[2] According to Zachary Lockman: The scandal erupted when it became known that Safran had taken $45,700 from the Central Intelligence Agency to fund a major international conference he was hosting at Harvard on "Islam and Politics in the Contemporary Muslim World"—a hot topic at the time and one of obvious interest to the CIA.
A month later the Middle East Studies Association censured Safran on the grounds that his actions had violated its 1982 resolution calling on scholars to disclose their sources of research funding.
Safran intimated that his critics were motivated by anti-Semitism, but after an internal investigation at Harvard he agreed to step down as center director at the end of the academic year.
[excessive quote][3] After the ensuing scandal was extensively covered in The Harvard Crimson and The Boston Globe, Safran resigned his position as the head of the Middle East Center.
Safran had been honored with fellowships from Harvard, Yale and Princeton Universities, from the Sheldon, Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.