"I got a letter saying that he was no longer going to be the chair of the task force and assigning me the task," Zeckhauser says. "Basically what was left was to convene some meetings and conclude the work."

Green left under a cloud of speculation and disarray in the administration and questions about an apparent mismatch between a man and his mission.

But the University has remained quiet in the seven months since the announcement. To this day, there has been no official, public explanation of the departure, which came so suddenly that some members of the Board of Overseers were notified by The Crimson that it was happening.

What is clear is that when Green left his Mass Hall office, he left the task force behind.

His name is not once mentioned in the final report, not even under the list of task force members.

The only sentence that could possibly allude to Green reads, "The task force recommendations were approved by...the University Provost."

Apparently, however, Green, who spearheaded the benefits review process, is not the provost referred to in the report.

"[Green] clearly disagreed with the report, and he didn't sign it," says Mallinckrodt Professor of Applied Physics William Paul. "Which University provost approved it?"

According to a Human Resources spokesperson, the approval came from Kennedy School Dean Albert Carnesale, who took over the provost's office on July 1.

"It's certainly not me," Green says.

Although Green has refused to comment on his return to the Economics Department, he did write a memo to Rudenstine and Zeckhauser in June criticizing several of the changes.

Green refused to comment on the contents of the June memo in an August interview, except to say, "I think the memo speaks for itself."

In the memo, Green said the final results of the benefits review did not sufficiently take long-term factors into account.

He called the one percent reduction in pension contributions "inefficient" and expressed disapproval of the linkage of health benefits to salary.

"By violating the principle that all Harvard employees get the same health benefits we leave ourselves open to many counterproductive forces," he wrote.