Kennedy to his Swedish mistress, Gunilla von Post, have been put up for sale online.

One autograph signed letter and two partial handwritten letters are currently listed for auction on RR Auction and are dated between 1955 and 1956.

JFK is known to have written to the aristocrat ahead of his marriage to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier after they met in Cannes, France in 1953.

Von Post later revealed their affair, including a week-long trip to Sweden in August 1955, in her book titled  Love, Jack released in 1997.

The full letter, which is dated 1956, reads: “I was planning to come back again next summer to see you … and now what will happen. In any case let me know what you are going to do.”

Kennedy, then a Massachusetts Senator, continues: “If you don’t marry come over as I should like to see you. I had a wonderful time last summer with you. It is a bright memory of my life – you are wonderful and I miss you.”

The auction house says that this is the only JFK letter they have offered that displays open affection to another woman while he was married.

The lot includes the original hand-addressed United States Senate envelope (RR Auction)

In the partial 1995 letter, he writes:  “It now appears that Congress will not finish until the 5th of August – so I sail on the ‘United States’ which arrives the 10th of August at Le Havre – and I shall be in Sweden on the 12th.”

He asks: “Where do I go. Send me your address at Bastaad where you shall be.”

Many of the secret letters had previously been put up for sale on a Chicago online auction site, with bidding for the artefacts beginning with an opening price of $25,000.

The notes are all written on official government paper, with each penned on United States Senate letterhead.

The second partial letter is signed “Jack”, the auction house notes, and reads: “…coming and perhaps you could make me a reservation. I am anxious to see you”.

The second partial letter is signed ‘Jack’ and reads: ‘…coming and perhaps you could make me a reservation. I am anxious to see you’ (RR Auction)

It continues: “Is it not strange after all these months? Perhaps at first it shall be a little difficult as we shall be strangers – but not strangers – and I am sure it will all work and I shall think that though it is a long way to Gunilla – it is worth it.”

This group of letters was discovered in the possessions of von Post after her death in 2011 and originates from her estate, the auction house says.

RR Auction is a “globally recognised and trusted source for rare documents, manuscripts, autographs, and historic artefacts” located in Boston and founded in 1976, their website reads.

A collection of JFK artefacts on the website also includes a personally owned lighter and cigar, a signed photograph of JFK as president and Robert Kennedy as attorney general and a book signed by Jacqueline Kennedy.