Harvard Center Joins Library

Plans are underway for a $10 million Harvard research and teaching center in public and international affairs as part of the John F. Kennedy Library complex along Memorial Drive.

President Bok announced yesterday that the center--to be built on Boylston Street across from Kirkland and Eliot Houses--will include the Kennedy School of Government, the Center for International Affairs (CFIA), the Littauer Center for Public Administration, and elements of the Economics and Government Departments.

The Institute of Politics will be housed in a separate building along with the Library's archives and a presidential museum. It will be a part of the Library complex funded by the John F. Kennedy Library. Inc., and does not come under the $10 million project administered by Harvard.

The site for the Harvard center and the Kennedy Library is currently occupied by car barns and storage tracks of the Massachusetts bought the land from the MBTA several years ago, and the deed was passed on to the Federal Government.

Under the original agreement between the Kennedy Library, Inc., and the government. Harvard has an option to buy part of the 10-acre site. The deadline for removal of the MBTA facilities is now set for December 31, 1973, at which time the land becomes available to Harvard and the Library.

Also yesterday, Dan H. Fenn Jr. '46, lecturer on Business Administration, was named director of the Kennedy Library. At a press conference at the home of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.), it was announced that Fenn, who served as chief recruiter for business talent under President Kennedy, will be the first director of the Library.

President Bok said that Fenn will continue as a member of the Business School Faculty, and that he will become a member of the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government and the School's planning committee.

Fenn, who served as the youngest assistant dean of freshmen in the College's history when he was 23, was director of the World Affairs Council in Boston from 1949 to 1955. Except for his work in the White House, Fenn has been at the Business School since then.

The details of the new Harvard center have not been completed, and, according to Hale Champion, vice president for Financial Affaires. It will be several months before the final dimensions of the building are determined.

Dollar Commitment

"We've made a dollar commitment to build a center to accommodate these academic units," he said yesterday. "Before we can make any estimates of size, square footage or layout, we'll have to see what our dollars can best buy."

Harvard's option under the original contract for the Kennedy Library allows for the purchase of a maximum of 2.2 acres at the MBTA site. The Kennedy Library itself is not part of the University; when built, it will be administered by the government as part of the National Archives.

The Harvard center, which will complement the resources and staff of the Library, is being funded partly by two grants of $2.5 million each. One grant is from the Ford Foundation, while the other is provided by "friends of the University"--a fund-raising drive headed by C. Douglas Dillion '31, the current president of the Board of Overseers.

Additional funding is provided by another drive. "To Finish a job for Harvard," headed by John L. Loeb Jr. '52.

Champion said yesterday that the University is covered on the building and site costs of the new center, but that the maintenance of the building must be worked out among the users. The government will not be a source for funding maintenance expenditures, he said.

Aside from the departments and study groups which will occupy the center, the new occupants of the space to be vacated by the Government and Economic Departments and the Kennedy School of Governments in Littauer may be tapped to help defray maintenance costs, Champion said.

"One of our chief priorities now is to set some kind of timetable for the planning and construction of the center," he said. "We really cannot say anything definite until all the details are worked out, and these must be dealt with internally--with the Kennedy Library people and with different departments and institutes who will move into the center."

Fenn said that plans for the Library and the Harvard center will be coordinated by the architect for both buildings, I.M. Pei of New York. Not preliminary design for the complex will be available until next spring at the earliest