Lot 145
Nixon Richard 1913 - 1994 President Nixon signed letter, "Mark Twain" and "China" sent to financier Jack Dreyfus
Typed Letter Signed "RN" as President, 1 page, 6.75" x 9". Washington, March 7, 1962. On White House stationery with the blind embossed presidential seal at top center. To financier Jack Dreyfus. With original postmarked White House envelope. Fine condition.
In full, "This is just a note to tell you how delighted I was to find the volumes comprising the complete works of Mark Twain which were awaiting me when I returned from the People's Republic of China. They have already been placed among the other treasured books in my personal library. It is always good to hear from you and I can assure you that this latest gesture of friendship means a great deal to me. Pat joins me in expressing warm personal regards."
On February 17, 1972, President Nixon left the United States and arrived in the People's Republic of China on February 21, 1972. He was the first President to visit a nation not recognized by the United States. Nixon returned to Washington on February 28th. One week later, he wrote the letter here offered.
According to Jennifer Schuessler in The New York Times "Sunday Book Review," October 29, 2010, "Nixon had a thing for the man from Hannibal, Mo., and was even named a Knight of Mark Twain by the International Mark Twain Society when he was Vice President. In a monograph called 'Mark Twain and Richard M. Nixon' (foreword by Herbert Hoover), Cyril Clemens, Twain's distant cousin, recounts a 'pleasant afternoon talk' at the White House during which Nixon recited his lines from a grammar-school play based on 'Tom Sawyer' and praised the novel for purging from the youthful mind 'any desire to smoke, snatch a purse or an unhealthy craving for dope or other such fads.'"
Financier Jack Dreyfus (1913-2009) was the founder of the Dreyfus Fund. In 1964, Life magazine called him the "Maverick Wizard Behind the Wall Street Lion," in reference to the emblem of his fund and its aggressive marketing. Dreyfus, it said, was "the most singular and effective personality to appear in Wall Street since the days of Joseph Kennedy and Bernard Baruch." His paternal grandfather was a first cousin of Alfred Dreyfus, the protagonist of the late 19th-century anti-Semitic scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair. Dreyfus sold his mutual fund company in 1970 and established the Dreyfus Health Foundation to pursue other medical applications for Dilantin which had cured his depression in the 1960s. In 2000, Dreyfus said that an account in The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon by Anthony Summers (New York: Viking, 2000) that he gave Dilantin to Richard Nixon in 1968 was correct. Dreyfus said he gave Nixon a bottle of 1,000 capsules of 100 milligrams each ''when his mood wasn't too good,'' and later gave him another bottle of 1,000 capsules.
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