JFK Collection

For the first time in more than 50 years, an extremely rare collection of advertising materials from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential campaign, comprising approximately 100 reels of pristine 16mm film prints and 1⁄4-inch audio recordings are currently being offered for sale on an exclusive basis by Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) These items, which have been in the hands of an individual who worked on Kennedy’s original campaign, remained in a basement for almost half a century, before being turned over to GME for assessment, inspection, cataloguing, preservation, and sale.

Over the past several years, GME has performed an item-by-item assessment of this collection, which consists of the following:

• Fifty-seven (57) 16mm prints and twenty-nine (29) 1⁄4” audiotapes of original campaign ads that were used for broadcast on television and radio stations, ranging in length from 30 seconds to almost 15 minutes. These totals include duplicate copies, as well as specific ads that were released in versions of different lengths. These campaign spots include endorsements of Kennedy’s campaign by such luminaries as Jacqueline Kennedy, Harry Belafonte, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and covered such vital topics as The New Frontier, civil rights, voter registration, education, religion, natural resources and farm policy. Many of these same topics remain of relevance in today’s 2012 Presidential race.

• A compilation of campaign jingles, including “High Hopes”, sung by Frank Sinatra.

• Nearly 1 hour of field recordings of JFK speeches on the campaign trail from September 26- 28, 1960, while campaigning through Ohio and New York State (and less than a week before his televised debate with his Republican opponent, Richard M. Nixon).

• THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, a 30 minute documentary that JFK narrated for the Democratic National Convention in 1956, a film which immediately catapulted him onto the national stage.

• An episode of OMNIBUS produced by Jack Denove.

• 16mm fragments of footage of Kennedy disembarking from a plane, as well as other miscellaneous shots of Richard Nixon and others.

This entire collection has been catalogued on an item level, so as to identify personalities and subjects, as well as annotate length, physical condition and other relevant technical details. Other background research information has been included in the database where relevant. The complete database accompanies the acquisition of the physical material.

Attached is a PDF document that lists the individual items in the collection, arranged first by audio materials, and then by film elements.

Wherever possible, the individual physical items have been maintained in their original boxes and containers. All of the audio material has been preserved by Mercer Media and CDs have been made for reference purposes.

GME’s objective is for this material to be acquired by an organization that will assure its long- term care and reference. GME is representing for sale the physical materials only, without any concurrent intellectual property rights (wherein any may exist).