McCormack to Retirr

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Majority Leader their candidacy for the spot. Opposing them will be Rep. Hale Boggs (D.La.), currently the Majority Whip. Liberal Congressmen, who have expressed dissatisfaction with House Democratic leadership in recent years, will try to unite behind a single candidate to oppose Boggs.

In McCormack's home district. which sprawls over 15 South Boston wards, three candidates have already announced their intentions to run; at least five others are expected to announce within the next few days.

On Tuesday, Thomas I. Atkins, 31, Boston's only black city councillor, announced his candidacy on an anti-war platform. Others already in the race are Daniel J. Houton, a second-year student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and State Senator John J. Moakley, who holds the seat McCormack had before he moved to Congress in 1928.

Among those expected to enter the race soon is Louise Day Hicks, the anti-integration city councillor who narrowly lost the election for Mayor of Boston in 1967. Other possibilities are former Senate President John E. Powers. State Senator George V. Kenneally, City Councillor John L. Saltonstall '38. and Edward J. McCormack. the Speaker's nephew.

McCormack has faced only token opposition in his district in recent years. He said that the opposition which has developed this year in his traditionally safe district did not affect his decision to retire.

McCormack has served as House Speaker since 1962 when he succeeded Sam Rayburn. Since then he has come under increasingly sharp fire from House liberals for his defense of the war in Vietnam and his conservative stance of defense spending.

Last Fall the Speaker's aide, Martin Sweig, was charged with attempting to influence the Securities and Exchange Commission in favor of a California firm with which he was associated. McCormack placed Sweig on a leave of absence without pay peading an investigation of the charges. The charges against his trusted aide reportedly weighed heavily on McCormack.