July 5, 1963 - Mrs. Ethel Kennedy, 35, wife of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, gave birth to her eighth child last night — a “fine, handsome” 6-pound 14-ounce boy — after a hurried helicopter flight from Cape Cod only 88 minutes earlier. (Pictured below, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy ride in a police cruiser yesterday to Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston, where the baby was delivered.) The child, the couple’s fifth son, was delivered by Caesarean section by Dr. Roy Heffernan, who has delivered four other of the family’s children. The baby arrived about a week ahead of schedule. Mrs. Kennedy, who was reported to have played tennis yesterday at her summer home in Hyannis Port, was taken to Otis Air Force Base when the birth of her son became imminent. She left Otis only minutes before the plane carrying her brother-in-law, the President, arrived from Washington. Her husband followed her in another helicopter 20 minutes later, after alerting the family at the Kennedy compound on the shores of Nantucket Sound. Today, the Attorney General said, “We were playing games with the children when the labor pains began.” He told newsmen the latest Kennedy “is handsome and looks like his grandfather [former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy].” “He’s got lots of dark hair,” the Attorney General reported. He described his wife as “very pleased it’s a boy,” adding that the other seven children were hoping for a boy. He said no name had been chosen yet for the baby. The newest arrival is the second of the Kennedys’ children born on July 4. The oldest child, Kathleen, 12, also was born on Independence Day.
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