Good Morning America on Monday touted an adulterous affair John F. Kennedy
had in the early 1950s as a "love story" and a "torrid and fleeting romance."
Co-host George Stephanopoulos lauded the Kennedys as "
American royalty"
and the show offered no hint of criticism over the infidelity. [Audio available
here.]
"Love letters" revealing the relationship between an engaged and then
just-married Kennedy and a Swedish woman are being put on auction this week. The
correspondence between the two show that JFK was cheating on his wife from the
very start. Yet, Stephanopoulos delicately spun, "
They've been called a
window into the complicated and conflicted existence that was Kennedy's
life."
Reporter Chris Bury narrated one of the letters from Kennedy to his Swedish
mistress, Gunilla Von Post, asserting that the then-Senator "senses that their
destinies are drifting apart." He quoted, "I just got word that my wife and
sister are coming here. It will be all be complicated, the way I feel now, my
Swedish flicka. All I have done is sit in the sun and look at the ocean and
think of Gunilla. All love, Jack."
In total, Bury and Stephanopoulos referred to the "love letters" or "love
story" three times, offering no judgment on Kennedy's adultery. However, this
shouldn't be surprising, as Good Morning America has repeatedly fawned over the
Kennedy family.
On
June
5 2008, Claire Shipman lovingly compared Barack Obama to Robert Kennedy. She
noted the "similarities" and then declared, "The search to shift that mantle,
futile of course. But also a quintessentially American desire for, if not a
happy ending, some sense of completion."
On
July
16, 2009, Shipman mourned the tenth anniversary of the death of John F.
Kennedy Jr., the "prince of Camelot," and hyperbolically suggested his "very
existence had somehow come to represent a critical link to our fairy tale past.
And always, always the possibility of another chapter."
A transcript of the February 15 segment, which aired at 8:11am EST, follows:
8am tease
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Also ahead this morning, John F. Kennedy's secret
love letters. They were written to a mysterious Swedish woman in the early days
of his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy. We're going to take a first look at these
letters.
ROBIN ROBERTS: Huh.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And this is really a remarkable and revealing story. You
actually learn that President Kennedy talked to his dad about divorcing Jackie
Kennedy to marry this woman.
ROBERTS: You find that our through the letters?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah.
ROBERTS: All right, that's ahead.
8:11
STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, we have a story about the family that's been called
American royalty, the secret love letters that have been kept under lock
and key since they were first sent. Today, for the first time, John F.
Kennedy's letters to a Swedish woman are going up for auction. They've been
called a window into the complicated and conflicted existence that was Kennedy's
life. Here's Chris Bury.
CHRIS BURY: He was the dashing and ambitious senator, 36
and already engaged. She, a beautiful blue-blooded Swede, only 21. They met on
the French Riviera in the summer of 1953, danced all night and parted with a
passionate kiss. So began a secret romance, documented in these 14 letters and
telegrams from John F. Kennedy to Gunilla Von Post. They have never been seen in
public before.
JOHN REZNIKOFF (President, University Archives): It's a real sensitive and
tender love affair that you could really understand through the
correspondence.
BURY: Now, 78-years-old, Gunilla Von Post first revealed the affair in a 1997
book and in this interview on ABC's 20/20.
VON POST: His smile was, absolutely, what you say, contagious. It was really
electrical between us.
BURY: Only three weeks after those sparks flew in France, Kennedy married
Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island. But, the very next spring and
summer, he wrote Gunilla to rekindle their flame. "I thought I might get a boat
and sail around the Mediterranean for two weeks with you as crew.
VON POST: My heart, boom, boom, boom. I was very happy to hear from him, but
I said, he's a married man.
BURY: That summer, their plans for a secret rendezvous fell apart when JFK
badly injured his back. After two months in the hospital and surgery that nearly
killed him, he still pursued her. "Under that beautiful controlled face that
still haunts me, beats a warm heart." Another year goes by before they finally
reunite, slipping away to this old castle in Sweden.
VON POST: I borrowed him for a week, a beautiful week that no one can take
away from me with that.
BURY: She kept Kennedy's letters locked up until now. Today, they will be
offered to the public on LegendaryAuctions.com Online bidding for the Kennedy
notes begins at $25,000. They will be auctioned off as a collection to preserve
the love story and enhance the value. In JFK's final letter to Von Post,
writing from the Riviera, he senses that their destinies are drifting apart. "I
just got word that my wife and sister are coming here. It will be all be
complicated, the way I feel now, my Swedish flicka. All I have done is sit in
the sun and look at the ocean and think of Gunilla. All love, Jack."
REZNIKOFF: I think the correspondence is seeping with regret on both sides
that these two people wanted to be with each other and it just wasn't to be.
BURY: So, exactly two years after it began, the torrid and fleeting
romance came to its bittersweet end. For Good Morning America, I'm Chris
Bury, ABC News, Lansing, Illinois.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What a story. They actually met many years later when John F.
Kennedy was President. He saw her at a dinner, walked up to her and simply said,
"I love you." You can read more of JFK's secret love letters on our website. Go
to ABCNews.com and click on GMA.
-Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research
Center.
