\n<\/p>\n
Shortly after 10 p.m., press secretary Pierre Salinger stepped before reporters in a makeshift pressroom at the Statler Hotel. For the first time he acknowledged that Patrick had a breathing ailment, identifying it the way doctors did, as \u201cidiopathic respiratory distress syndrome.\u201d Playing down the seriousness, he explained that the condition was not uncommon in premature infants. But he acknowledged it was \u201ca cause for concern.\u201d He told reporters it would be four days before doctors could \u201cmake a final diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n
A reporter pressed Salinger on the outlook for the baby: \u201cIs it on the danger list?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would not say that,\u201d Salinger replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould anybody else?\u201d the reporter ventured.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d Salinger snapped, \u201cnobody that I talked to has.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then revealed that Patrick was baptized soon after birth, prompting a reporter to ask why so quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would rather not comment on that,\u201d Salinger answered.<\/p>\n
In his suite at the Ritz-Carlton, Jack called Jackie twice around midnight. Wishing to keep her spirits up, he tilted his words toward the positive. \u201cThe President assured Mrs. Kennedy,\u201d the United Press International reported, \u201cthat everything was all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
His calls had the intended effect. Jackie\u2019s mother, Janet Auchincloss, arrived at the hospital late in the evening and visited Jackie around midnight. She told a reporter that her daughter was in \u201cremarkably good condition\u201d and \u201cawfully happy that everything was going well.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the night, an enterprising photographer with a telephoto lens sneaked upstairs in a building opposite Children\u2019s and found a window in line with Patrick\u2019s room. While chief resident James Hughes hovered over the incubator, the photographer clicked off a series of shots.<\/p>\n
Days later a grainy black-and-white image dominated the cover of Life<\/em> magazine under the headline: \u201cHospital Vigil over the Kennedy Baby.\u201d The photograph through the cross panes of Patrick\u2019s window showed an unnamed doctor\u2014Hughes\u2014in scrubs and a white mask, head bowed, looking down at what was the baby\u2019s incubator, though all that was visible on the cover was a fuzzy black smear in the lower-right corner. Standing beside Hughes was a nurse, her starched white cap perched high on her head, her face an indistinct blur.<\/p>\n A four-photo spread inside the magazine was blurrier than the image on the front: doctors and nurses moving about, their heads dark splotches against a gray-lighted background.<\/p>\n The magazine\u2019s report featured one more image, a particularly intrusive one. A Life<\/em> photographer had managed to shove his way into a Children\u2019s Hospital elevator with President Kennedy for a candid, closeup shot that filled a full page. In the photo the beleaguered president is pinned against the elevator\u2019s back wall, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, eyes staring downward. The headline read \u201c. . . A Worried Father Visits His Stricken Son.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither Hughes nor the nurse had any idea they were under press surveillance while looking after Patrick. Hughes learned of his anonymous fame only after the edition hit newsstands: \u201cSomebody called us and said you\u2019re on the cover of Life<\/em> magazine.\u201d Hughes embraced his anonymity. He had no wish to go public. \u201cThere was nothing magical about the moment,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt isn\u2019t as if I held up a newborn baby for the world to see. I was there attending as best we could as this kid struggled for breath.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n