"My experiences during that time have contributed to the formation of my political values," he says. "I probably started out in the center and maybe even a step to the right, and ended up fairly far to the left."

Birmingham says that his Harvard experience was also shaped by his classes in the interdisciplinary Social Studies program, where he enjoyed tutors such as William J. Bennett, the conservative moralist who would later become Education Secretary and head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Birmingham's Harvard experience did not launch him into graduate school or a rigid career track, but by winning the Rhodes Scholarship in the fall of 1971, he did not have to focus on such future plans.

"If I hadn't won the Rhodes Scholarship in my senior year, I was completely uncertain of what I was going to do," he says.

Recounting his days in England, Birmingham places less emphasis upon his course work in English literature than on the experience as a whole, which ultimately helped him make several important decisions.

"It tested my commitment to academics, which I ultimately found wanting," Birmingham says.

The Senate president says that some of his fondest Rhodes memories are of a spring break when he and fellow Harvard Rhodes Scholar R. David Luskin '72 drove a Ford Mustang from Oxford to southern Italy.

During a luncheon in Rome with Italian millionaires, the two Harvard graduates managed to talk themselves into an invitation to a luxurious villa on the Amalfi coast owned by a close friend of the women.

Although Birmingham says that their host, Carlito Cinque, was probably only expecting them to stay for a weekend, the two drove off 29 days later.

Luskin, now a criminal lawyer in Washington, D.C., says this was the life of most Rhodes scholars.

Few spent their time in England plotting a career at home.

"None of us were doing a hell of a lot of work," he says. "There were one or two people who were going to be a Bill Clinton...but for most of us it was like we were on the shelf for a while."

But while Birmingham and most other Rhodes scholars were not pursuing an intense academic track, Luskin says it was always clear where the Chelsea native would end up.

"I had a very strong sense that Tom was going to go back home, get married to Selma and do good things," Luskin says.

After returning from England and entering Harvard Law School in 1975, it was not long before Birmingham began to spend summers working for labor lawyers.