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Exceptional John F. Kennedy typed letter signed as President regarding U.S. nuclear missiles, with Kennedy ominously warning that "The security of our Nation is at stake. Indeed, our very lives…" Dated 28 July 1961, letter is written three days after JFK's Berlin Crisis address, where he spoke to the nation in a televised speech, warning Americans to prepare fallout shelters. This came on the heels of Kennedy’s meeting with Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit in June 1961 where the Soviet Premier, in JFK's own words, "savaged" him. By most accounts, the Soviet leader came away believing the young American president was weak and would fold under pressure.
Historians have called this period the most perilous time of Kennedy's presidency, three months after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
In this letter, Kennedy implores his Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg to make sure there are no work stoppages in the production of nuclear missiles, as labor disputes had been crippling missile construction across the country. Goldberg headed the Missile Sites Labor Commission, established by Kennedy one month after the Bay of Pigs invasion, to streamline the production of U.S. nuclear missiles and space components. Letter reads in part,
''...the orderly and speedy development of our missile and space programs, are mandatory. The security of our Nation is at stake. Indeed our very lives may depend upon whether we accept the challenge of our time with spirit and determination...The United States cannot afford the luxury of avoidable delays in our missile and space program. Neither can we tolerate wasteful and expensive practices which add to the great financial burden our defense effort already places on us. / When our Nation has required it, we have always been able to count on the cooperation of labor and management. We need that cooperation now. I am sure we can count on it now...[signed] John Kennedy''.
The letter's timing proved prophetic. Just sixteen days later, East German troops began erecting barbed wire barriers that would become the Berlin Wall and the nuclear standoff Kennedy feared arrived in October 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis - making Kennedy's July 1961 warning about "our very lives" hauntingly prescient.
Two page letter on two sheets measures 7.125" x 10.375". Shallow folds and paperclip impression, overall very good plus condition. With COAs from both Arthur Goldberg's grandson and University Archives.