Of course, Harvard is one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. Its imposing faculty has won far more Nobel Prizes than any other university, now approaching 170. However, a small minority of the people associated with Harvard have taken a wrong turn in life. A few of them have become felons, major pranksters, research fabricators, or powerful advocates of obnoxious ideas. This groundbreaking book takes a look at them.
Many of the people described in it are like their more upright counterparts; they truly excel in their endeavors. A Harvard College dropout murdered the most renowned architect of his time on top of one of his most famous buildings in front of three hundred people. Another college dropout sold a deadly energy drink throughout America. A further college dropout planned the largest armed robbery up to that time. A special two-year Harvard student planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to America's participation in World War II. One graduate of the college had the perhaps unique distinction of breaking both the Clayton and the Sherman antitrust acts. A second graduate of the college embezzled from the New York Stock Exchange while he was its president; a third terrorized the nation for nearly twenty years with his sixteen, sometimes deadly, mail bomb attacks; a fourth appeared to give the Soviets the greatest detailed information about the atomic bomb followed by descriptions of the hydrogen bomb; a fifth inadvertently invented the first computer worm; and a sixth provoked a national crisis in the Catholic Church. Two men from the college led separate campaigns to overthrow the Puerto Rican government. In one, four US congressmen were shot. You will see that disproportionate numbers of the college scoundrels majored in economics or played football.
A law school dropout fixed basketball games. A second made the largest net gain ever recorded from inside information about one stock. A graduate of the law school tear-gassed the New York Stock Exchange and another created false paperwork for seven thousand immigrants. A pedophile who graduated from the medical school brought fifty-six children to the United States. A business school dropout seems to be the richest man in the world ever to go to prison twice. A graduate of the business school triggered the largest American bankruptcy at the time; another created the greatest bank fraud. A PhD graduate initiated ransomware. A medical school resident committed perhaps America's most gruesome murder of a single person. One of the graduates of the Kennedy School of Government oversaw genocide in his own country. A Radcliffe graduate and her family took bribes totaling $1.5 billion or more.