TLS as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, signed “Joe,” one page, 8 x 10.5, embossed Embassy of the United States of America letterhead, March 22, 1938. Addressed from London, a letter to Harvard pal and partner Arthur J. Goldsmith, in full: “I am enclosing a copy of a letter I am sending to Arthur Krock on current affairs. I am getting your clippings, but I don’t seem to get any brilliant remarks. Eddie told me about the story you had for him. I don’t know why anybody should be excited about that; I have been hearing things like that for twenty years. I only wish it were true. Don’t give yourself any concern about it, because, frankly, it means nothing in my young life. I wish it did.” In very good to fine condition, with light creasing, and a rusty paperclip impression.
Accompanied by an original menu for a dinner honoring Kennedy “on his appointment as Ambassador of the United States of America to the Court of St. James’s,” sponsored by The Pilgrims on March 18, 1938; and the referenced six-page “copy of a letter” from Kennedy to Arthur Krock, which contains great content concerning the unfolding European situation and referencing the honorific dinner he was given. In part: “The March of events in Austria made my first few days here more exciting than they might otherwise have been…My early talks with British and other diplomats convince me…that there is no war in the immediate offing. Nobody is prepared to talk turkey to Messrs. Hitler and Mussolini…the British will not do anything to check either one of them unless they actually fire guns…Chamberlain and his close friends either do not realize or are trying to conceal that Great Britain is on the verge of serious economic difficulties…I talked to Winston Churchill…following the Austrian annexation. He seemed to think that sentiment is growing in the House…to curb aggressions such as Herr Hitler has just put across…Chamberlain’s policy of waiting to see what happens would appear to me to be the popular course…As I gave my speech…there was an awful let-down after I had said that…our country [might] remain neutral in another world war…Jan Masaryk, the Czech Minister here, gave me to understand that his country will make its deal with Germany, unpalatable as it may be unless it is assured of British protection…My wife and five children have arrived.”
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