It is no secret that Robert E. Rubin ’60 and University President Lawrence H. Summers share a special relationship that extends from the White House to Mass. Hall.

The two men worked together closely as top economic advisers to former President Clinton, becoming one of the most powerful teams in Washington. And when Rubin left his post as U.S. treasury secretary, he worked to secure Summers’ place as his successor.

Although their Washington relationship came to a close in the late 1990s, Summers and Rubin are now colleagues again on the Harvard Corporation—the University’s top governing body.

Two years after leaving the Treasury, Rubin played an instrumental role in Summers’ ascension to the Harvard presidency. A year into Summers’ tenure, Rubin was selected for a spot on the Corporation. The successor to a Corporation member is selected by the other six members, including the president, who has historically exerted substantial influence on the pick.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding Summers’ January remarks on women in science, Rubin—who could not be reached for this story—has made few public statements about the president, although he expressed his support for Summers shortly after the comments were made public.

“I think he is an outstanding president and he has a chance to be one of Harvard’s greatest presidents,” Rubin told the New York Times in late January, in an article that also cites him as being unaware of faculty discontent with Summers’ leadership style.

The rest of the members of the Corporation, aside from Summers himself, have remained similarly silent.

But sources close to the two men say that Rubin’s reticence is anything but unusual.

“Bob Rubin is the master of the unspoken word,” says David J. Rothkopf, who served as deputy undersecretary of commerce for international trade policy in the Clinton administration.

“Rubin’s a quiet guy who’s extremely good at letting his silence speak volumes,” Rothkopf adds. “And that silence allows Rubin to work behind the scenes [and probably] to do what he feels is the most productive way to produce the best outcome for Harvard.”

Kennedy School of Government Professor of Public Service David R. Gergen, who served as a counselor to Clinton, affirms that Summers and Rubin have remained close since January.

“Bob Rubin was one of the primary people he reached out to for assistance during the storm,” says Gergen, who has advised three other former presidents besides Clinton.

Gergen adds that Rubin still wholeheartedly supports Summers even though he has said little publicly.

“I was in some conversations with Bob and Larry during the height of the storm, [and] I saw no change in the dynamic from what I remember in Washington,” Gergen says. “Bob is very sympathetic and has enormous confidence in his leadership as president of the University.”

“THE PERFECT COMBINATION”

In Washington and on Wall Street, Rubin gained a reputation for coolness under pressure and seemingly unshakable confidence, yet also a striking sense of humility.

Armed with degrees from Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Yale Law School, Rubin had worked briefly as an attorney at the New York law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton before heading to Wall Street.

He climbed the corporate ladder at Goldman Sachs from 1966 to 1992, serving as co-chairman during his last two years there.

Rothkopf asserts that Rubin’s time at the Wall Street firm may have fostered his self-deprecating nature.

“Goldman Sachs...is as close to a meritocracy as any company on the planet,” he says. “The ego issues are really set aside in terms of what benefits the group.”

When Clinton took office in 1993, he tapped Rubin to direct the newly created National Economic Council.

Summers, meanwhile, was appointed undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs from his previous position as chief economist at the World Bank. Before that, he had become, at 28, the youngest tenured professor in Harvard’s history.

In 1995, Rubin was chosen to lead the Treasury Department, and Summers was made his deputy.

In their years together at the Treasury, the two dealt with financial crises in Mexico and in Asia, as well as presiding over the longest period of economic expansion in U.S. history.

Summers and Rubin became known as a formidable economic duo in the Washington Beltway.

Gergen says that he is “hard pressed to remember any team that worked so well together.”

“We had the perfect combination of Wall Street and the academy,” he adds.

Rothkopf notes the Rubin’s and Summers’ personal attributes complemented one another at the Treasury.

“Bob Rubin is famous as a listener; Larry is famous for being an idea engine. Rubin is extremely canny at interpersonal politics; Larry is a force of nature and is focused less on the niceties of personal skills. Rubin is a market guy; Larry is an economic theory guy,” Rothkopf says. “All these skill sets ended up making them the most powerful team anywhere in the United States government.”

“The Treasury Department was the center of gravity of the Clinton administration,” he adds, “and the center of gravity at the Treasury Department was Rubin and Summers.”

While conventional wisdom holds that Rubin served purely as Summers’ mentor, Gergen contends that the relationship was in fact “a two-way street.”

“Larry was serving as the intellectual half of that team,” Gergen says. “He brought the theoretical understanding that Bob gained from.”

Rubin explains in his autobiography, “In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington,” that after Clinton’s reelection he worked out a proposal to stay on as secretary for two more years, provided that Summers take his place. He reached “an agreement in principle” with the president—a confidential, but not guaranteed, deal known only to a handful of White House officials at the time.

Although the agreement remained a secret, many observers noted that Rubin appeared to be “grooming” Summers to succeed him.

“It was clear that Larry was the heir apparent,” Gergen says.

Summers and Rubin appeared with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on the cover of a February 1999 issue of Time magazine, which dubbed them “the Three Marketeers” on “the Committee to Save the World.”

Rubin stayed at his post until the spring of 1999—slightly longer than he had planned, delayed by the global economic crisis and Clinton’s impeachment battle. He then joined Citigroup as a director, a position he still holds today.

BACK AT HARVARD

As Harvard searched for a new president, Summers emerged as one of the top contenders for the position in early 2001.

Rubin called three members of the presidential search committee who were hesitant about appointing Summers to the position, telling them that Summers had smoothed out his “rough edges” in Washington.

“Rubin made us confident we weren’t getting a bull,” a committee member told The Boston Globe at the time.

Rubin’s assurances appear to have helped: the search committee unanimously recommended Summers. The Board of Overseers, which had the final say in the matter, also approved Summers by a unanimous vote.

After nearly a year with Summers at the helm, the Corporation selected Rubin to fill a vacancy on its seven-member board.

When asked if his closeness to Summers might affect his ability to serve on the Corporation, Rubin told The Crimson in 2002 he did not expect it to be an issue.

“Larry and I have agreed and disagreed on issues for better than 25 years,” he said.

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.