The ancient Harvard Corporation is nothing if not secretive.

The half-dozen "fellows" of the University--captains of industry and academic dinosaurs--release no minutes from their meetings and serve until they choose to leave.

But the identity of the presidential search committee's pick to succeed Neil L. Rudenstine--the biggest secret the Corporation and its aides have had to keep in a long time--oozed out days before Sunday's official announcement, and the committee found its deliberations splashed across the pages of an eager press.

The Crimson first revealed the news on its website and as a print extra on Friday. The revelation was picked up by national outlets, first by The Associated Press a few hours after the story broke early Friday evening, and then by The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

The national papers, however, were skeptical of early reports from the student press. For a variety of reasons, another finalist was the early favorite, and major media outlets were reluctant to discount their own sense that University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger would get the nod.

Bollinger early caught the attention of many observers in part because of his particular position as the single head of the behemoth Michigan system and a series of policy decisions that brought him national attention.

In the weeks leading up to the announcement, the Globe, which monitored the search more closely than any other major newspaper, consistently intimated Bollinger was the frontrunner. Citing "people knowledgeable with the selection process," Globe reporter Patrick Healy wrote in a Feb. 22 article that Bollinger "has more reliable votes among the nine-member search committee."

The search, according to the Globe, was down to three men, with former Princeton Professor Amy Gutmann '71 running a distant fourth. But even among the three, Bollinger was the "safe choice," Globe sources said. Reached in his office last night, Healy declined to comment.