Hirschorn says that The Crimson received previous versions of Safran’s book, which contained sections that had been redacted and never released to the public.

In addition, he says that Safran had been a major figure in the Middle East and had personal relationships with many public figures in the region.

“He had access to the top levels of all those governments, and was essentially in the secret pay of the CIA at the time,” Hirschorn says. “If you’re an Egyptian foreign minister attending this [conference], you would presumably be attending under the assumption that this was an academic gathering and a safe place to discuss things, as opposed to an extension of the CIA.”

Upon learning of the conference’s funding source, half of the participants refrained from attending. One even flew directly back to Cairo after landing in Boston and learning of Safran’s dealings.

A CLIMATE OF DISTRUST

Safran’s interactions with the CIA were significant in helping to develop the University’s policies towards proper conduct when accepting government funds.

But he was not the only professor whose dealings with the CIA would become controversial.

In 1986, two Harvard-affiliated professors, Samuel P. Huntington and Richard K. Betts ’69, were criticized after it was discovered that an article they had published in the Harvard journal “International Security” was based on research funded by the CIA—but did not mention the CIA as a funding source.

The report on instability following the death of third-world dictators was entirely unclassified, according to Betts, who was an independent consultant to the intelligence community at the time.

Nevertheless, the CIA requested that its name be kept off the publication so that the views expressed in the research would not be connected to the American government—a national security concern that Betts says he considers entirely justified.

“More frank work can be done if the government is not associated with the analysis,” Betts explains.

Controversy arose when the CIA connection was discovered, and the academic community found fault with Betts and Huntington for concealing the source of funding.

Betts says that he was very clear with the managing editor of “International Security”—who, according to Betts, “forgot” the conversation about the origins of the research.

“In retrospect, it should have all been done in writing,” Betts says.

The former Harvard visiting professor attributes much of the unease about the situation to the “axiomatic suspicion in the academic community” towards the government, following the radicalism of the 1960s and the Vietnam War.