For Immediate Release: April 13, 1998
Further information: Tom McNaught (617) 514-1662
The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum will host a press preview of the items of personal and historical significance which were recently retrieved from the Guernsey Auction House in New Yorkand returned to the American people.
The preview will be held in the Oval Office Exhibit of the Museum at the John F. Kennedy Library on Columbia Point, Boston. The preview will begin at 10:00 am.
Making the presentation will be Frank Rigg, Curator of the Kennedy Library Museum, and Megan Desnoyers, Archivist for the Kennedy Library. Rigg and Desnoyers were the representatives of the Kennedy Library during the negotiations for return of the items.
The items turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration for deposit in the Kennedy Library include a small writing table from the Oval Office that President Kennedy used to sign letters, executive orders and legislation. There will be a photo opportunity of the Museum Curator placing the table next to the replica of President Kennedy’s desk in the Museum’s Oval Office exhibit for permanent display.
Desnoyers will also exhibit several of the 20 original documents returned to the National Archives and Records Administration, including a telegram from Lyndon Johnson congratulating Kennedy on his 1960 nomination for President, memorandums to Kennedy’s secretaries of State and Defense and notes on several foreign policy issues. The documents will be preserved in the Kennedy Library Archives with copies made available to researchers.
Also to be previewed are the three items Caroline and John Kennedy negotiated for return and placement at the Kennedy Library. The items consist of two handwritten travel diaries John F. Kennedy wrote as a congressman in 1951 and a small clock, originally from their parent’s Georgetownhome, which was used in the White House.
“We are very pleased that the National Archives and we have been able to reach resolutions with Robert White [the principal consignee to the Guernsey Auction] that restore so many historically significant and deeply personal items to their rightful homes, while avoiding the painful memories that litigation on this subject would involve,” Caroline and John Kennedy said in a March 18 statement announcing the return of the items.