Investigators think the elusive Unabomber might have sat in Professor Harold Bauman's history class at the University of Utah sometime in the early 1980s.
"If he was in my class, I wouldn't know it," Bauman said. "There is no clue, no evidence of any kind that hangs together. I just don't know."Nevertheless, the FBI has contacted Bauman several times in its search for the killer, the last time in July 1994. On Wednesday, Bauman was identified as one of dozens of professors nationwide who are being asked to scrutinize a "manifesto" the Unabomer sent to the New York Times and Washington Post on June 24.
In a statement issued from his Washington, D.C., office, FBI Director Louis Freeh said, "The FBI is taking this investigative step in an effort to determine whether that community might recognize the writer's work or be able to shed light on important or telltale aspects of the manuscript's general topic, the history of science."
According to the FBI statement, the bomber may have been exposed to science history courses at Chicago area colleges in the late 1970s and then continued his education in the Salt Lake area in 1980 and 1981.
The Unabomber struck at the University of Utah in 1981 and at a Salt Lake computer store in 1987. A bomb mailed from Brigham Young University in 1982 injured a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
U. spokesman Larry Weist confirmed that authorities armed with court orders have examined U. student records during the course of the Unabom investigation.
A BYU spokeswoman said she was unaware of any recent FBI contact with BYU police or professors but said the school appears to be on the list of institutions that will be getting the manifesto.
After leaving Utah, the bomber probably had "some sort of contact" with the University of California at Berkeley from about 1982 to 1985, the FBI said. In all, the Unabomber is suspected of planting bombs that have killed three people and injured 23 others since 1978.
"Investigators said they are certain that the Unabom subject was either enrolled at academic institutions in the Chicago, Salt Lake City or Berkeley area, or had some ties to universities there," the FBI statement said.
And based on the manifesto and earlier evidence, those investigators believe the killer may have had a special interest in science history, which is what led them to Bauman.
"The FBI has talked to me several times, the last time in July last year," Bauman said. "They showed me documents and an artist's sketch. I studied it carefully and couldn't recall any student who looked like that."
Investigators also showed him a letter purportedly from the Unabomber that had the typed return address of the history department at the U. The letter, not written on U. stationery, was apparently addressed to a professor in Michigan, Bauman said.
The FBI asked for permission to examine all of the typewriters in the history department, though Bauman said those in use in the early 1980s had long since been replaced by modern models and computers. "So that was another shot in the dark," he said.
He feels the same way about the chance of finding the Unabomber's identity through an examination of the manifesto.
"They're grasping at straws," Bauman said. "If I can be of help, I will because this a dangerous person they're trying to find. But I doubt I can be of much help."
Bauman, who has been teaching history for 40 years, 30 at the U., said his subjects in 1980 and 1981 did include the history of science, along with classes on the Holocaust and "the normal range of western civilization and liberal education."
However, he thinks the Unabomer's interest in the evolution and application of technology has nothing to do with the topics he covered.
"I don't teach the history of technology. We don't talk about how to build bombs," Bauman said.
The mild-mannered professor also expressed some annoyance at the FBI's approach toward him personally. He recalled that a year ago, one agent came up with an "extraordinary" question implying that Bauman had a revolutionary bent.
"They had apparently looked into my background - I belong to the History of Science Society - and found that I have an interest in scientists as revolutionaries," Bauman said. The kind of revolution he had in mind, he said, was revolution in thought started by the likes of Newton, Galileo and Einstein.
"They (FBI) asked me about that as if I were interested in political revolution, which offends me because of the implication, as if I were somehow feeding this guy," Bauman said. "I teach it straight. I try to be objective. I'm not inciting anybody."
Despite his annoyance with the FBI, Bauman said if he receives a copy of the manifesto, he will study it carefully for any "latent memory."