- Picture the scene. It's just days before the invasion
of Iraq. You're a hard-working undergraduate at Glasgow University studying
for your degree in political science, and standing before you in the lecture
theatre is your professor ñ a suave, erudite American.
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- What could be better for a young student trying to get
to grips with the affairs of the world than having a US professor explain
the pros and cons of regime change in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
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- There's one problem though. The professor's name is Richard
Mansbach and he worked for the CIA ñ the US spying agency equivalent
to Britain's MI6.
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- During his US career, Mansbach is known to have used
his own students to un wittingly carry out research for the CIA on perceived
"liberal" threats in western Europe such as unions, churches
and political activists.
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- A university spokeswoman said: "As far as we knew
he came here to teach. We can't confirm that he worked for the CIA. He
only taught at Glasgow University. He was not engaged in any research.
He never said he worked for the CIA."
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- She did admit, however, that staff had "heard allegations
that he did research in America for the CIA", adding: "He may
well have given advice to the American government."
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- The spokeswomen said that Mansbach had now returned to
America and is currently teaching at Iowa State University. She added that
Professor Andrew Lockyer, the head of politics, "could not say that
it [information about Mansbach's past as a CIA operative] was formally
mentioned to him".
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- Mansbach taught for one academic year ñ from 2002-2003
ñ as part of an exchange of senior academic staff between Iowa and
Glasgow universities.
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- As a visiting professor on a "highly valued exchange
course", Mansbach taught classes ranging from first year to final
year.
-
- But Mansbach's career in the US has been dogged by his
CIA connections. In 1984, Mansbach was working at Rutgers University in
New Jersey as chair of the political science department.
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- He and Harvey Waterman, department professor and associate
dean of the graduate school, hired students and used an undergraduate group
to supply the CIA with extensive research on western European peace groups,
unions, churches, opposition parties and womenís organisations.
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- For failing to inform the university of their work for
the CIA and for enlisting students without their knowledge, Mansbach and
Waterman received letters of reprimand deposited in their permanent files.
However, no other action was taken.
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- Not long after his covert project for the CIA was exposed,
The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that the CIA financed the work to the
tune of $25,000. The Inquirer interviewed Mansbach by phone and he told
a reporter that CIA research on campus "can provide a heck of a lot
of insight perhaps not available to Washington".
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- In 1975, Mansbach lectured at CIA headquarters, then
in 1977 at the US Information Agency and in 1982 at the National Security
Agency and the US Army War College. It is known that between 1981-83, he
was full-time staff at the CIA when he worked in the National Intelligence
Council's European Analysis division. When he left he was told the CIA
had "profited greatly" from his work.
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- While he was at Rutgers, the CIA's National Intelligence
Coun cil set up the European Non-State Actors Project (ENSAP), which looked
at how groups ranging from the SNP to the German Greens and from CND to
anti-nuclear clergymen may affect US foreign policy.
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- With top-secret security clearance, Mansbach then used
his Rutgers students to prepare data for the CIA's ENSAP programme on the
assets, ideologies and clout of church groups, unions, media outlets and
feminist groups.
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- The Sunday Herald contacted Mansbach at his office in
Iowa but he did not return calls. At the time of the outbreak of war with
Iraq, Mansbach supported the invasion.
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- A number of Glasgow University students criticised Mansbach's
"lazy teaching style" to senior staff.
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- In 2000, a Sunday Herald investigation revealed that
a former MI6 chief, Andrew Fulton, was working in the university's Law
School at the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit which was meant to inform the
media about Scots law.
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