Summers could return to D.C., bringing baggage

He is viewed as brilliant adviser

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers (center left), with Barack Obama and other advisers yesterday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

WASHINGTON - Lawrence H. Summers, the former Harvard president, is among the most influential economic advisers to President-elect Barack Obama. He sat directly across from Obama during a meeting of his advisory board yesterday and stood by him at a press conference, fueling further speculation that he might move back into the job he held in the Clinton administration as secretary of the Treasury.

While Summers has long been viewed as one of the nation's brilliant economic thinkers, he also has a legion of critics, some of whom reemerged even more vocally this week. As a result, it is unclear whether Obama wants to put such a controversial figure in such a high-profile position, which arguably could make Summers the czar of economic policy.

Summers left the Harvard presidency under pressure in 2006 after a number of controversies, including his comment that innate gender differences might help explain why fewer women succeed in math and science professions. And, critics say, he played a role in financial deregulation that is a central cause for the economic crisis.

A women's rights group called The New Agenda, established earlier this year by former supporters of Hillary Clinton, this week urged Obama not to invite Summers into his administration. Amy Siskind, the group's cofounder, called Summers a "known misogynist" who "has an innate bias. . .that really affected a lot of women around the country."

Siskind argued that Summers's bias against women even played a role in the financial crisis because as President Clinton's Treasury secretary, he rejected a warning from Brooksley E. Born, then the chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, that regulation of financial derivatives was needed.

"It was Larry Summers who called her up and screamed at her," said Siskind, who argued that the financial meltdown might have been averted if Summers had listened to Born.

Born, reached at her office in a Washington law firm, declined to comment yesterday. Summers could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But Summers's many supporters said he is uniquely qualified to lead the country out of the current economic crisis.

"He is as visionary and insightful a thinker on economic affairs as there is in the United States and that's what we need now," said Richard Zeckhauser, a Harvard professor of political economy and longtime friend of Summers.

Zeckhauser said that no one foresaw all of the signs of an impending financial crisis, so it would be unfair to blame Summers.

In addition to Summers, Obama was reported to be considering former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and Timothy Geithner, the New York Fed president who once worked as an assistant to Summers in the Treasury Department. Summers is one of a number of former Clinton administration officials on Obama's list of Cabinet prospects, which has prompted discussion on cable television and blogs about whether Obama is trying to win over those who want a return to the Clinton years or is testing those who are urging him to make a clean break from the past.

Summers, in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show yesterday, declined to say whether Obama has talked to him about being Treasury secretary.

Summers said his role as an Obama adviser is "to help think about how we can move this economy forward with the greatest decisiveness, with the greatest possible energy, at what is a critical time, probably the most serious economic situation we've faced since the Depression." He said he is advising Obama to adopt an economic stimulus package that would focus on rebuilding infrastructure, while also helping people pay their energy bills and healthcare costs.

Summers served as undersecretary and secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, a generally prosperous time. Bill Clinton gave emergency loans to Mexico, which was in a financial crisis, saying that its stability was in the interest of the United States. Noting that the US government eventually made a profit, Summers cited that example in urging Obama to support the $700 billion bailout program passed by Congress last month.

After leaving government, Summers served a stormy five years as president of Harvard. The most publicized episode centered on his remark about an innate difference between men and women. While Summers apologized, the comment outraged many at Harvard and elsewhere.

Nancy Hopkins, an MIT professor of biology who attended the meeting at which Summers made the remarks and walked out in protest, said yesterday that it would be "absurd" that someone "who thinks that half of the students at Harvard are genetically inferior" should be nominated for such as an important job as Treasury secretary.

"This is not change I can believe in," Hopkins said, paraphrasing Obama's campaign slogan.

But Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economics professor, said that Summers respects women. "The president of the university should engage in open intellectual questioning and discussion and should be able to ask any question that comes to mind," Goldin said.

Harry Lewis, a professor of computer science who says he was pushed out of his job as dean of Harvard College by Summers, said the concerns about Summers were broader than the controversy about his comments about women. Lewis questioned whether Summers was being straightforward with Harvard faculty when he said he didn't know much about the extent of the university's involvement in a Russian investment by a friend of Summers that cost Harvard millions of dollars and damaged its reputation. Summers has said he had recused himself from dealings about the matter.

In a 2006 book, Lewis wrote that Summers was "as much of a bully as a bull in a china shop, and his contempt extended not just to individuals but to entire fields of study. . . .None of that would have mattered if his ideas had been inspiring."

Nonetheless, Lewis said he wasn't calling for Obama to reject Summers, saying, "I wouldn't presume to know what it takes to be a good Treasury secretary. I think we've got to hope in Barack Obama's good judgment on this."

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com