The scene dates from June 1963, when John F. Kennedy signed the Golden Book of the city of Cologne during his visit to Germany and one of the two statesmen handed the other his fountain pen. Montblanc's own records, among them the company chronicle, state that it was Konrad Adenauer who lent the American president his Montblanc. The press still carries the opposite version, in which Kennedy came to the chancellor's aid after the latter had searched his breast pocket in vain; it was put about, among other places, in a newspaper report marking the company's centenary in 2006.
The surviving photographs of the occasion support Montblanc's account, since they show Adenauer passing the pen across. The question is nonetheless not finally settled, as both versions are second-hand. An American president reaching for a German fountain pen was in any case nothing unusual: collectors report that Richard Nixon, too, used a Montblanc, a 144 in vermeil with a fine-grain guilloche.