The love letters that John F. Kennedy wrote to a beautiful Swedish woman -- in an affair that began before he was married and continued afterward -- are going on the auction block.

RELATED NEWS:
• Dior and Chanel to go under the hammer

Gunilla von Post wrote in 1997 of her steamy 1950s affair with the then-senator, but she kept the actual letters private until now. The bidding at Legendaryauctions.com starts at $25,000, though it is expected to go as high as $100,000.

ABCNews.com reported the pair met on the French Riviera in the summer of 1953, when she was 21 and he was 15 years older. They danced the night away and shared a passionate kiss.

He was soon to marry the beautiful and sophisticated brunette Jacqueline Bouvier, but the nuptials apparently didn't dampen his ardor for the stunning Swede.

ABC reported that on June 28, 1954, the summer after he was married, Kennedy wrote to von Post: "I might get a boat and sail around the Mediterranean for two weeks -- with you as crew."

Of all the rotten luck, the future president injured his back. In November 1954, ABC reported, he wrote from a New York hospital in a letter "full of longing."

"I am still in the hospital after two months. I was terribly disappointed that at the last moment I was not able to come to Europe, especially when you were going to be in Paris and we could have had such a good time."

No worries, he still wanted to see her when he could: "Is there any chance you will be coming to the U.S.?"

Von Post, now 78, told ABC News' 20/20 in 1997 that JFK's letter made her heart go "boom-boom-boom-boom."

"I was very happy to hear from him, but I said, 'he's a married man,' " the dowager told 20/20.

She got over it, though. The next year the two shared a tryst at an old castle in Sweden, ABC reported.

"I borrowed him for a week, a beautiful week that no one can take away from me, from that," she told 20/20. But all good things must end. In the last letter in August 1955, ABC reported that Kennedy wrote, "I just got word today -- that my wife and sister are coming here. It will all be complicated the way I feel now -- my Swedish Flicka. All I have done is sit in the sun and look at the Ocean and think of Gunilla & All Love, Jack."

- - -
To see more of the Boston Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bostonherald.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Boston Herald. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.