Printed and Manuscript Americana

Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961. Limited edition, one of only 85 unnumbered and specially bound copies. Presentation copy, inscribed by Jacqueline Kennedy on front blank to U.S. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: "For McGeorge Bundy--The President was going to give you this for Christmas--Please accept it now from me With deepest appreciation for all you did for Jack Jackie December 1963". 8vo. vi, 270 pp. Illustrated with engraved portraits. Original full burgundy calf presentation binding, decorated in gilt, presidential seal stamped in gilt on front board, Bundy's initials stamped in gilt on same ("McG.B."), spine browned, front joint cracked and tender; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers; in matching marbled paper-covered board slip case.

Lot includes a printed sympathy card from Jacqueline Kennedy addressed to Mr. ands Mrs. Bundy ("Mrs. Kennedy is deeply appreciative of your sympathy and grateful for your thoughtfulness"); in original mailing envelope.

A fine and very scarce presentation copy, pointedly inscribed by Jacqueline Kennedy shortly after her husband's assassination on November 22, 1963. Presented as a Christmas gift to McGeorge Bundy (1919-96), United States National Security Advisor to both President Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, and one of the main architects of their foreign policy agendas.

Part of a family with roots in education and public service, McGeorge Bundy served as a young intelligence officer in World War II. After graduate work, he became a professor of Government at Harvard, and later served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences there. From 1961-66 he was the National Security Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was involved in many of that era’s major foreign policy decisions and controversies, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the sharply increasing U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. From 1966 to 1979 he served as president of the Ford Foundation, where his team led work supporting civil rights, the national expansion of public television, environmental action, ethical investing, and international development and cooperation. As professor of history at New York University from 1979 until his death in 1996, he studied and wrote about the history of nuclear weapons, becoming a forceful advocate for global arms control.