Details
KENNEDY, John F. Typed letter signed ("John Kennedy") to David M. Barkley, Washington, 9 January 1962. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery.
A FINE EXAMPLE OF A KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LETTER. "It was good of you to extend greetings of the season to Mrs. Kennedy and me, and I am sorry to be so long delayed in expressing our appreciation. Your confidence in my efforts for our country is deeply gratifying." David M. Barkley was the son of Harry Truman's Vice-president and former Senate Majority leader under FDR, Alben Barkley. January 1962 marked the beginning of his second year in the White House for Kennedy. In his State of the Union Address a few weeks after this letter he told the Congress: "A year ago, in assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger. This is our good fortune; and I welcome it now as I did a year ago. For it is the fate of this generation -- of you in the Congress and of me as President -- to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did not make. But the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom."
A FINE EXAMPLE OF A KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LETTER. "It was good of you to extend greetings of the season to Mrs. Kennedy and me, and I am sorry to be so long delayed in expressing our appreciation. Your confidence in my efforts for our country is deeply gratifying." David M. Barkley was the son of Harry Truman's Vice-president and former Senate Majority leader under FDR, Alben Barkley. January 1962 marked the beginning of his second year in the White House for Kennedy. In his State of the Union Address a few weeks after this letter he told the Congress: "A year ago, in assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger. This is our good fortune; and I welcome it now as I did a year ago. For it is the fate of this generation -- of you in the Congress and of me as President -- to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did not make. But the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom."