HE has named Martin Luther King and Edward Kennedy among his political heroes, but presidential candidate Barack Obama was also influenced by the Scottish mentor who helped him achieve his law degree.
Ian Macneil, a 79-year-old academic with dual British and US citizenship, was one of Obama's professors at Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
In an interview with the Sunday Herald, the Edinburgh-based professor emeritus said he spotted Obama's potential in class and told his wife his student was going to be the US's first black president. He also said his young charge had a "commanding presence" and did not like to be interrupted when in full flow.
Obama wrapped up the Democratic nomination for the US presidency last week after the concession of his rival, Hillary Clinton.
The Illinois senator will become the first black president if he defeats Republican candidate John McCain in November's presidential election.
Obama's roots - his father was from Kenya, while he himself was born in Hawaii - have been well publicised, but his links to a Scottish law professor have never been written about.
Macneil was teaching at Northwestern University, Illinois, when he secured a visiting professorship at Harvard in 1988. His one-year stint at the Ivy League institution coincided with Obama entering the Harvard Law School after working as a community organiser in Chicago.
As one of Obama's law professors, Macneil, who now lives in the Grange area of Edinburgh, taught the future presidential candidate a course on contract law. He says of his young student: "It was early on in the year when I first met Barack. It wasn't a class where you got to know people well, but you do pick people out over the period of a year.
"What I remember about him was that he was a calm person in a class that was not altogether characterised by people being calm."
On Obama's qualities, he recalls: "He came across as a person of strong character, that is what I noticed. I began to conclude that he was a person of not just strong character, but as a person of real honest-to-God integrity. It was certainly what attracted me to him, that he was very straightforward."
At one point during the year Macneil told his wife that he had come across a future president.
"You see people in classes like that and you get a sense of what they are like. I must have known that Barack had been involved in poverty work - he was a little older than some students - and that he had a political map," he says.
"I remember going back to my wife and saying I think I have just found America's first black president'. He had such a commanding presence."
The law professor recalls one specific occasion when Obama caught his eye: "I was always a little too impatient in class, so if students went off the track I would interrupt before I should. When I did that with Barack, he said let me finish'. He wasn't rude, just firm. Students didn't do that, and I was quite impressed."
He added: "He was just someone who stood out. It was also obvious that his class respected him."
Macneil moved to Edinburgh in 1991, but supported Obama's development as a leader by contributing to his early political campaigns.
As the neighbour of Lothians independent MSP Margo MacDonald, it is perhaps unsurprising that Macneil should describe himself as a Scottish nationalist, but his national identity is complex. Born in 1929 in the US, he has dual UK and American citizenship. His British father registered him with the consulate at birth.
Currently the Macneil of Barra, the law professor was praised in 2004 after he agreed to donate his 9000-acre crofting estate to the islanders.
Although he no longer keeps abreast of the fine detail of US politics, he has some advice for his former student as he heads towards the presidential election.
On whether Hillary Clinton would make a good running-mate, he says: "No, I don't think it would help Obama. He is a great conciliator, he focuses on people interacting successfully. The difference between him and Senator Clinton is that he reaches out to people."
And on what the UK should expect from an Obama presidency, he says: "I don't hold much for the special relationship' between the US and Britain, which I think is a farce. It was important up until 1944, but we have since been playing second fiddle in the special relationship. I think Obama will treat us with a great deal more respect than we are getting at present."
Macneil believes Obama has "a very good chance" of winning the presidency, and will be rooting for his one-time student in November.
His only moment of reticence is on whether Obama excelled in his contracts class. "I can't remember what kind of grade he got, but if I did I wouldn't reveal it."
