College Officers Helped to Lure Research Center

Two high administrative officials of Harvard and M.I.T. have been instrumental in President Kennedy's choice of the Boston area as the site for a proposed $50 million electronics center.

The proposed center will be a clearing house for federal contracts and procurement, with research aimed at testing materials involved in government contracts. Thus the center would serve as a magnet to attract numerous electronics industries to the area.

Charles A. Coolidge '17, Fellow of Harvard College, and retired Maj. Gen. James McCormack, vice president of M.I.T., are members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Space Committee which backed the project. The electronics center was proposed in the President's budget message January 17.

Scientific Talent Pool

According to McCormack, neither Harvard nor M.I.T. played a direct part in soliciting the center, but he stated, "The fact that Harvard and M.I.T. are in Boston is a basic reason why the government decided, to put its eggs in this basket." A vital bargaining point of State political leaders on recent business hunting forays to Washington was the pool of scientific talent represented by Harvard and M.I.T.

A similar National Aeronautics and Space Administration project, the Apollo missile systems center, was established in Houston last year after a strong bid by Massachusetts failed. However, in his press conference yesterday Governor Endicott Peabody '42 declared. "There is no evidence or even suggestion that we might lose this space center."

Recent reports in the Boston press have emphasized closer relations between State business and academic leaders and Massachusetts political figures in Washington with the aim of attracting business to the State. Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54, fulfilling his "I can do more for Massachusetts" campaign pledge, has part of his office working exclusively on business recruitment.