Thread by @RealLoriSpencer

After his 1961 Vienna summit with Soviet premier #Khrushchev, #JFK jotted a private note to himself: 📝

“I know that there is a God and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me I am ready.”

Kennedy and Khrushchev tried to effect peace between America and #Russia. 🇺🇸🤝🇷🇺

I recently interviewed historian Jim DiEugenio (author of the new Oliver Stone documentary & book “#JFK Revisited” about Kennedy and Khrushchev’s efforts to end the #ColdWar.

This pursuit of peace likely led to both leaders’ removal from power.

In his memoirs, #Khrushchev wrote how #JFK earned his respect:

“In the final analysis, Kennedy showed himself to be sober-minded and determined to avoid war. He didn’t let himself become frightened, nor did he become reckless. He didn’t overestimate America’s might.”

I often wonder what President Kennedy was thinking of when he wrote those words about seeing a storm coming.

Did he foresee the Cuban Missile Crisis, a nuclear showdown with the Soviets, that would happen a year later?

Or did he foretell Dallas? 🤔

We will never know.

The note he scribbled was discarded in the Air Force One wastebasket 🗑.

Fortunately for historians, his Secretary Evelyn Lincoln routinely salvaged #JFK’s tossed-away doodles and notes from the trash — and that’s how we have this fascinating note today 📝

Evelyn Lincoln’s husband Abe also had premonitions before #JFK went to Dallas.

She told the President on Nov. 19, 1963 that for days Abe had been telling her that he had a bad feeling about the trip and wished the president were not going to Texas.

Kennedy coolly replied:

"If they are going to get me," #JFK said, "they will get me, even in church."

2 days later, he left for Dallas.

We didn’t know about this prophetic #JFK note until 1998, when Evelyn Lincoln’s private collection went for auction:

latimes.com/archives/la-xp…

The full #JFK note, scribbled on the back of a prayer breakfast program, reads:

“I know there is a God—I see the storm coming and I see His hand in it—If He has a place then I am ready—We see the hand.”

Kennedy was paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln in the note. It was one of his favorite quotes; he’d used it often on the campaign trail in 1960:

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