President John F. Kennedy Receives The Famous Plaque That Sat on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office

“This beautiful prayer says so much in so few words”

John Kennedy was a war hero, the captain of a boat during World War II, the PT – 109, made famous by a movie that memorialized his heroism.  Like Hyman Rickover, he was a Navy man.   
Years later, Kennedy was no longer on the water in a boat but sitting in the White House at the Resolute Desk, the legendary desk that was a gift from Queen Victoria as a sign of Anglo-American cooperation, and was used by presidents beginning with Hayes. It was so named from the language used by Victoria: “A memorial of the courtesy and loving kindness which dictated the offer of the gift of the Resolute.” The famous photo of John Kennedy, Jr. under his father’s desk pictures this very desk. It is where President Kennedy worked.

Below: the original is at the John Kennedy Presidential Library

Kennedy’s presidency saw a young man thrust onto the national stage to lead a country in a cold struggle with the Soviet Union, which was bent on enlarging its sphere of influence. At the end of 1962, the conflict nearly led to war with the Cuban Missile Crisis.   The next year, just a few months later, Kennedy would deliver his Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech in West Berlin, advocating representative democracy worldwide.  

President Kennedy consulted with Rickover, and relied on his nuclear expert for advice.  Kennedy understood the “awesome destructive power” of nuclear weapons and Rickover saw the struggles that Kennedy had to overcome.

In the spring of 1963 Admiral Rickover gave President Kennedy a plaque with a saying very close to his heart, the now famous Breton fisherman’s prayer, which states, "O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small." For Kennedy religion was a personal matter about which he felt strongly. It gave him strength, as it did his brothers Bobby and Teddy.  President Kennedy loved this quote this quote and used it in his remarks at the dedication of the East Coast Memorial to the Missing at Sea, May 23, 1963.  More importantly, he kept the plaque on his desk in the Oval Office, where he could always keep it in mind, and it is now on display in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum as part of the Oval Office exhibit.  As Philip Goduti writes in Kennedy’s Kitchen Cabinet and the Pursuit of Peace in reference to the plaque, “Perhaps JFK saw the problems he faced as great as the ocean.”  

Soon after using the quote in his remarks, JFK wrote Rickover to thank him for the famous gift. Typed letter signed, on White House letterhead, June 10, 1963, to Rickover. "I greatly appreciated your thoughtfulness in sending me the plaque. This beautiful prayer says so much in so few words and I am pleased to have it to put on my desk. Thank you very much for sending it."

Just two weeks after sending this letter, Kennedy crossed the ocean and spoke in his now famous West Berlin speech.  

We obtained this letter directly from the Rickover family.