Larry Summers’ wife downplayed Epstein’s role in her Harvard project

At the time, Epstein had served a sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution and had been banned from donating to Harvard, yet continued to socialize with the university’s academics.

When New later requested — and received — Epstein’s feedback on a rough edit of the interview, she passed along his thoughts without identifying him in a cryptic note to her Harvard staff.

“Notes from our woody diplomat,” she wrote in the email’s subject line.

New long kept her relationship with Epstein under wraps as Poetry in America grew. The project, first nurtured with seed money from Harvard, flourished with a cash infusion from Epstein and a significant gift he solicited from a Wall Street friend. All the while, New hid or downplayed Epstein’s involvement, according to several current and former colleagues, as well as emails shared with the Globe.

When an employee probed for the identity of the “woody diplomat,” New demurred, revealing only that it was a mutual friend of Allen’s. In one internal list of supporters, Epstein was referred to simply as “Jeffrey.” And after Epstein in 2019 became the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation, in turn, putting a spotlight on a donation he had given to New, she told staff she barely knew him, one employee told the Globe.

Now, her crowning achievement is at risk.

A PBS spokesperson told the Globe on Tuesday that it had stopped distributing the series and removed it from its digital platforms. That decision was made last month after the US House released emails from Epstein’s estate that shed light on the extent of Epstein and New’s relationship. The show’s fifth season was set to air on PBS stations nationwide in the spring.

The board of New’s nonprofit, which operates “Poetry in America,” through a spokesperson said the show will need to “consider alternative distribution channels in the future.” The spokesperson also said the board has retained an outside law firm to conduct a review, but declined to comment further.

Many who worked on “Poetry in America” are feeling shellshocked to learn of the deep ties between Epstein and New.

“My jaw was on the floor,” said Aaron Blanton, who worked from 2014 to 2018 as a senior creative producer on the project. “I was just disgusted.”

New, in a statement to the Globe, defended her work and said she regrets taking Epstein’s money. She did not answer several questions about how she kept Epstein’s extensive role from her staff but did dispute having downplayed his donation when it became public.

“Taking the Epstein donation was deeply regrettable,” she said. “Free and accessible programming to spread the joys of poetry as widely as possible is not, and I look forward to continuing this effort.”

The Globe’s investigation sheds new light on Epstein’s reach inside the powerful university — five years after Harvard published its own report on his ties to the school. In that report, Harvard said it would not investigate Epstein’s $110,000 gift to support New’s work, because the money was not given directly to Harvard, but to her nonprofit.

But the Globe found Harvard both benefited from and underwrote the work of that nonprofit, Verse Video Education. The nonprofit was housed in office space donated by Harvard until 2019, and its employees worked for Harvard and were partially paid by the university, documents reviewed by the Globe show. Footage produced by New’s team also was often used both for Harvard courses and New’s show.

Harvard’s 2020 review missed several donations made or steered by the disgraced financier.

Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge in 2004.Corbis via Getty Images

In November, Harvard said it would undertake a new review of university figures named in the Epstein emails, including New and Summers. The school has declined to comment further on the review, such as who is completing it and the timeline. Harvard has also declined to comment on its ties with New’s nonprofit.

Among the gifts omitted in the university’s report was a large donation that Epstein brokered for New’s work at Harvard from private equity investor Leon Black. That gift came to light last month in the emails from Epstein’s estate. In a 2015 email to Epstein, New wrote the donation from Black “changed everything” for her at Harvard.

“It really means a lot to me, all financial help aside, Jeffrey, that you are rooting for me and thinking about me,” New wrote.

An emerita professor at Harvard who now works for Arizona State University, New told the Globe she was not asked to be interviewed for Harvard’s 2020 review. She said she was unaware when she took Epstein’s money in 2016 that Harvard had banned gifts from him.

“It was well known that Epstein had an office at Harvard and was involved in Harvard related fundraising,” she said.

Summers and New had enjoyed a cozy relationship with Epstein going back to at least 2005, when the couple spent part of their honeymoon on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.

In emails that span from 2013 to 2019, Summers and Epstein chatted like pals. In one 2018 exchange, Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man” and gave advice on pursuing a woman who considered the economist a mentor. The two mused about politics, gossiped about common acquaintances, and were in contact up until the day before Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges.

Summers remains a Harvard professor but recently stepped back from his teaching duties.

Poetry for the masses

New started “Poetry in America” as an online Harvard course and later partnered with WGBH, the Boston member station of PBS, to bring the program to television. It also includes courses for students from high school through graduate school and training resources for teachers.

A WGBH spokesperson said the station severed its ties with New in 2023 but declined to elaborate on the circumstances.

The Globe spoke with 10 people who have worked on “Poetry in America,” several of whom asked not to be named out of concern it would damage their careers to be linked to the Epstein saga.

Blanton said he started working for Harvard in 2014, moving from the West Coast to take a job video editing for New’s online course. Fresh out of college, Blanton had earned a name for himself in film when he and a classmate at the University of Oregon produced an anti-rape public service announcement that went viral and won a Peabody Award.

