Local Community Leader Calls For Kennedy Library Parley

David Clem, out-going president of the Riverside Cambridgeport Community Corporation, last night invited representatives of Harvard and the Kennedy Library Corporation to discuss the University's proposed Allston site for the Kennedy museum at a public meeting next Tuesday.

Clem, speaking at the RCCC annual meeting, said the discussion would help the RCCC decide whether to support the Allston plan.

Split Site

The University's proposal, if adopted by the library corporation at its board of directors meeting later this month, would enable the museum to be built on three acres of Harvard-owned land near the Business School, and the archival portion of the library to be kept at the MBTA subway yards site across the street from Eliot House.

However, the library corporation has told Harvard that unless the University can secure absolute approval from community groups to the Allston location, the whole archive-museum complex will be built at either the University of Massachusetts's Amherst or Boston Columbia Point campus.

The library corporation has also warned the University that unless Harvard provides additional funds, the corporation cannot afford to split the museum from the archives.

Some residents of the Riverside Cambridgeport community, including city councilor Saundra Graham, have already expressed reservations to the Allston site because traffic may be increased along the access roads in the community that lead to Allston.

After Clem called for the Tuesday meeting, Graham read a letter dated May 21 she obtained from K. Dun Gifford '60, vice president for urban affairs of Cabot, Cabot and Forbes, a Cambridge developing firm, to Harvard officials outlining steps Harvard could take to formulate a feasible split-site proposal.

Pull It Off

The letter, addressed to Charles U. Daly, vice president for government and community affairs, and Hale Champion, financial vice president, said the University could "only pull this [the museum in Allston, archives at the MBTA yards plan] off with a detailed proposal" outlining all the particulars of the Aliston site.

The letter advised Harvard officials to which Cambridge community groups opinions of the proposal, and offered the help of Cabot. Cabot and Forbes to do site analysis for the Aliston proposal.

Graham said after reading the letter that Harvard's plan to keep the archives in Cambridge "has been pulled together by a couple of people that have a high business interest."

"It looks like it is going to be rammed down our throats," Graham said