Handwritten JFK speech found in a plane bin to be auctioned

A 1960 speech written for US President John F Kennedy which was scooped up out of an aeroplane rubbish bin is expected to fetch 3,000 pounds at an auction here.

The speech dates back to the days before JFK became the 35th President of the US and was serving as senator for Massachusetts.

The manuscript was penned by one of JFK's speech writers but has numerous scribbles and annotations from the future president scrawled across the page, the Daily Mail reported.

It was found by cleaner Arne Swanson as she tidied an American Airlines plane after he had landed at Chicago Midway Airport in September 1960.

Swanson took the speech home with her and it remained in her attic for almost 50 years.

It was delivered by JFK at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah on September 23, 1960, during his presidential campaign.

It ran to four pages, the last of which was found by Swanson, and concentrated on the threat of Communism to world peace and its "implacable, insatiable, unceasing in its drive for world domination".

In it JFK also thanked the Mormons "for their pioneer spirit, their devotion to culture and learning, their example of industry and self-reliance", the paper said.

JFK was the youngest president elected to office at the age of 43 and served from January 20, 1961, to November 22, 1963 - when he was assassinated in Dallas.

The speech, written on a sheet of yellow lined paper, is set to fetch 3,000 pounds.

"It is an early draft of the speech and is very different from the speech that was actually delivered by Kennedy, presumably that's why it ended up in the bin," Max Hasler, a book and manuscript expert at Bloomsbury auctions in London, said.

"Arne Swanson worked for American Airlines and her job was to remove all of the waste from the plane. She held onto this for quite some time. This will likely appeal to collectors of Americana as well as institutions, possibly the Library of Congress," Hasler said.

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