Senior administrators said comments regarding controversial speakers that touched off a wave of criticism after they were reported last month were misinterpreted.The comments, made during a faculty meeting Feb. 1, most notably included University President Jehuda Reinharz using the phrase "weapons of mass destruction." Exactly to what he was referring is now a matter of dispute, with administrators saying the comments were grossly misinterpreted.

But the inference made by some professors at the meeting, that he was referring to two controversial Middle East scholars who have been invited to speak on campus, was reported by the Justice the following week.

Those comments drew outrage from one of the two scholars, Daniel Pipes, a conservative analyst popular in some political circles on campus. In an op-ed article in the Justice on Feb. 13, Pipes critcized Reinharz for comparing him to the other invited speaker, Norman Finklestein, and encouraged donors to reconsider their support for the University so long as its current president is at the helm.

Reinharz vehemently denied that he was comparing Pipes to Finklestein or referring to either as a "weapon of mass destruction," both in interviews and in a letter to Pipes. Meanwhile, some professors at the meeting said it was obvious that Reinharz was specifically referring to Pipes and Finkelstein as explosive speakers, but still some have stood by the president, agreeing that he was taken out of context.

At the Feb. 1 faculty meeting, Reinharz expressed his dismay about the high costs incurred by the University during former president Jimmy Carter's visit to campus in January.

It was clear that the high-profile visits of Carter and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz had sparked student interest in bringing other controversial speakers to campus, and Reinharz was concerned about Middle East dialogue on campus.

"I have a fear that these people who are being invited are weapons of mass destruction," he said at the meeting. And though he has not denied making such a statement, he insists he was referring more generally to the process by which speakers are brought to campus, one he fears leads opposing groups to invite speakers for the mere purpose of ideological retaliation against one another.

At the time of the meeting, Reinharz added, he was unaware of any plans to bring Finklestein or Pipes to campus. Such efforts had been reported in the weeks before the faculty meeting.

Still, Reinharz insisted that any inference made from his comments pointing to specific speakers is unfounded because he didn't mention them by name during his speech.

"They didn't even enter my mind. They were not even part of my consciousness," Reinharz said, referring to Pipes and Finkelstein.

In a letter to Pipes, Reinharz wrote, "I have never, nor would I ever think of linking your name to that of Norman Finklestein."

As Reinharz pointed out, Pipes has spoken on campus multiple times before. Reinharz wrote that, he believed, Pipes has "always been treated with the utmost respect."

Pipes seemed to accept Reinharz's reassurance in a reponse letter, also posted on the Web site, danielpipes.org.

"I welcome your assurance that you did not mention my name, or that of Norman Finklestein, together, or linked to the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction,'" Pipes wrote.

Informed late in the weekend about the uncertainty over what, exactly, Reinharz meant, Pipes maintained that he's still concerned about Brandeis.

"The other problems that I enumerated [in the op-ed article] remain unchanged and so does my advice to donors concerned with Israel's security and welfare," he wrote in an e-mail Monday.

The inference that Reinharz was referring to Pipes and Finklestein was first confirmed the night before the Feb. 6 publication by a Justice editor seeking elaboration on what the president meant by "weapons of mass destruction."

In a phone interview that night with Reinharz's executive assistant John Hose, who was not at the faculty meeting, said the president was referring to speakers who, "tend to inflame passions, whose mission is not so much discussion and education as it is theater, a show."

Asked if Reinharz meant speakers like Finklestein and Pipes, Hose said yes.

But he joined the president in disavowing those comments, saying last week that he was misunderstood by the editor.

Although most professors interviewed who attended the faculty meeting agreed that Reinharz made no specific mention of a speaker who might be likened to a weapon of mass destruction, some said that it was obvious Reinharz was referring to speakers currently being invited to campus, including Pipes and Finkelstein.

"It was certainly reasonable for listeners to make that particular connection, given the context and tone of his comments," Prof. Richard Gaskins (PHIL) wrote in an e-mail.

Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC), who helped organize Carter's visit, and Prof. Jonathan Pollack (COSI) were among others who said that the comments could be interpreted in this way.

Other professors, including Prof. Leslie Zebrowitz (HIST), who also served on the Carter committee, and Prof. Paul Jankowski (HIST), said Reinharz's comment implicated no specific individual. The official minutes support this notion. Jankowski chairs the faculty committee charged by Provost Marty Krauss to address community grievances over controversial campus events.

"My recollection is that he did not imply that students are currently inviting inflammatory speakers, only that some speakers if invited could be 'weapons of mass destruction,'" Jankowski wrote in an e-mail.

Reinharz and Hose aren't the only ones distancing themselves from reported comments. Nancy Winship, who leads the University's fundraising efforts, was reported as saying during the faculty meeting that e-mails from donors upset by Carter's visit "kept coming and coming."

But she told The Jewish Week the Justice misquoted her.

"I did not say the e-mails kept coming and coming," she said. "What I said, what I meant, was that every day we had a few e-mails. There was no barrage." She also told The Jewish Week that she had received maybe 40 such e-mails, but that administrators had quelled those concerns. She said it was not affecting the University's fundraising, but she wouldn't know for sure the financial impact of recent events until the spring, when the bulk of donations generally come in.