Court Grants Approval for JFK Center

The Supreme Judicial Court of Mas sachusetts yesterday approved the University's plan to centralize the study of government, economics, and international relations in a large building near the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library.

Harvard will now start searching for the $15 to $20 million that the project will cost. No precise timetable for the fund-raising has been set, and most University officials believe that any construction will have to wait until at least the early '70's. President Pusey has said it could be as long as ten years before the new building is completed.

The complex will be called the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and, will include under its roof all the offices now located in the Littauer Center of Public Administration, the projected International Studies Building, which was to be constructed next to Littauer, and the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics.

The University felt it had to go to the Supreme Judicial Court for approval of this broad plan on two specific counts: changing the name of the Graduate School of Public Administration to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and moving the school's quarters from Littauer Center to the Library site at the repair yards of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The Court agreed with Harvard that neither of these changes violates the terms of Lucius N. Littauer's gift establishing the School.

It will be eleven more days before the Graduate School of Public Administration officially becomes the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the first school at Harvard to be named after an individual. On Oct. 17, a formal dinner will be held to establish the School and the Institute of Politics -- that part of the Kennedy Memorial designed to bring the worlds of scholarship and politics closer together.

The Institute of Politics will be run by Harvard.

The new Harvard building will be located nearby the two other parts of the Kennedy Memorial, the Archive and the Museum.