But Summers’ audiences are frequently unimpressed by his qualifying remarks. His speech on women and science, as Summers has repeatedly pointed out, included such caveats as “my best guess, to provoke you” and “if my reading of the data is right” and “I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong.” Yet many of those who heard the talk pointed out Summers was still stating his opinion, no matter how often he qualified it.
Indeed, when Summers first said calls for divestment from Israel were anti-Semitic, in a speech at Memorial Church in September 2002, he concluded by saying, “I would like nothing more than to be wrong.” But to most observers on both sides of the issue, Summers clearly thought he was right.
‘A LITTLE BIT OF A REPUTATION’
The president’s speaking style, by his own admission, is not the stuff of Cicero. But to compensate for his oratorical shortcomings, Summers has mastered an essential art of public speaking: making fun of himself.
“An economist is someone who’s pretty good with figures but doesn’t quite have the personality to be an accountant,” Summers told alumni donors at the annual assembly of the Harvard College Fund last year. And at events outside Harvard, where he is often introduced with effusive praise, Summers frequently begins with a line cribbed from Lyndon B. Johnson. “Thank you very, very much for that overly kind introduction,” he said in Israel this December. “My father would have appreciated it, and my mother would have believed it.”
Summers’ penchant for self-deprecation has proven especially useful this semester as his speaking engagements have occurred under the specter of his comments on women in science. Professor of Public Service David R. Gergen—onetime adviser to Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and now Summers—has been largely responsible for the profusion of modesty and self-effacing humor in Summers’ speeches of late, according to a former Mass. Hall staffer who asked not to be named. Gergen did not respond to a request for comment through his assistant.
Speaking to the parents of junior undergraduates in Sanders Theatre this March, Summers addressed the elephant in the room early in his speech. “Since you may have heard I’ve got a little bit of a reputation for being provocative,” he said, “I’ll leave a few minutes to respond to anybody’s provocative question or comment that they want to ask.” (As it turned out, the parents had plenty to say; one father yelled out from the audience to call Summers a “jerk.”)
Humor helped defuse an uncomfortable situation for Summers in March at the physics department library, where he took questions from an audience largely unhappy with his record on women in science. Lisa Randall ’83, a professor of physics and harsh critic of Summers, was enlisted to introduce the president but could barely muster a kind word. “We’re perplexed how you could draw those conclusions,” Randall said of Summers’ NBER remarks, “given the lack of evidence.” Then she rolled her eyes and, sensing the awkwardness, blurted “sorry” before sitting down.
“Of all the introductions I’ve ever received,” Summers said, “that was surely the most recent.” Laughter broke the tension.
As he prepares to address his largest crowd of the year this afternoon, Summers will have to decide whether to reference the controversy that defined the past semester and will undoubtedly be on the minds of his audience. But women in science certainly won’t be the topic of his speech. “I expect to talk about the global development challenge and Harvard’s role within it,” Summers said in an interview last week. He added, “My focus will be on looking forward.”
—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.