On Feb. 4, the Board of Overseers convened in Lamont Library to hear a presentation on a new interdisciplinary degree program. Shortly before lunch, they filed the short distance to Loeb House for another event: an update on the presidential search. Now Stone and the rest of the committee had nine names to present. Fineberg, Bollinger, Sullivan, Summers, Gutmann, and four others. The next day, committee members crossed the river and met with Clark in his business school office, breaking the news to him that he was no longer under consideration for the top job.

The committee continued giving Fineberg the benefit of the doubt. His interviews had gone very well, and he had successfully pitched the committee on his plans to revamp the College. He had given his entire life to Harvard, teaching, administration and fund-raising. It seemed only natural progression for him to succeed to Mass. Hall. But, alas, as the ultimate insider, there was nothing Fineberg could do to create a “wow” factor for the University.

Two weeks after the Overseer meeting, Bollinger announced to University of Michigan Regents that he was flying to New York to interview with the committee on the 18th—the first time a candidate had interviewed seriously three times. With the search nearing completion, privacy became an even bigger deal. Clarice Goodall, D. Ronald Daniel’s McKinsey secretary, found an out-of-the-way hotel on the Upper East Side for the committee to hide away. Bollinger met with the committee through the morning, and then dined with them. Then he went home to Ann Arbor to await his fate. After the meeting, one committee member called him “the ultimate fit.”

The ultimate fit minus two things. The committee looked long and hard at Bollinger—his intelligence, his questioning mind, his grand plans attracted them all—but no matter his brilliant ideas and wonderful personality, he had two fatal flaws in their mind. At 54, Bollinger was just too old. The committee wanted someone who could hold the job for 15 or 20 years, like the great presidents Bok and Eliot. After all, only 26 people had served as president in Harvard’s 365 years. Secondly, Bollinger had no Harvard degree—and thus would be the first president since the 1600s to not be an alum of the University.

Then, on Feb. 25, Summers “wowed” them with his diverse knowledge of the University, as an insider and an outsider.

“He just represented an extraordinary person who had the potential to be an amazing president of Harvard. He had really a very deep passion for knowledge, a comfort with complexity, and all of the essential values of the academy,” a committee member said.

And Summers offered several promises to the committee that relaxed their final concerns. He promised not to accept the position of Chair of the Federal Reserve if that was offered to him after Alan Greenspan retired. He would be a loyal Harvard man.