A former Harvard vice president and the current ambassador to the Czech Republic has been appointed chief executive officer of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the group announced late last week.

John Shattuck, who served as the University's vice president for government, community and public affairs from 1984 to 1993, replaces Charles U. Daly--who held that same Harvard post in the 1970s.

That Shattuck is once again filling Daly's shoes is "totally coincidental," said Paul G. Kirk, Jr. '60, who chaired the committee that chose Shattuck, though the background the two men gained in community work at Harvard was key in each appointment.

"The position...suggests that the person has a sense and an ability to be cognizant and sensitive to the community around them as an antenna for outreach and community relations," said Kirk, who is former chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The appointment of Shattuck--who is known for his activism on civil rights and foreign policy issues--marks a new era for the Kennedy Foundation.

The foundation once confined its mission to financially supporting the Kennedy Library and Museum, but it has slowly transformed into a forum for the discussion of current affairs, sponsoring a number of political education programs.

With Shattuck at its helm, the foundation intends to become even more active in the national political dialogue.

"John provides us with an ability to really ramp up and reach a new frontier for the library both in the kinds of issues that we'll be addressing, the level of people involve, and the degree of visibility that they'll bring," Kirk said.

Shattuck, who was not available for comment, is also the first leader of the foundation that did not personally know the late president.

"John takes office as firsthand memories of John Kennedy fade," Kirk said. "We want to be sure that the foundation isn't just nostalgic. [Shattuck will] bridge the gap."

The Harvard Connection

The Kennedy Foundation has been closely linked to Harvard since its establishment after the assasination of President Kennedy, a member of the Class of 1940 and a former Crimson editor.

The relationship, however, has sometimes been a rocky one. Plans calling for the Kennedy Library and Museum to be constructed on Harvard's campus were derailed in 1975 because of town-gown tensions.

"We hadn't really thought through the implications of bringing to an already very crowded area a magnet that would draw two to three million people a year," said former University President Derek C. Bok. "That came as a bit of a shock and resulted in a sudden decision to relocate the library."

But since the library opened in 1979 at Dorchester's Columbia Point , officials say there have been no lasting bad feelings between the foundation and the University.

Not only was Daly plucked from Harvard's administrative ranks to serve as the library's director and, later, the foundation's CEO, but a number of other foundation officials are Harvard graduates, including three of the six members of the committee that chose Shattuck.

Eli in the Yard

Fresh out of Yale Law School, Shattuck joined the American Civil Liberties Union, where he rose to become executive director of the Washington office before coming to Harvard.

Since leaving the University in 1993 to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Shattuck's principal work has been in foreign affairs. In 1998 he became Ambassador to the Czech Republic, a post that he will leave in January to join the Kennedy Foundation.

Those who worked with Shattuck at Harvard say that he was an effective insider, both in Mass. Hall and in Washington, D.C., while others emphasize Shattuck's active role in the Cambridge community.

"John took a very, very great interest in community relations," said Jane Corlette, an associate vice president who worked with Shattuck. "He had three kids in Cambridge public schools. He became a very concerned citizen."

But Bok points out that for all the good that can be said of him, Shattuck has a dark side: a "morbid love of New Haven" that he shares with Daly, both of whom graduated from Yale College.

Kirk jokes that for Yale graduates, both have done reasonably well for themselves.

"This is the best career path any Yale guy every had," Kirk quipped.