"The way Harvard runs, if there's no scandal and you're not losing money, you're off the radar screen, but if you have a scandal or you lose money, you're dead center," says one University official close to HIID. "HIID did both."

The next blow came last May, when HIID's then-director, world-famous economist and Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey D. Sachs '76, announced he was leaving the Institute in little over a month.

Sach's departure was, by all accounts, unrelated to the scandal in Russia. The economist simply had too many other projects and decided HIID was the one he would give up.

Instead, he would focus his time on various other international programs at Harvard, in particular his job heading up the newly formed Center for International Development--intended to be a more research-oriented corollary to HIID.

But Sachs' departure only piled more uncertainty on an organization reeling from high-profile difficulties.

Under Review

Those doubts crystallized after Sachs left when, instead of creating a search committee to find a replacement, Fineberg convened a task force charged with reviewing the very mission of HIID.

The committee's mission was to consider "all options" for the troubled institute's future.