HIS affairs remained secret during his time in the White House, but now the limelight has fallen on John F. Kennedy’s love life once more after letters to his mistress were put up for auction.

 

The public were in the dark?

The youngest person to ever be elected President, JFK was just 43 when he took on the most powerful position in America in 1961. He was viewed as having brought a youthful energy and glamour to the White House, along with his stylish wife, Jacqueline.

 

He cultivated this?

JFK was the first president to hire a Chief Official White House Photographer, enabling candid access to moments with his wife, young son, John, and daughter, Caroline, that served to emphasise his family man image.

 

Camelot?

That was the glamorous nickname given to the Kennedy Administration. In a 1963 interview in Life magazine, the then-widowed Jackie referenced a line from the Lerner and Loewe Camelot musical, saying: "There'll be great Presidents again…but there'll never be another Camelot.”

 

However?

In reality, Kennedy had a string of affairs with women ranging from White House interns to famous actresses, that at the time, were common knowledge in Washington circles but not considered newsworthy.

 

It eventually came out?

During a Senate investigation in the 1970s into whether or not JFK had tried to use the Mafia to oust Fidel Castro in Cuba, it emerged the then president had had a relationship with a Judith Exner, who had also dated Frank Sinatra and had an affair with a mobster.

 

Now?

A series of love letters, handwritten by JFK to his Swedish mistress, are up for sale at an auction house in Boston.

 

When were they together?

The intimate letters to Gunilla von Post were penned between 1955 and 1956, when he was a serving senator in Massachusetts. He had met the aristocrat weeks prior to his own 1953 marriage. According to the RR Auction house, JFK and Von Post later "spent a very blissful and intimate week consummating the relationship throughout Sweden in August 1955” almost two years into his marriage.

 

What do the letters say?

One, postmarked February 1956, reads: “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.”

 

They met only once more?

Their paths crossed in 1958 at a Waldorf Astoria gala, the auction house said, with both attending with their partners and Von Post pregnant at the time.

 

The collection is expected to sell for thousands?

RR Auctions say of one of the letters: “It is the only Kennedy letter that we have offered that displays open affection to another woman while he was married” and is likely to fetch more than $30,000. The auction, already at nearly $17,000, concludes on May 12.