Maguire Under Heavy Fire

After two weeks of silence, community leaders went on record this week with serious reservations about, or in some cases clear opposition to, C.E. Maguire Inc., the firm named to conduct an environmental study of the Kennedy Library.

The split between Maguire and the community opened up Monday night when two of the firm's executives met with the city council. The councilors appeared to have already come to a decision about the library's impact, and the meeting seemed largely perfunctory.

"I can say that a majority of this council favors the Kennedy Library. It will be built and it will be built in Cambridge," Councilor Alfred W. Velucci said before walking out on the group.

About twenty minutes later, Councilor Francis H. Duehay said, "We don't need an environmental impact statement to tell us the library is bad for Cambridge. Anyone with half a brain can see that."

The Maguire representatives, now caught in one of Cambridge's most difficult community battles, gave polite assurances to the councilors that "the firm would do the best job it can in trying to prepare an objective impact statement."

Two days later, three city councilors and representatives of five civic groups asked the General Services Administration (GSA), Maguire's employer, to investigate allegations about the firm's integrity and objectivity.

The civic leaders were especially concerned about a report which alleged that under pressure from its client, the Massachusetts Port Authority, Maguire had reversed its conclusions on the suitability of an East Boston site for a new shipping facility.

Jack L. Slocum, a vice president for Maguire, responded that the firm's reports were being quoted entirely out of context and denied that the firm had bowed to political pressure.

Harvard and the Kennedy Library Corp., which had praised the GSA announcement, stayed away from the squabble. The GSA was formulating a comment on the community request.

Then a near-fatal car accident clouded the government's position even further. Robert T. Griffin, the special GSA administrator for the Kennedy Library, was hit by a car Thursday while crossing a Washington street, and is in satisfactory condition, but unable to comment.

To resolve the issue, Maguire has set up a meeting for later this week between representatives of the firm, community groups and the GSA to discuss the charges growing out of the Massport report.

Oliver Brooks, head of the Harvard Square Development Task Force, called the group together last Thursday to discuss Maguire's plan for the study, and came out of the meeting calling for a revision in the time schedule for public hearings.

But Brooks's request seems to be a softening of the strong public stand he took earlier. And George Grant, Maguire's project director, also seemd to be mellowing. Grant said he would