Kennedy Library Moves Ahead

It was a strangely hectic week for presidential libraries.

The New York Times reported that planning for the Nixon Library is being delayed because four men on its seven-member executive board--John N. Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Herbert Kalmbach--are implicated in the Watergate affair.

Planning for the long-delayed Kennedy Library--which has an executive board that will eat Christmas dinner at home--is moving ahead at full speed in preparation for next Tuesday's unveiling ceremony that may bring Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) and Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis among others to Boston.

But the Kennedy Library is not without its troubles, too; the predominant feeling at a public meeting last Tuesday was that the library should not be built in Cambridge at all.

At the public meeting, attended by about 250 City residents, City Councillor Saundra Graham spoke out against the library, and representatives of three civic groups echoed their disapproval.

Oliver M. Brooks, chairman of the Harvard Square Task Force, the group which sponsored the community meeting, promised to relay the hostile feelings to the Kennedy Corporation in New York.

Yet, at this point in the planning, probably little can be done to stop the library construction. The library evidently has the tacit approval of the Cambridge Planning and Development Department even though the City has not released its report on Cambridge's objectives in the Kennedy development.

In a preliminary draft of that report, the City says that the library should "substantially augment the tax base and economic activity in Cambridge," and it is apparent that the City Planning Department wants some say in the final plans.

However, since half of the library complex--including the museum, archives, institute of politics and school of government--has already been designed and will be officially unveiled next week, there is little room left for City participation.

Construction of that part of the library will probably begin early in 1974, as soon as the MBTA vacates the Federally owned land at the corner of Boylston St. and Memorial Drive.

The City may be looking for a strong bargaining position on the remainder of the complex, called the "related facilities" building. But with a splashy ceremony next Tuesday, the 56th anniversary of the late President's birthday, where a model of the library designed by I.M. Pei will be displayed, the Library Corporation will be in the driver's seat aiming seriously for a May 1974 completion date.

The main attraction for tourists will be a semi-circular glass-enclosed museum housing memorabilia from Kennedy's years in the White House, but the visitors will also tour Cambridge, and it is the latter point that has people in the City more than a little bit upset.