Drive Deeds May Prevent Construction

Opponents of the Memorial Drive underpasses have discovered what they believe to be a legal basis for their fight against the Metropolitan District Commission.

Edward L. Bernays, founder of the Citizens' Emergency Committee to Save Memorial Drive, said last night that lawyers had re-examined the deeds by which private citizens donated land for the Drive to Cambridge, and by which the City gave the land to the MDC.

In all the documents, Bernays said there are covenants guaranteeing that the land will be used "in perpetuity" for a parkway. Speakers at the 1923 dedication ceremonies for the Drive specifically referred to these clauses, he added.

If the underpass controversy goes to court, the Citizens' Committee would try to prove that the underpasses are part of an MDC plan to turn the Drive into an expressway. MDC Commissioner Robert F. Murphy has denied that he has such a plan, but a report prepared by the commission's traffic consultants concedes that only widening the Drive will improve its traffic flow.

Bernays said that he was more optimistic now about the chances of blocking the underpasses than he had been a month ago, and called a statement released Wednesday by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall "fair enough but not in any way final."

In answer to a telegram urging him to declare Memorial Drive a national historic site, Udall said that such designation would not affect the MDC's authority to administer the property. "Ony where the national interest is clearly and indisputably in conflict with state and local authorities" was federal intervention justified, the secretary emphasized.

"The words 'national interest' can be defined in very broad or very narrow terms," Bernays observed. "If there's enough public interest, there's a nation al interest." He said he expected that Udall would communicate with him again after studying the Drive's history.