United Nations Postal Administration [front board title]

N.p.: N.p., 1965. Hardcover. 4to. Blue padded leatherette folder with black cloth tape spine. Gilt-bordered recto opening with clear mylar window. Near fine. Presentation folder given to then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson (1900-65), formerly Illinois governor and two-time Democratic presidential candidate. Window at right bears insert with (top to bottom) printed caption, two mint 4-stamp blocks and First Day Cover -- below which it is boldly signed by U Thant above his printed name and title. Thant (1909-71) was the Burmese diplomat and third secretary-general of the United Nations. Printed caption at top reads: "Presented to / Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson / Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary /United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations / On the Occasion of / United States-United Nations Commemorative Stamp Ceremony / Honouring International Co-operation Year / and / The 20th Anniversary of the United Nations / 26 June 1965." Below this are two U.N.-issued stamp blocks, at left the 5-cent "Co-Operation Year 1965" and at right the 15-cent "Annee de la Cooperation 1965." Below this is a First Day Cover bearing one of each of these stamps, cancelled in San Francisco on 23 June 1965. Decorative printed and blind-embossed cachet at left notes "First Day of Issue" and depicts the New York U.N. building along with the "Birthplace of the Charter / San Francisco, 1945." This anniversary event would have been meaningful to Stevenson, who in 1945 worked briefly for the State Department as aide to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, helping Assistant Secretary of State Archibald MacLeish hammer out the United Nations charter. Little did he suspect that, a mere three weeks after receiving this folder from Thant, he would suffer a massive heart attack on a London sidewalk and die that same day at age 65. This choice memento was almost certainly the last communication between the secretary-general and the U.S. ambassador.