More than two years ago, President Neil L. Rudenstine took office and quickly tried to portray himself as a pleasant man with a steady hand and a decisive plan.

He was going to move quickly to change the University's administrative structure and smooth over rough spots. He was going to be accessible, answering letters promptly and speaking expansively about Harvard's role in the world.

But this year, the University got a glimpse of a very different Rudenstine. This version was prickly, secretive and, at times, maddeningly ineffectual.

This Rudenstine was shaken by several disappointments. With a few choice words about the decline of the Business School, dean John H. McArthur successfully upstaged the unveiling of Rudenstine's treasured academic planning report. The president himself had labored for months over the manuscript.

Worse still, the man who promised to bring together the University's decentralized departments seemed unable to control his kitchen cabinet of advisers and vice presidents in Massachusetts Hall.

The cruelest blow was the sudden departure of Provost Jerry R. Green in mid-April. Green had been the president's hand-chosen pick for a post that Rudenstine himself created. News reports suggested that Green, who was charged with fulfilling the Rudenstinian vision of bringing the schools together, had grown tired of the slow, cautious management style of his boss.

In addition, the president labored for months to fill two of the University's five vice-presidencies. After an interminable 18-month search, Rudenstine finally settled on a new vice president for government, community and public affairs. But the job in finance, as of press time, remained open--nine months after Robert H. Scott announced he would vacate it.

And if the chaos in Massachusetts Hall was bad, its timing was worse.

Green's resignation came less than a month before the official kick-off of a $2.1 billion capital campaign, the largest in the history of higher education and a fund drive that is vital to the University's future.

Asked about the disarray in his central administration ,at a press conference to announce the campaignlast month, Rudenstine looked battle-worn. Heresponded testily, and incorrectly, that Green hadoffered an explanation for his departure. (Theprovost wrote The Crimson the next week to makeperfectly clear that he had said nothing toclarify the matter).

As the academic year closed, signs that thepresident was backing off his initial commitmentto integration of Harvard's administration beganto appear.

Some observers scratched their heads at a fewsentences that appeared in the May 13 issue of theHarvard Gazette, the administration's mouthpiece,in a section entitled "Questions and Answers Aboutthe University Campaign."

"Harvard's decentralized character is one ofits great strengths, promoting independence,entrepreneurship and accountability," the articlesaid. "This basic approach has served Harvard wellin the past, and will continue to do so in thefuture."

For a president who once called Harvard'sschools "fiendishly decentralized," Rudenstine'sallowing that statement into the Gazette may havebeen nothing more than an oversight.

Or it could have been the preamble to anabdication.

Silence