Jackie Kennedy letters, turning down marriage proposal from British diplomat, are sold at auction

Letters written by Jackie Kennedy to a British diplomat rejecting his marriage proposal years after the assassination of her husband, US president John F. Kennedy, were sold in a London auction on Wednesday.

The correspondence between Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore, Britain’s ambassador to the US during Kennedy’s presidency, show her explaining her reasons for not wishing to wed the former diplomat.

“We have known so much and shared and lost so much together -- Even if it isn’t the way you wish now -- I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut,” she wrote to Ormsby Gore after his proposal in 1968.

“You are like my beloved beloved brother - and mentor -- and the only original spirit I know - as you were to Jack,” she added.

The letters are part of a larger cache of papers found at Ormsby Gore’s family home, including correspondence from John F. Kennedy and British prime ministers, which was sold for £100,000 (US$124,000, 116,000 euros) at Bonhams auction house in London.

Ormsby Gore had suggested a “secret marriage” to Kennedy during the summer of 1968 and said he found the categorical rejection “unbearable”.