In the days before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, around 5,000 handbills featuring Kennedy’s faux mugshot and the words “WANTED FOR TREASON” were distributed by anti-Kennedy activists.
One of these few surviving flyers sold Wednesday night for more than $9,000 at RR Auction.
The protest posters were created by Robert Surrey, under the instruction of Edwin Walker, a former Army general who was forced to resign after a Kennedy-ordered investigation found him guilty of violating the Hatch Act due to his involvement in the right-wing John Birch Society during his employ.
After the assassination, the Warren Commission looked into the organization behind the flyers as possible suspects, though soon found the group to be innocent.
However, the investigation did find Walker had been the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt of his own at the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald the previous April.
Weeks later, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported authorities had found handbills similar to the one sold Wednesday night at various locations in Dallas, including Carter Junior High School and the student union building at Arlington State College, the day before the assassination.
The flyer accused Kennedy of seven “treasonous activities” including “betraying the constitution,” aiding “communist-inspired racial riots” and appointing “Anti-Christians to Federal Office.”
Other flyers have sold in recent years, and while the number of existing original copies remaining extant is unknown, they are quite rare. In 2006, Christie’s sold a similar copy, printed on pink paper, for $3,120.
Items relating to Kennedy’s assassination have become popular collector’s items in recent years, with oddities ranging from Oswald’s life insurance death claim to swatches from Kennedy’s limousine selling for nearly $80,000 and $46,865, respectively.
RR Auction made headlines this September when they sold previously unseen footage of the assassination for $137,500.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.