In a January interview with the weekly Jewish Advocate, Safran said his opponents tried to use "the Jewish factor" against him. He cited the attacks as an example "of how my opponents and enemies reached for whatever they could hit me with."

But Safran's detractors offered specific criticisms of his administration. Those critical of Safran, who has refused interviews repeatedly and has talked with The Crimson once since the initial disclosures that he used CIA funding to sponsor a conference on Islam last fall, often turn to discussion of Safran's interaction with his colleagues or to his fundraising efforts.

"Damn it all," says one professor with ties to the center, his voice rising with emotion, "What [Safran] did was he came in, fired people left and right, and set up his own kitchen cabinet, and acted like an Egyptian pharoah."

Broadening his remarks to include his colleagues, the professor continues: "There are a lot of people who want to defend Safran instead of the Center. And defend him from what? So he made a mistake. Why doesn't he admit it? What are they thinking?"

Hassan Namazee '72 says he encountered so much resistance from Safran whan he funded a fellowship to benefit Iranian students and Iranian scholarship that he discontinued the program after its first year.

According to Namazee, the program, which he says would have provided $50,000 annually, was not under the auspices of the Center but called on the Center's head to serve on an administrative committee together with four others.

Namazee says "a desire on [Safran's] part to run the committee without the help of the committee" motivated him to stop funding the program after a year.

"It simply got to the point where he did not get his way in a cetain matter, and he resigned in a huff," explains Namazee, who discontinued the fellowship during the 1984-85 academic year.

"People who have supported the Center in the past are not supporting it right now," he says.