"Many memorial were dedicated to the slain leader," according to Freidel. Cape Canaveral in Florida, for example, was renamed in his honor and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library was established for his public papers and effects.

JFK came to Cambridge for the last time on October 16, 1963, to watch part of the Harvard-Columbia football game and examine several sites for his presidential library, which he wanted to be "closely associated" with his alma mater.

According to City Councilor Walter J. Sullivan, who accompanied JFK, the President clearly preferred a 12-acre site across the street from Eliot House and adjacent to where the Kennedy School of Government stands today.

By 1970, Kennedy's preferred site had been cleared by MBTA officials who spent some $53 million to transplant their repair and storage yards from where they had stood for about 50 years. But just when it appeared construction would soon be beginning, a group of Cambridge residents, worried that the library would bring more tourists, scholars, and cars into a already-congested Harvard Square, launched an all-out battle against the building.

In November of 1975, family members and library corporation officers, weary of public criticism and anxious for the start of construction, chose the Columbia Point, Dorchester, site for the library, museum, and archives complex even though JFK himself had favored a Harvard location.

University and city officials today remain sensitive to the controversy, which sparked emotional charges from both sides. Harvard officials generally say the library would have been a "tourist appendage" to the University, whereas some politicians skill believe a small group of neighbors "kicked the hell out of" the proposal and that the "citizens of Cambridge screwed themselves."

Paul R. Lawrence, Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Business School, who headed one of the community groups opposing construction of the Fibrary in the Square, said yesterday that he had no regrets about the decision.

"The neighborhood organization couldn't see how the parking and traffic could be handled," he said.

City Councilor Francis H. Duehay '55 said yesterday that "it would have been good to have [the library] in Cambridge in the sentimental sense. But it would have created too many problems."

David F. Powers, formerly JFK's assistant appointments secretary in the White House and his campaign manager in 1946, was sitting yesterday in his office at the Kennedy Library, where he now serves as curator of the museum.

The assassination "is a difficult thing to talk about," he said. "I talk about Jack every day of the year, but on this day it's especially difficult to talk about."

Before he travelled to Dallas, Kennedy and his family were planning on meeting at their Hyannisport estate for Thanksgiving. "That was the saddest part," Powers said.

He explained that the hardest aspect of building the JFK memorial was "trying to catch Jack's style and grace" without the benefit of his personal advice and oversight.

If JFK were alive today, Powers said, he would most likely be lecturing and writing at Harvard, Boston University, and other area schools.

If Kennedy were alive and teaching at Harvard today, he would probably spend much of his time answering the significant number of scholars who have now jumped on a bandwagon of criticism against him.