Safran also said Wednesday that he accepted CIA funding for a conference last year on the Persian Gulf. But last night, Safran reversed himself, denying in an interview his initial statements and saying that the Persian Gulf conference was not funded with CIA money. He would not say where money for that conference came from.

In today's Boston Globe, Safran is quoted as saying that yesterday's Crimson story about the CIA funding of the conference made "gross distortions." The Globe said he declined to confirm or deny any specific statements published in The Crimson's account.

Spence refused any comment yesterday beyond his Wednesday statement in which he said he was investigating the conference funding. Spence told The Globe, however, that he would widen his probe of Safran's handling of the initial CIA grant to investigate additional concerns about the grant for the book.

The CIA has refused to comment about the grants.

Gary Samore, a former Harvard graduate student credited by Safran in the book's preface, said last night that during the three-to-four-year period he worked for the professor, Safran did not tell him he had received CIA money.

Samore, who now lives in California, said he was only aware that the Rand Corporation, a California think-tank, had provided money for the book.

Samore said that when he began working on the book around 1980, the Rand Corporation provided his salary. Subsequently, Samore said, he entered a Harvard graduate program, where he worked as a research assistant on the book for Safran and was paid out of Harvard coffers.

According to Safran, the CIA-funded conference scheduled for the Faculty Club next Tuesday and Wednesday will draw about 90 prominent Middle Eastern scholars from around the world. Conference proceedings will be off-the-record and closed to the public and press, but Safran said results of the meetings will eventually be published.

Nearly a dozen conference participants contacted this week said they were unaware that the CIA had provided funding for the event. But one participant, Daniel Pipes, a former Harvard junior faculty member now teaching at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., said he has been aware of the source of the funding but that it was not of concern to him.

In light of the Spence investigation of Safran's CIA funding, however, several Harvard scholars connected with the Middle Eastern Studies Center said yesterday they were surprised and concerned that Safran would have solicited CIA funding.

The scholars, some of them former directors of the research center, said they do not believe the center had accepted funding from the CIA in at least a decade. They said that grants from the CIA, Middle Eastern governments and other "interested parties" were rejected by the center because of a perceived "conflict of interest," one source said.

Gilbert Fuchsberg assisted in this report.