Early on the morning of Thursday, March 13, 2008, Robert K. Steel, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, had breakfast with H. Rodgin Cohen, the senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell, the Wall Street law firm. The gregarious Steel '73 asked Cohen how things were going. "He said, 'I'm great, but I'm kind of pooped,' " Steel recalls. "I was up late, and there are a lot of challenges at Bear Stearns."