35th President.  Typed letter signed "John Kennedy" AS PRESIDENT, to John W. Snyder (Treasury Secretary under President Harry Truman), Washington, August 22, 1963 on official White House stationery with original mailing envelope.

JFK LOSES A SON and thanks Truman's former Treasury Secretary for his condolences. In full:  "You were kind indeed to think of us at this very difficult time. Your message was a comfort to me and my family and we are very grateful to you."

John and Jacqueline Kennedy's third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, was born on August 7, 1963, six weeks premature. He died two days later from what was then called hyaline membrane disease (now neonatal respiratory distress syndrome). Boston's Cardinal Cushing performed the funeral mass, and three months later the infant's remains were transferred to his father's grave at Arlington National Cemetery as JFK would be killed 3 months to the day this letter was sent.

In remarkably clean condition, one horizontal mailing fold