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Mother Teresa was a CIA agent used to stop India falling under the influence of the USSR during the Cold War, according to a bizarre conspiracy theory.

Born in what is now North Macedonia on August 26, 1910, Teresa was a religious missionary who spent the majority of her life in India where she died on September 5, 1997.

Reportedly fascinated by Christianity in the USSR, she took her mission to the communist state in 1989 with the help of Raissa Gorbacheva, wife of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

According to the theory, Mother Teresa was working for US intelligence on the trip, using her influence to meet with USSR leaders and send covert messages back to officials in the US.

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Conspiracy theorist Jess McClintock said: “My theory behind Mother Teresa’s role as a spy was… having her as an influence working for the people stopped India from becoming a stronghold for Russia during the Cold War.”

During the Cold War, India had started to build strong strategic, military and economic ties with the USSR, with prime minister Nehru’s policy of neutrality towards the former bloc a concern for security chiefs in the US.

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McClintock added: “In fact, because she was working on behalf of the US, and India, and had the full trust of Russia, she functioned as a messenger for the US during the Cold War.

“She had to be in the right places at the right time talking to the right people with enough influence and enough financial backing to do whatever she needed to do covertly.”

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The blessed Mother proved to be a divisive figure throughout her life.



To supporters, she was one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century and in 1979 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2016, Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint following the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours - an act that the Catholic Church deemed to be a miracle.

Some say, however, that her “deathbed” baptisms amounted to “forced conversion”, while others questioned her relationships with controversial public figures and cast doubt on the sources her funding.

But it may well be “top secret” National Security Agency files that fuelled the bonkers conspiracy theory.

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In 2015 a freedom of information request sent to the US government asking for records on Mother Teresa was rejected by the NSA on the grounds that the information was classified as “TOP SECRET” and “SECRET”.

Following a subsequent request in 2018 asking for a “Mandatory Declassification Review”, the documents were released but were heavily redacted, containing only one paragraph of information.

In 2019 a further appeal was made requesting that the documents be released in full and unredacted. But the NSA rejected the appeal and confirmed the documents would remain “TOP SECRET” and “SECRET”.