Edward J. Sullivan, Clerk of Middlesex County Courts and former Cambridge Mayor, recalls: "[Kennedy] had a good memory. No matter where he ran into you, he knew who you were. One time when he was President, I was having a gallbladder operation, and a friend of mine told one of his aides, and when I saw him three months later, the first thing he asked was, 'How do you feel after your operation?'"

Joseph A. Langone III, who had worked on constituent services in Cambridge for then Congressman Kennedy, remembered yesterday that "the people of the district, [which then included parts of Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston,] loved him. The women loved him."

"He was a great guy--he made a great President," Sullivan said. "He had a magnitude that drew people to him."

On Sunday night, Harvard graduate students and professors met at a reception at the Kennedy Library on Columbia Point.

Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62 said afterwards that he was shocked by one student who told him, while viewing the exhibits there, "So that's what JFK looked like and sounded like. I was three years old when he died."

"It is difficult to believe," Allison said, "that 19 years have passed since that day in Dallas."

Contributing to his report were Crimson staffers Peter Eccles, Michael Hirschorn, Heidi James, Marie Morris, Steve Parkey, John Riccardi, and Katie Schmidt.