In his recent bestselling book, "My American Journey," Colin Powell mentions prominently that he turned down jobs in both the Bush and Clinton administrations. In a single paragraph, he adds he also turned down a job at Harvard.

"I received a letter from a White House Fellowship alumnus, Tom O'Brien, who worked at Harvard. Tom asked if I was interested in a job as the university's director of financial programs," Powell writes on page 273 of the book, which is number one on several national bestseller lists and is the fastest selling book in the history of its publisher, Random House.

Powell did not turn down an offer to be Harvard's Class Day speaker in 1993, a decision which touched off waves of controversy among liberal student groups opposed to the military's "Don't Ask. Don't Tell" policy towards homosexuality.

Apparently the earlier offer of a permanent position from O'Brien in 1982, wasn't what Powell was looking for.

"What I knew about academic finance would fit on a dime," Powell writes.

O'Brien, then serving as Harvard's vice president of finance, said he wasn't concerned by Powell's self-proclaimed lack of experience in academic finance.

"He was such an exceptional individual I knew he would be a terrific member at Harvard," O'Brien said in an interview Sunday. "I thought the most important thing in hiring was to get someone of natural ability [who was] able to handle any situation. [Powell] would be a great manager."

O'Brien, currently the head of the school of management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said he knew Powell because Powell was a White House fellow and O'Brien was president of the White House Fellows Association as well as a former fellow.

"When Joe Wyatt left Harvard to become the chancellor at Vanderbilt [in Nashville, Tenn.], I called Colin to see if he would be interested in becoming vice president for adminis- tration," O'Brien said. "He decided that he wished not to be considered for the position."

"I thought he would have been terrific but obviously he stayed in the army and went on to bigger and better things," O'Brien said.

O'Brien, who had served as vice president of finance since 1977 and was in charge of making the appointment, was advised by his then-budget director Ann S. Ramsay, whose married name is now Ramsay-Jenkins.

"I was a White House fellow when Colin Powell was a White House fellow," said Ramsay-Jenkins. "We were in the same class together--there were 16 men fellows and I was the only woman fellow that year."

"Colin was a very intelligent and warm guy with a great sense of humor and you also had a sense of his reliability and abilities on the job," she said of the fellowship, which lasted from September 1972 until August 1973.

Of the advice she gave O'Brien, Ramsay-Jenkins said, "I told Tom that Colin was highly respected by all of the fellows who served with him in the class 1972, 1973."

"I think I also told him in what regard Colin was held [by] those for whom he worked in the Office of Management and Budget," Ramsay-Jenkins said. "I think I also shared with Tom some of the ups and downs of that White House fellows year and the degree to which the other fellows sought Colin's advice and counsel."

"[Powell] clearly was not only very bright--a quick study--but also understood people and motivators for people at work," Ramsey-Jenkins said.