The bust was erected two years after President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in 1963.

It was paid for by readers of the Sunday Telegraph who responded to an appeal for a monument to mark the President in London. They raised more than £50,000.

It was cast by the renowned sculpture, Jacques Lipchitz, and unveiled by the late president's brother Robert F Kennedy, who was himself assassinated in 1968.

However the bust has now been removed after it was damaged in an attack which also left three large gouges in the marble pedestal.

The International Students House, which manages the statue, has not commented on the attack, but a sign on the pedestal reads: "Unfortunately, due to recent vandalism the JFK bust has had to be removed for conservation work."