Mearsheimer and Walt did not return phone calls to their offices seeking comment this past week.

Dershowitz is preparing a rebuttal to the Mearsheimer and Walt article that will be posted on the KSG website. Ellwood said in a brief phone interview last night that he would allow "full-time Harvard faculty members" to post responses to KSG professors’ working papers on the school’s site.

Walt’s term as academic dean will be one year shorter than that of his predecessor, Frederick Schauer, who held the post from 1997 to 2002.

According to Ellwood, the "normal three-year cycle" of academic deans began when Albert Carnesale, who had held the position for a decade, became the KSG’s top dean in 1991. Ellwood took Carnesale’s place as academic dean.

But the cycle has been interrupted several times since, according to Ellwood.

After a year as academic dean, Ellwood left to take a senior position in the Clinton administration Department of Health and Human Services. Alan A. Altshuler served in the position for two years in Ellwood’s absence.

When Ellwood returned to Cambridge, he completed the remaining two years of his term.

"When you take the job, you agree to it for three years," Ellwood said. He added that Schauer agreed to a two-year extension. And he said that Walt served an extra year to assist with the transition at the school’s helm. Ellwood became the KSG’s top administrator in the summer of 2004.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.