A Harvard professor who says he accepted a $50,000 Central Intelligence Agency grant without informing the University, as rules require, also accepted more than $100,000 in CIA money to help research a just-published book.

The book contains no mention of the funding.

Sources said Nadav Safran, director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, accepted $107,430 from the CIA in April 1982 to help support his writing of "Saudi Arabia, The Ceaseless Quest for Security," published last month by Harvard University Press.

The book's preface does not note the CIA funding, but does acknowledge financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rand Corporation.

One student who worked on the book with Safran for three years said last night he had no knowledge of the CIA funding. But reports of the CIA funding were confirmed last night by sources familiar with the book. The Boston Globe also reports today that it has obtained a copy of the CIA contract with Safran, dated April 13, 1982, and reportedly signed by him.

Safran, Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, refused to discuss the book's funding in an interview last night.

Safran, a member of the Government Department faculty, has come under investigation by Harvard officials for failing to inform the University of an approximately $50,000 CIA grant, which Safran said he accepted for a closed conference next week on Islam and Muslim politics.

Faculty rules require Harvard professors to inform it of all outside funding in advance. Rules also require professors to pay the University a two-third share of all outside grants to help defray overhead costs incurred by the University.

Safran met with Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence yesterday to answer the dean's questions about the conference funding, which Spence said Wednesday were "a matter of serious concern to me."

Safran said yesterday that he told Spence that he "was at fault in not informing the University that we are holding the conference."

"There is no attempt to cheat the University out of any money, but it is a convienient way of getting funding for the center with no strings attached," Safran said.

Harvard officials said that the fact of CIA sponsorship was not of unusual concern, since the CIA is but one of numerous federal agencies which support campus research projects.

But, officials with the Office for Sponsored Research said Wednesday, they have no record of any communication from Safran informing them of the CIA conference grant.

Officials indicated that Safran might have violated Harvard funding routines by failing to inform them of the grant, but it is unclear whether Spence or any other official has determined this for certain.

Safran last night disputed the statements of officials who say they have been unaware of the CIA conference grant, saying that he informed Harvard of the grant last month. He said he received the grant in the spring, after discussing his idea for the conference with "an agency man who was around at the time."