The White House Christmas Gift For 1963, Signed by John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and Inscribed to Their Close Friend

The President and First Lady sent these few out prior to the assassination, and these are legendary rarities

In 1941, Thomas Braden joined a select group of Americans who enlisted in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the British Army.  He then joined the Central Intelligence Agency and was for many years a covert agent on the front lines of the fight against Communism. He worked directly for CIA chief Allen Dulles.  After he left the agency, he became first a newspaper owner, thanks to a $100,000 loan from friend Nelson Rockefeller, and then a journalist, who helped launch CNN’s program Cross Fire.  His children inspired the well known ABC series, “Eight is Enough.”

His wife Joan was, as the New York Times wrote in her obituary, “Hostess to a capital elite.”  She was a senior aide to Nelson Rockefeller and worked on the campaigns of both Robert and John Kennedy.  Her rumored affairs were only thinly veiled and paramours included Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, among others.  Her tell-all memoir was temporarily yanked from publication after Jackie Kennedy supposedly felt that some unseemly revelations touched the Kennedy family.

They were the ultimate Washington family, and Joan had the eyes and ears of both Bobby and Jack.  As Jackie Kennedy once said, “That little freckle-faced girl does everything and goes everywhere and Jack and Bobby are forever asking her opinion.”

In 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy, who brought a sense of art and culture to the White House, created a Christmas gift to be sent to a small number of relatives and close friends. This was a picture of an engraving of the large statue of Andrew Jackson that sits outside the White House, with Jackson mounted heroically on his horse. The sculpture, crafted by Clark Mills in 1853, was the first bronze statue cast in America.

At the end of October or early November 1963, she asked the President to sign a handful of these, which he did, in advance of the holidays, with the First Lady filling in the rest.  She must have sent these few out prior to the assassination, and they are legendary rarities.

Picture of an engraving signed by both the President and First Lady, dated Christmas 1963, inscribed by the First Lady, “For Joan – with all our best wishes and appreciation and affection.”  The engraving is still in its original frame chosen by Jackie Kennedy.

We acquired this piece directly from the Braden descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale.