An ISU political science professor said he didn’t volunteer anything to a pair of FBI agents who paid him a visit last month, so he could protect his international contacts and research.

FBI agents from Des Moines contacted Eric McGlinchey, assistant professor of political science, on Jan. 30, but did not elaborate why they wanted to talk to him.

“The agents didn’t tell me what it was about, but they said I had nothing personally to worry about, and that it was concerning someone who I came in contact with while I was at Stanford for my post-doctorate,” McGlinchey said.

Agents made an appointment but later called to say they were too busy to come.

McGlinchey said that after observing the furor earlier this month surrounding a rash of federal subpoenas delivered to four antiwar activists who attended a Drake University conference last November, he decided to contact Sally Frank, a local representative for the National Lawyer’s Guild and a law professor at Drake.

He said Frank informed him he had a right to neither talk nor meet with the FBI. McGlinchey then spoke with his previous adviser at Princeton and another law professor, who both told him there might be an ethical problem in speaking to the FBI because of his international contacts.

He said he canceled the meeting with the FBI agents because he decided he didn’t want to talk to them, but they came anyway.

“I came down the hallway [of Ross Hall Feb. 5] and there were two people sitting on the bench,” McGlinchey said. “I assumed it was [the FBI], and it was.”

McGlinchey said talking to the FBI could be detrimental to his professionalcareer. He didn’t want people he spoke to at conferences to think he would speak to them and then go talk to the FBI.

“I speak with people from Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other places in the former Soviet Union all the time, and I have spoken with the No. 2 man in the Kazakhstan government,” he said.

McGlinchey said being contacted by the FBI is the nature of doing political science research. However, professor and chairman of political science James McCormick said he was not aware of anyone in the political science department ever being contacted by the FBI.

“We certainly respect [McGlinchey’s] personal integrity, it is part of his academic liberty,” McCormick said. “We hired him as a faculty member, and we are very pleased to have him here.”

At the meeting, the federal agents explained they were conducting a counterintelligence operation and wanted to speak with McGlinchey about someone originally from the former Soviet Union whom he had met several times while at Stanford. McGlinchey said he did not want to go into specifics about the person.

McGlinchey said they were following this person’s contacts, and they also contacted other people at Stanford.

“The agents were all very cordial and professional, and they put my mind at ease,” he said.

McGlinchey has been to a number of countries in the former Soviet Union and has done research in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

He said he wasn’t surprised he was contacted because there are bases in the former Soviet Union that are vital to the United States.

McGlinchey plans to visit Kyrgyzstan in March to continue his research.