Killing Kennedy

edge of Cape Cod. The agent also tells Lincoln that the First Lady doesn’t want her husband to be disturbed, in case the labor pains are a false alarm.
    Evelyn Lincoln, knowing the president’s deep emotional involvement in Jackie’s pregnancy, steps into the Oval Office anyway.
    “Jerry tells me that Mrs. Kennedy is on her way to Otis,” she says calmly, passing along the message without trying to upset the president or his guests unnecessarily.
    It doesn’t work. The meeting is immediately adjourned. A hasty series of phone calls confirm that Jackie is being sedated and is about to deliver the Kennedys’ new child by Caesarean section. The president summons Air Force One.
    But all four of the president’s airplanes are unavailable today.
    JFK doesn’t care. He demands an airplane, any airplane, immediately.
    *   *   *
    One hour later, as the president of the United States, his Secret Service detail, and select members of his staff race to Otis Air Force Base crammed inside a small six-passenger JetStar aircraft, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy takes his first breath. The president’s second son weighs just four pounds, ten and a half ounces.
    However, there are grave concerns about that breath. It appears shallow and labored. The baby grunts as he exhales. His skin has a bluish pallor, and his chest wall is retracted. The infant is immediately placed in an incubator.
    Baby Patrick is assigned a Secret Service agent, even though it’s becoming clear that the only direct threat against the newborn’s life comes from within his own body. The lungs are among the last organs to develop in the womb, and young Patrick is suffering from hyaline membrane disease, the most common form of death among children born prematurely.
    The First Lady is still sedated from her Caesarean and doesn’t know of the problem. As soon as the president arrives, he takes command. He huddles with Dr. John Walsh to discuss the status of his new son. The doctor explains that there is a chance Patrick might die. Kennedy immediately summons the base chaplain to baptize Patrick, ensuring that his son will go to heaven, based upon the teachings of the Catholic Church.
    Dr. Walsh then makes the suggestion that Patrick be moved to Children’s Hospital in Boston, which has state-of-the-art facilities for treating hyaline membrane disease. The president immediately agrees.
    At 5:55 P.M., as Jackie is still shaking off the grogginess of her sedation, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy is placed in an ambulance for the hour-long drive to Boston.
    This child is precious cargo. Far dearer than the Mona Lisa . So like the famous painting, Patrick makes the journey escorted by a full complement of Massachusetts police. Sirens wail as the ambulance pulls away from the air force hospital.
    The caravan does not stop. The baby’s life must be saved.
    *   *   *
    Now comes the waiting. Jackie Kennedy remains in her ten-room maternity suite, recovering. So it is the president who moves on to Boston to hold vigil at Children’s Hospital. This is a far different man from the one who, in 1956, waited three days before returning from Europe to see his wife after her first miscarriage. Now he stares helplessly at the thirty-one-foot-long experimental high-pressure chamber in which the small body of his son gasps for air. Patrick can clearly be seen through the chamber’s small windows. The intensive care unit is cleared of all visitors whenever JFK is on the floor, which only adds to the president’s solitude.
    “How are things with little Patrick?” Evelyn Lincoln gently asks. She has made the trip to Boston to help the president manage the many details of his office that still need his attention.
    “He has a fifty-fifty chance,” JFK responds.
    “That’s all a Kennedy needs,” she assures him, knowing that her longtime boss will appreciate this sort of encouragement.
    World leaders and good friends barrage Kennedy with phone calls and messages, but he never takes the focus off his newborn son. The president has a deep love for children. This baby, conceived in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, holds special significance. This is the child who would have never entered the world if the crisis had ended in global thermonuclear war. Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, who is named for JFK’s paternal grandfather and for Jackie’s father, has been a source of pride and concern ever since the day the First Lady announced she was pregnant.
    The president has a