JFK post-war diary sells for $1m

UNITED STATES: A diary kept by a young John F. Kennedy during his brief stint as a journalist after World War II in which he reflected on Hitler and the weakness of the United Nations has sold for more than US$700,000 (NZ$1 million).

Boston-based RR Auction says the diary sold for US$718,750, far exceeding the pre-sale estimate of US$200,000.

Joseph Alsop, a JFK collector from Beverly, outbid one other live and six telephone bidders in a packed house for the 61-page diary.

The diary is mostly typed but includes 12 handwritten pages from 1945 when the 28-year-old Kennedy was a correspondent for Hearst newspapers and travelled through Europe.

In the diary, Kennedy reflected on his time in a gutted Berlin and even saw Hitler’s bunker, speculating that he was not killed. He wrote that Hitler ‘‘had in him the stuff of which legends are made’’.

Kennedy also expressed doubt about the effectiveness of the fledgling United Nations, questioning whether it ‘‘will prove effective in the sense of its elaborate mechanics being frequently employed or vitally decisive in deterring war or peace’’.

Kennedy gave the diary to Deirdre Henderson, a research assistant in his campaign office in the late 1950s, who now lives in the Boston area.

Henderson said she put the diary up for sale so it can be properly preserved, and wanted the sale to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Kennedy’s birth this year.

- AP