<p>The Crimson Coup
The inside story of how blundering, lies, and revenge brought down Harvard president Larry Summers.
By Richard Bradley</p>
<p>Probably the first sign that Larry Summers was in more than his usual trouble was the standing ovation the faculty gave to Bill Kirby, the dean the Harvard president had just forced out. </p>
<p>It was late in the afternoon of Tuesday, February 7, and the Harvard faculty had gathered on the second floor of University Hall in Harvard Yard. Faculty meetings usually attract only a few dozen professors, but on this day the Faculty Room was packed. </p>
<p>Tension had been building on campus ever since the night of Friday, January 27, when the Harvard Crimson had reported that Summers was firing Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean William Kirby, a historian he had appointed to that post less than four years before. The faculty, which had mixed feelings about Kirby but was coming to believe that Summers would accept no dean who possessed even a shred of autonomy, was not pleased. </p>
<p>By tradition, Kirby rose to lead the meeting. As he did, the 200 professors in attendance rose with him, saluting their outgoing colleague. The ovation lasted more than a minute. To Summers, the rebuke was surprising, if not mortifying. Larry was fairly certain that people were so disgruntled with Bill that [firing him] would not be a big deal, says a professor familiar with Summerss thinking. In fact, it created an enemy who would actively seek the presidents downfall. ..."
<a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/the_crimson_coup%5B/url%5D">http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/the_crimson_coup</a></p>
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In a profession that is no stranger to elaborate ethical elisions -- journalism -- the name Richard Blow is synonymous with a rarefied form of perfidy. As executive editor of George magazine, Blow told staffers not to talk about George founder John F. Kennedy Jr. shortly after the young man's death -- at the request of the family, he later told The New York Times. Blow then turned around and signed a book and TV deal capitalizing on his own friendship with Kennedy.</p>
<p>The resulting ''American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr." was a No. 1 bestseller, and a touchstone for controversy. ''To call Richard Blow a low-rent opportunist would be unfair," the Hartford Courant opined in 2002. ''To low-rent opportunists, that is."</p>
<p>Blow -- who has since changed his name to Bradley to escape the pop-culture connotations of his surname -- has completed ''Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World's Most Powerful University." The book is scheduled for publication by HarperCollins in March.