Born. To William Howard Taft III, 30, eldest son of Ohio's U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft, War Department intelligence official, and Barbara Hoult Bradfield Taft, 28; their first child, a son; in Washington. Name: William Howard IV.

Weight : 7 lbs. 6 oz.

Born. To William H. Vanderbilt, 43, ex-Governor of Rhode Island, now a gentleman farmer after four years in the Navy, and Anne Gordon Colby Vanderbilt, 37: their third (his fourth) child, a son. Name: William Henry Jr. Weight: 8 lbs. 2½ oz. When their twin daughters (now 14) were forecast by X ray in 1931, Lloyd's of London promptly upped its rates on insurance against twins.

Married. Samuel Sloan Colt, 53, socialite president of Manhattan's Bankers Trust Co.; and Anne Weld Crawford McLane, 35, daughter of the late Edward Weld, onetime New York Cotton Exchange president; he for the second time, she for the third; in Arlington, Va., four days after a Reno divorce ended his 28-year marriage to Margaret Van Duren Mason Colt.

Died. Clyde LaVerne Herring, 66, onetime Iowa Governor (1932-1936) and New Dealing U.S. Senator (1937-1942); of a heart ailment; in Washington. Periodically startled by what he heard on the radio (Mae West, Boris Karloff, H. G.

Wells dramas), he plugged unsuccessfully for Federal censoring of radio scripts.

Died. John Gale Hun, 67, founder (1914) and headmaster of the Hun School (boy's preparatory) and of Princeton's best-known tutoring school; of a stomach hemorrhage; in Trenton, N.J. A famed teacher of dullards, an inveterate poker player, a kindly wit, Dr. Hun helped many a husky lad get into Princeton University and stay there.

Died. André Tardieu, 68, bustling three-time Premier of France (1929, 1930, 1932), last surviving French signer of the Treaty of Versailles; after long illness; in Menton, France (according to the Swiss radio). Once known as "L'Américain" for his blunt, go-getting ways, he said before the war that Germany "neither wants nor is able to make war."

Died. Monsignor John Augustine Ryan, 76, author (Distributive Justice), a crusader for minimum wages, child-labor laws, collective bargaining; from a cerebral hemorrhage; in St. Paul. A devoted follower of Franklin Roosevelt (even on the Supreme Court packing scheme), he had declared the demand of World War II veterans for jobs impossible to satisfy in "an economy dominated by the philosophy of 'free enterprise.' "