Jackie Kennedy Love Letters to David Ormsby-Gore Sold for $122K

Love letters from Jackie Kennedy to Welsh former U.K. ambassador David Ormsby-Gore, Lord Harlech, were sold at auction in London for more than $122,000 on Wednesday.

One of the letters included a rejection of a “secret marriage” proposed by Lord Harlech, and another from Harlech referencing time they spent together at the Cape and in Cambodia, according to the BBC.

The letters were sold by Harlech’s grandson, Jasset Ormsby-Gore, the current Lord Harlech, as part of a collection of treasures valued at more than $1.2 million total. The proceeds from the auction will be used to restore the family home Glyn Cywarch, which is over 400 years old, the BBC reported.

Harlech was a close adviser to President John F. Kennedy, counseling him during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Included in the letters is correspondence from the late president thanking him for his help and advice, the BBC reported.

Harlech’s wife died four years after JFK was assassinated, and the letters make it clear that he hoped to marry Jackie Kennedy, but she chose to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968 instead. One of the letters was written on stationery from Onassis’s yacht and explained her decision to marry Onassis, calling him “wise and kind,” and protective of her, the BBC reported.

Harlech responded to the rejection of his proposal with great sorrow, asking, “Why do such agonizing things have to happen? Where was the need for it?” the BBC reported. When he died in a car crash 16 years later, Jackie Kennedy Onassis attended his funeral.

The letters were found in a British country home of the Harlech family in two battered suitcases, CBS News reported.

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