Dear Mrs Kennedy

Dear Mrs Kennedy by Jay Mulvancy & Paul De Angelis.

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press(October 12, 2010)
ISBN-10: 031238615X

From Publishers Weekly

"Never have I been so filled with revulsion, anger, and sorrow as when I heard of your husband's death," wrote Winston Churchill to Jackie Kennedy on November 24, 1963. And a fourth-grade Nebraska farm boy wrote to little Caroline Kennedy, "I am sorry to hear about your Daddy. God will take good care of him." Immediately after President Kennedy's assassination, more than 1,250,000 letters arrived at the White House from the famous and ordinary citizens alike, expressing their sorrow and sympathy for the president's young widow, Although she promised that the letters would be displayed at the Kennedy Library, they remained filed in a warehouse for decades until the opening of the library building. A controversial culling reducing the collection to 368,000 letters also delayed cataloguing of the letters until 1988. Mulvaney ((Diana and Jackie) and former publishing executive De Angelis regard the collection as a "poignant time capsule," and they include an informative historical backdrop for their selections, including letters from society queen Babe Paley, Rev. Billy Graham, and publisher Bennett Cerf, among many others. For those who relive the pain of the Kennedy assassination every November 22, this volume will provide company and perhaps some consolation. 20 b&w illus.

Oh..

My..

Gosh..!

What a small and powerful book this is!

The book is filled with letters sent to Jackie Kennedy after the assassination of JFK.

Naturally most of them in the book are from famous people of one sort or another.  In between letters you find some very interesting pieces of information of the time and/ or happenings that occurred around that November when Kennedy was killed.

Some tidbits bring back a time many younger people would laugh at or think impossible for a time that isn’t really “that long ago”.  Here are a few clips from the book….

“America in the fall of 1963 was a world from another era.  There were only 3 television networks.  Nine of the top ten shows were broadcast on CBS (only Bonanza, in second place, gave NBC an inroad).  Gas was thirty cents a gallon, milk a little higher at forty-nine cents.  The choices offered at movie theaters included From Russia With Love, the latest James Bond: Alfred  Hitchock’s The Birds, and Cleopatra, the film that brought Elizabeth Taylor international fame, along with the condemnation of the Vatican for her affair with Richard Burton during filming.”

“It was a defining moment of a generation.  Like the shock of the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, the shock of JFK’s murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963, stunned and stupefied a nation and the world. 

What were you doing when Kennedy was shot?  Ask anyone over fifty: For a moment the world seemed to stand still.  In factories, offices, coffee shops, and university lecture halls, a pall of disbelief descended.”

“Dear Mrs Kennedy,

Never have I been so filled with revulsion, anger and sorrow, as when I heard of your husbands death.

On this great and good man were set the hopes of humanity.  The grief and loss must be unspeakable for you, who have stood by him for so many years, and who were at his side when he was struck down.  Nothing can be of consolation to you at this time.  But I would like you to know that throughout the world, and in England especially, all men who prize Freedom and hope for Peace share your loss and partake of your grief.

                                                                     Winston S Churchill”

This book is one that will stay with me.  Both in my mind and heart and on my book shelf, It’s a keeper!

Great little book.. I can say no more.