Once the board sets the policy, it is up to HMC analysts and investors to decide how to parcel out the endowment into specific investments.

Several HMC analysts who worked at HMC during the period in question agreed with Meyer, saying that they had never discussed a specific investment with a director.

In fact, Meyer explains that HMC’s interest in Harken was not piqued by Stone, but rather by the chair of the Harken Board, Alan G. Quasha ’72.

Beyond the Stone-Bush connection, the HarvardWatch report cites the timing of HMC’s investment in Harken as an indicator of Bush’s influence on the investment.

Harvard first invested in Harken in 1986 within 30 days of Bush joining the company.

Meyer, who joined HMC in September 1990 but is familiar with the Harken investment, says that Bush had nothing to do with HMC’s decision to invest. That decision had already been determined before Bush ever came to Harken, Meyer said.

Michael R. Eisenson, a top HMC investment manager when HMC began investing in Harken, wrote in an e-mail that Bush’s involvement with Harken was unrelated to HMC’s investment decision.

“The decision was motivated not by political considerations but by the prospect of positive investment returns in an energy company, an area of interest to HMC at the time,” Eisenson writes.

But Emma S. Mackinnon ’04, a member of HarvardWatch, says she still questions HMC’s motives for investing in Harken.

“I don’t think we’re saying Bush was necessarily the reason Harvard got involved, but the fact Harken wasn’t doing well [when HMC invested in it] does call into question what Harvard’s motives were,” says Mackinnon, who is also a Crimson editor.

Nothing Unusual

In addition to questioning motives for the initial investment, HarvardWatch and others have also questioned the magnitude of Harvard’s investment in Harken.

By 1991, Harvard was investing about $28 million, or one percent of the endowment, in Harken.

Despite this large investment, Meyer says that HMC’s relationship with Harken is actually quite typical of its relationships with the companies in which it invests.

“This was larger than our typical investment, but not the largest. And we are quite often heavily involved in individual companies,” Meyer says.