  Sgr A East appears to be a single, mixed morphology 10,000 year-old supernova
remnant (SNR) at the Galactic Center. It also appears to belong to a class of
remnants that have been observed and detected at 1720 MHz, the transition
frequency of OH maser emission. However, if the EGRET source 3EG J1746-2852
conincident with the Galactic center is itself associated with this object, it
would endow it with a gamma-ray luminosity almost two orders of magnitude
greater than that of the other EGRET-detected SNR's. We here reconsider the
viability of a pion-production mechanism as the source of the broadband
emission observed from Sgr A East, and show that what connects these objects --
and ultimately also accounts for their different gamma-ray emissivity -- is the
very important interaction between the expanding SNR shell and the surrounding
molecular cloud environment. The singularly high gamma-ray luminosity of Sgr A
East, as well as its unusually steep radio spectral index, can thereby be
attributed to the high-density, strong magnetized environment in which it is
located.
