In search for expertise, Harvard looms large
CAMBRIDGE - When Barack Obama sought advice before a critical Senate vote on the terrorist surveillance program earlier this year, he called his friend and former colleague Cass Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School.
When the Democratic presidential candidate convened a national security summit last summer, one of the hand-picked participants was Graham Allison, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Obama's healthcare plan, meanwhile, was formulated by David M. Cutler, a Harvard economics professor.
Nearly two-dozen members of the Harvard faculty - some of whom have known Obama since he arrived at Harvard Law School two decades ago - played a central role in shaping the policy views of the next president, as either formal advisers or informal consultants. From legal affairs and climate change to foreign affairs and the economy, they served as a backstop for his presidential campaign and some regularly exchanged phone calls and text messages with the candidate.
Now, as President-elect Obama begins putting together his administration, his Harvard brain trust is hoping to fill prominent positions in Washington - as top White House advisers, senior political appointees, Cabinet chiefs, or judicial nominees. Indeed, some longtime observers predict Obama's election will mark a major new chapter in Harvard's influence at the top rungs of the government - perhaps on a scale not seen since Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960.
"There is a broad and deep Harvard connection and I think it will serve him well," said Charles J. Ogletree, a specialist on racial justice who mentored Obama when he arrived in Cambridge in the late 1980s and who continues to dole out personal and policy advice to his former student and friend. That connection, he believes, "helps navigate this challenge of bringing change to Washington."
Harvard has a long history of advising both Democratic and Republican presidents. Starting with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a slew of Harvard faculty members and administrators have been recruited to leave their perches along the Charles River to take up residence along the Potomac. A full quarter of Cabinet members over the past three decades have been former Harvard students, overseers, or staff, according to John Trumpbour, editor of "How Harvard Rules," a history of the university's role in shaping national policies.
Some administrations, like Kennedy's and Richard Nixon's, were known for their abundance of Harvardites and other intellectuals. The Kennedy administration enlisted so many that after his election Kennedy, a Harvard graduate and overseer, quipped to WHRB, a student radio station, that "We are starting up a university of our own of Harvard in Washington."
"There is nothing left at Harvard except Radcliffe," commentator James Reston remarked at the time.
But the Kennedy brain trust - later inherited by Lyndon Johnson - is also known for the mixed results that followed, especially the handling of the Vietnam War, and some say Obama would be foolish to overdose on academics who have relatively little political experience.
"Academics often don't live in the same world as the rest of the country," said Matthew C. Woessner, a professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg who supported Obama's opponent, Republican John McCain. "They are engaged in the exploration of ideas. Most don't have to make a payroll or, if they have tenure, worry about job security or fluctuations in the economy. Most academics don't have a good grasp on America's political center."
Obama and his advisers, for their part, insist he will recruit a cross-section of individuals from academia, the business world, and government - much like he did during his historic campaign for the White House.
But there is no mistaking the extent to which a new generation of Harvard minds is poised to descend on Washington, some for repeat tours, others for the first time.
Indeed, Hauser Hall, on the law school campus, could double as an Obama campaign outpost. The directory in the lobby includes half a dozen professors who have played the role of adviser or stump surrogate.
Several were Obama's mentors at Harvard Law School - like Ogletree, Laurence Tribe, and Martha Minow.
Minow, who later served on a commission with then-State Senator Obama, says of the president-elect: "He always wants to hear the competing arguments."
When Obama asked Ogletree to be a senior adviser, he told his mentor - whom he fondly calls "Tree" - to impart "anything you think I need to know and anything you think I need to hear,' " Ogletree recalled in a recent interview.
Tribe, who hired Obama as his research assistant in 1989, is an informal adviser on rule of law issues who delivered speeches on Obama's behalf.
Einer Elhauge, a legal conservative who stumped for Obama, could be in line for a senior anti-trust post, some say. Like many Obama advisers and confidants at Harvard he declined to be interviewed. "I will have to pass until the transition press staff is up and running."
Meanwhile, law professor Elizabeth Warren, who advised the campaign on bankruptcy issues, first met Obama at a Cambridge fund-raiser organized by colleague David Wilkins for Obama's 2004 US Senate bid. As recently as Wednesday, she was sought out by Obama's staff on transition issues, she said.
"There are a lot of people in his background [here] who all along have advised and counseled him," Warren said.
The Harvard-Obama orbit has also attracted people like Allison - a Reagan and Clinton-era Pentagon official - who have served previous administrations and were sought out by Obama or his campaign. Allison said in an interview that Obama reached out to him after reading his book, "Nuclear Terrorism," during a fact-finding trip to the former Soviet Union in late 2005.
Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, meanwhile, has been frequently consulted and recently floated as a possible candidate to take his old job as Treasury chief, although a vocal group of liberal Democrats are already making known their opposition.
Some of them say he is partially responsible for the deregulation in the 1990s that led to the current financial crisis, while others cite his controversial comments about the female intellect as disqualifying him.
Another Washington veteran who has been advising Obama is Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, who was assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance in the Clinton years.
Uniquely, Obama's Harvard brain trust includes many newer faces as well. They are younger, more diverse, and generally less experienced in government service, but possibly more influential.
There is Cutler, 42, Obama's senior healthcare policy adviser, and Jeffrey Liebman, 40, a professor of public policy at the Kennedy School who advises on Social Security and other retirement issues. Samantha Power, the 38-year-old Harvard foreign policy specialist and former Obama adviser, has been mentioned by some experts as a possible candidate for a senior post.
Another newer face is Daniel Kammen, 46, a former lecturer at the Kennedy School who earned his doctorate in physics at Harvard and is Obama's senior energy and environment adviser.
Then there are Obama's former law school classmates. Preeta Bansal advises Obama on human rights. Michael Froman, a former adviser to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, is a key purveyor of economic advice and, some predict, could become Obama's top economic adviser in the White House.
Julius Genachowski, former chief counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, has handled technology issues on the campaign.
Froman, Genachowski, and Christopher Edley, another of Obama's Harvard Law School professors, were named as members of his presidential transition team yesterday.
A major difference between many of the current generation of Harvard advisers and those who influenced previous presidential hopefuls, such as Clinton or Jimmy Carter, according to Ogletree, is that many know Obama personally.
"They didn't know Carter," said Ogletree, proudly displaying a photo of him and Obama at a 2005 reunion. "They didn't know Clinton."
Still, the real measure of their influence may not be in the number of government positions they hold, according to Tribe, who still has the appointment book from 1989 where he marked down Obama's name after the first-year law student knocked on his office door. "Shaping his thinking as a policy maker may be as important as serving in the government."
Globe correspondent Jenny Paul contributed to this article. Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. 