C.I.A. GRANT RAISES QUESTIONS ON RESEARCH RULES AT HARVARD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100020039-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: November 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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(?t nr ~= NEW YORK TIMES
5 November 1985
C.I.A. Grant Raises Questions on Research Rules at Harvard
By COLIN CAMPBELL
Special to The Now York Times
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Several
years ago, according to Nadav Safran,
a professor of Middle Eastern studies
at Harvard, a representative of the
Central Intelligence Agency dropped
by his office to ask what he was work-
ing on.
Dr. Safran, now the director of Har-
vard's Center for Middle Eastern Stud-
ies, showed the man from the C.I.A. the
draft of part of a book he had been writ-
ing on Saudi Arabia. The visitor looked
it over, said he found it interesting and
asked if the agency could help Dr. Sa-
fran complete his research.
Such were the beginnings, according
to Dr. Safran, of a "private," "confi-
dential" $107,430 research contract
with the C.I.A.
The disclosure of the contract last
month, together with the disclosure of
a more recent C.I.A. grant to Dr. Sa-
fran of x,700 to help finance a confer-
ence on politics and Islam, have led
Harvard officials to inquire both into
Dr. Safran's conduct and into the ex-
tent to which other confidential Gov-
ernment work may be floating around
the university.
They have asked, moreover, if the
university's rules, which prohibit out-
side sponsors from financing secret re-
search at Harvard, may be vague and
subject to misunderstandings.
The case has led to additional ques-
tions of whether Government-sup-
ported secret research at universities
across the country has been increasing,
and whether such research should be
permitted at all.
Nature of Research at Issue
The dean of the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, A. Michael Spence, an-
nounced after the disclosures that Dr.
Safran should have told Harvard about
the conference grant, which would nor-
mally have been made public. The con-
tract for the grant has not yet been
made public, and Harvard administra-
tors refuse to discuss the case until
they have finished an investigation.
Dr. Safran has said that the book con-
tract with the C.I.A. was between him
and the agency, that the research was
private and that this arrangement was
within the rules for research grants at
Harvard.
The contract, dated April 13, 1982,
and signed by Dr. Safran a few weeks
later, provides for the preparation of a
report examining "the relationship of
defense, security, and foreign relations
issues in Saudi Arabia," as presented
by Dr. Safran to the C.I.A.'s Deputy Di-
rector for Intelligence. The intelligence
or analytic branch of the C.I.A., Dr. Sa-
fran and some of his defenders say,
must be distinguished from the agen-
cy's operations branch, which engages
in covert activities.
Research Published as Book
The report that the C.I.A. contract
called for, Dr. Safran said, became a
book, "Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless
Quest for Security," published this fall
by the Harvard University Press.
The, contract also called for addi-
tional' papers and services, including
"three consultations with you at the
Langley facility," various progress re-
ports and also a separate, shorter study
to be "produced by an advanced gradu-
ate student" under Dr. Safran's guid-
ance that would "examine whether a
modern middle class is taking root in
Saudi Arabia."
"We are particularly interested in
the changing makeup and background
of the military," the contract said.
"The analysis should conclude with
judgments about the implications of
this development for political stability
over the next two to eight years."
In addition to paying Dr. Safran, the
grant would cover the expenses of two
research assistants, a secretary, a
leased word processor, books, tele.
phone, computing services and travel.
"The principal place of performance
shall be the contractor's facility 1o-
cated at Harvard University," the con-
tract states. An amendment to this
provision includes Dr. Safran's home
as well as Harvard.
Abridging Academic Freedom
Dr. Safran also agreed not to
",;oecify Agency sponsorship" of his
research in any publications unless au-
thorized. Moreover, an amendment
saying that the research would be
"based on open sources" and not on se-
cret intelligence still reserved "the
Government's right to review and ap-
prove any and all intended publica.
tions." It also stressed "the Govern-
ment's right to deny permission to pub.
lish."
For university-sponsored research,
many American institutions, including
Harvard, forbid such restrictions on
the ground that academic freedom
would be abridged.
C.I.A. spokesmen have said that the
estrictions in Dr. Safran's book con-
ract were standard. One spokesman,
denied that such research
as "secret." She called it "confiden-
ial."
When Dr. Safran finished the manu-
script, he said, the C.I.A. approved it
without a change.
Arthur J. Rosenthal, the director of
the Harvard University Press, said the
press had known nothing about the
C.I.A. support. This was the first time,
so far as he knew, that a book under the
Harvard imprint had been subsidized
by the C.I.A.
Dr. Safran denied assertions that his
work might have been slanted by its
C.I.A. connection. "I'm a sovereign
scholar," he said.
'Anxiousness to Preserve Access'
His earlier books on the Middle East
gained him a reputation as an un-
usually clear-headed analyst, and
"Saudi Arabia" was favorably re-
viewed in The New York Times Book
Review on Oct. 6. The book was offi-
cially published Oct. 18, and few other
reviews have yet appeared.
His critics, who have asked for his
resignation from the Middle Eastern
Studies post, have said that a known
C.I.A. connection could threaten ac-
cess to certain nations and individuals.
a point Dr. Safran conceded. But he as-
serted that an "anxiousness to pre-
serve access" could itself slant a
scholar's judgment.
In any case, he said, he had discussed
the C.I.A. book contract with the uni
versity and had been told that Harvard
concerned itself only with contracts
that formally involved Harvard, and
not with "personal" grants.
He would not name the Harvard offi-
cial he had consulted, and he said he
did not know if the official had actually
read the C.I.A. contract.
Edward Keenan, who was dean of the
Graduate School and also director of
the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
when Dr. Safran got his book grant, re-
called that Dr. Safran had told him he
was applying for a C.I.A. grant but that
it sounded "personal" and was there-
fore none of the university's business.
"I didn't discuss it very seriously be-
cause the center wasn't going to get in-
volved," said Dr. Keenan, a scholar of
medieval Russia. He said he had never
seen a C.I.A. contract.
Some Scholars Avoid Conference
Some others at the Center for Middle
Eastern Studies also knew about the
agency's financing of the book, includ-
ing a graduate student who helped with
research; Dennis N. Skiotis, the cen-
ter's associate director, and Barbra
Ek, an assistant.
A handful of other scholars knew of
the C.I.A. role in the recent conference
on Islam, according to Daniel Pipes, a
professor of strategy at the Naval War
College in Newport, R.I. Dr. Pipes par-
ticipated in the conference. A dozen
other scholars stayed away.
Dr. Keenan said that researchers
prefer contracts as private consultants
rather than grants involving Harvard,
which always require large payments
to Harvard to cover the use of univer-
sity facilities. "In a certain sense no
one in his right mind takes a contract
on this side of the street when he can
take it on his side of the street," Dr.
Keenan said.
Dr. Safran has been quoted as saying
that he got an individual grant for the
conference on Islaau because he did not
want to pay the university's high over-
head. Dean Spence has announced that
the conference used Harvard's name
and facilities and was therefore an offi-
cial Harvard grant, and that Dr. Safran
misread the university's rules.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100020039-6