UMass Trustees Offer Site for JFK Complex

The Trustees of the University of Massachusetts yesterday asked the Kennedy Library Corporation to locate the JFK archives and museum at either the university's Boston or Amherst campus."

UMass President Robert F. Wood said yesterday he sent a letter to the library corporation that said the university is "prepared to do everything within our authority to ensure the rapid construction of the complex."

The General Services Administration apparently has now abandoned any further activity related to the development of the Kennedy museum is Cambridge, including public hearings in its environmental impact statement scheduled for February 13.

Cambridge Mayor Walter I Sullivan showed reporters at last night's city council meeting a telephone message from Joseph Lawless of the GSA. Stating that the GSA, is postponing any further projects at the Environmental practice Act of including the public bearing for February 13."

Th effect the GSA action will have on court proceedings to release drafts of the impact statement developed by C.E. Maguire Inc., the GSA's consulting firm for the project, is uncertain.

Lawless could not be reached for comment last night.

Delighted'

Dan H. Fenn '44, head of the Kennedy Library said yesterday he was "delighted by the offer from Umass, which, if ac- cepted, would allow the library and museum to be built on one site.

Wood said that William I Searcott III general council to UMass met with Stephen Smith, head of the library corporation and with the administrator of the General Services Administration in Washington yesterday to discuss the offer. The GSA administers all presidential archives.

The library corporation announced last Thursday that the JFK museum will not be built in Cambridge. President Bok and five neighborhood groups said in response to the Corporation's announcement that they still want the presidential archives built on the site of the MBTA-yard on Boylston St.

Since the decision to relocate, the corporation has received invitation to build the JFK complex in Fall River. Quincy Water town and Boston as well as at UMass.

President Bok said last night the University is "putting a not insignificant amount of effort" into keeping the archives in Cambridge.

"We are trying to rally sufficient community support to show the Kennedy's that we want the archives," he said.

Unless the archives are built in Cambridge, the University may not be able to build its planned $10 million political sciener center on the MBTA site.

Richard Dempsey, a spokesman for the MBTA, said yesterday that the authority had not yet relocated its subway equipment because "there was not much sense to it while the environmental impact statement was being made."

He said the MBTA has a "mutual agreement" with the GSA that provides that the subway cars do not have to be transferred to the new facilities in South Boston until discussion of the Kennedy Library impact statement is complete