His favorite course was a class taught by LoebUniversity Professor Emeritus Oscar Handlin onBoston immigration--a topic he later incorporatedinto a senior thesis.

"He was an incredibly smart and stimulatingfellow," Barrett says of Handlin.

Barrett says he also enjoyed a seminar onMcCarthyism and the political culture of the 1950staught by Lecturer on Social Studies Martin H.Peretz.

"Marty became a dear friend and remains onetoday," Barrett says.

"Mike was very smart, very serious, very funnyand always aspired to a career in the publiclife," Peretz says. "He thought politics was a wayof changing society in decent ways."

Peretz says Barrett's political moderation wasbeneficial to the learning atmosphere of thecourse.

"He was certainly a liberal, but he was neverreflexive," Peretz says. "A lot of undergrads shotfrom the hip, declared this position evil, thatposition good."

Barrett wrote his honors thesis on communitypolitics in South Boston.

But neither Barrett's thesis advisor nor histhesis reader recalls working with the statesenator.

Former government professor Edward C. Banfieldsays. "It sounds very likely [that I advisedhim.]"

"I don't remember him at all," Banfield says."It sounds very likely [that I advised him.]"

The man who read Barrett's thesis, formerHarvard government professor James Q. Wilson, nowlives in California. He says he remembersBarrett's name and his thesis topic, but he doesnot recall any details about it.

"I remember the name, and I remember he wrote athesis on local politics," Wilson says. "My memoryis a little rusty."

Despite his professors' faulty memory, Barrettsays he remembers that he received a rating ofsumma minus/magna plus on his thesis.

"We were both doing [our theses] at the sametime," Lo says. "I told him he should try to getit published."