After New founded her nonprofit to expand “Poetry in America,” it paid roughly half of Blanton’s salary, with Harvard covering the balance. He and the team worked out of a first-floor office in the university’s Vanserg building, where Harvard also covered the cost of some office supplies like paper and water, according to records obtained by the Globe.

For Blanton, working on “Poetry in America” was a culture shock, exposing him to the rarefied world of two high-flying and influential academics in New and Summers. Blanton and the project’s team conducted interviews with celebrities, spent week-long stints editing footage at the couple’s house on Cape Cod, and flew to Aspen for tapings.

“It was a wild couple of years,” he said.

Blanton said he was aware of New’s fundraising efforts. Once, he recalled, Leah Reis-Dennis, the project’s cofounder and New’s second in command, referred casually to the show having a “mystery donor.” Blanton now believes she was referring to Epstein.

Reis-Dennis knew of Epstein’s involvement in the project, writing to him in 2015 to ask for his help securing a release from Allen, emails show. “Thank you, and I hope to meet you soon,” she signed off.

Reis-Dennis, an executive at the broadcast company Audacy who also remains a member of the board at Verse Video Education, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for New said numerous donors to the program have asked to be anonymous and any one of them might be referred to as a “mystery donor” in staff discussions.

‘A line in the sand’

Celebrity interviews such as the one with Allen were a key component of New’s project to make poetry less intimidating and more entertaining to a modern audience.

In a statement to the Globe, New said that when she pitched PBS on developing the series, Allen, who was coming off a blockbuster year with the success of his film “Blue Jasmine,” was a distinct draw.

In Allen’s segment, New and the film director debated whether the protagonist in William Carlos Williams’s poem “This Is Just To Say” was apologetic or defiant about eating a bowl of plums his partner had been saving for the morning.

Epstein had helped New set up the interview, down to the time and location at Allen’s New York City screening room, emails between the two show. New reached out to Epstein again to help secure permission to use the footage, even sharing with him a rough cut she planned to present to Allen.

In the 2016 email titled “notes from our woody diplomat,” New pasted Epstein’s suggestions.

“1. you are brilliant. I loved it.” he wrote. “2. I suggest you need video coaching. if you watch your moving hands, legs. glasses, hair, swiveling, etc. it greatly subtracts from your thoughtful arguments.”

Blanton replied to New, asking who provided the feedback.

New responded, “my friend who is woody’s friend and who got woody to tape with me and is now going (on March 2nd and 3rd when he’s with woody) to encourage him to approve what we do.”

Emails reviewed by the Globe show Allen agreed to the use of the footage in 2016. But the next year, at the height of the #MeToo movement, some staff grew uncomfortable with featuring Allen, who in 1997 had married the daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow and faced accusations of sexually abusing another daughter he and Farrow had adopted. Allen has denied the abuse allegations.

Several staff members threatened to pull their names from the credits if Allen’s segment aired, according to text messages and interviews. New met with her team in their offices on Harvard’s campus to hear their concerns, according to two people aware of the meeting.

“We all drew a line in the sand. We were like, ‘We’re really, really not comfortable with endorsing Woody Allen by putting him out on air,’” Blanton recalled.

Blanton said New seemed unconvinced, and the meeting ended without a resolution. But he said soon afterward, New decided to shelve the interview.

New told the Globe that she and WGBH executives mutually decided to pull the Allen footage.

In 2018, New wrote to Epstein to say she was sorry about the outcome.

“I will keep the ‘bootleg’ episode and hope to release someday,” she wrote. “It’s so good, and he was so kind to read the poem with me and you were so kind to make it happen.”

Blanton said he was heartened when Allen referenced the ordeal in his 2020 autobiography, “Apropos of Nothing.” In the book, Allen recounts the many ways he was canceled because of the claims against him.

“I was cut out of a series on poetry by PBS,” Allen wrote.

After the internal Allen controversy, Epstein remained involved behind the scenes at “Poetry in America,” including advising New on potential interview subjects, emails show. But in 2019, as Epstein’s renewed legal troubles mounted, his donation to Verse Video Education came under public scrutiny for the first time.

New called a meeting with her staff where she described Epstein as a casual acquaintance who funded education projects, according to one person in attendance. She said she made a donation as restitution for taking Epstein’s money, later announcing it was for more than what Epstein gave her, and that it went to an organization that combats sex trafficking. The person who attended the meeting said New’s justification and response, at the time, seemed reasonable.

Epstein’s deep ties to New’s work have come as a surprise even to those close to the project.

“Never heard anything about it,” said Verse Video Education founding board member Robert Pinsky, an acclaimed poet. “I read about it in the newspaper, and I was quite surprised.”

Several former employees, including Blanton, told the Globe they believe New hid Epstein’s involvement from them because she knew they would have protested.

“She absolutely knew it would have been a problem,” Blanton said. “And that’s why we didn’t know.”

Deborah Peretz, who briefly worked as an editor on the show, said she was “disgusted” to learn of Epstein’s role.

“I’ve never had to stop and think where the money comes from,” she said. “But it’s pretty horrifying to think that it came from him.”

Tricia L. Nadolny can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at TriciaNadolny.07. Follow her on X @TriciaNadolny. Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @fernandesglobe.