It was a battle of giants. The Cold War heated the classroom as the Herculean minds of professors Michael Walzer and Robert Nozick dueled over the moral worth of socialism and capitalism. It was also where E.J. Dionne '73, now a syndicated columnist, learned that fighting over politics does not have to end in a nuclear meltdown.

"They were intellectually rigorous, tough on each other, but still friends," Dionne recalls of the class that shaped his journalistic ideals.

"As someone who watches and engages in debates in Washington in 1998, it is a standard to which I still aspire," he says.

A Rhodes Scholar who graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in social studies, Dionne's thoughtful and non-partisan approach to politics has catapulted the national columnist into journalism's elite.

"He is now maturing into one of the most sensible, morally informed and insightful observers of our national life, a true public intellectual," says Harvey G. Cox Jr., Thomas professor of divinity, who taught Dionne while in college. "I'm glad that I had a little something to do with his early formation."

In the early '70s, when students violently protested the Vietnam War, Dionne was conservative compared to many of his leftist friends. Now, in expressing the hope that government and communities will work together for social change, Dionne falls to the left of the political spectrum and is best described as a progressive.

According to Dionne, his political outlook has remained virtually unchanged since the day he tossed his graduation cap into the air. He accounts for his changing image--from conservative to moderate liberal--by pointing to changes in the political climate.

"I don't think of myself in a radically different place, but the political conversation has moved to the right," he says.

Dionne came to Harvard the year after the famed 1969 takeover of University Hall. He recalls looking out of the window of his Expository Writing class in Holyoke Center and seeing students rioting below in Harvard Square.

Although he protested the war, Dionne says he was more at home in the classroom, where issues were debated in a more thoughtful and respectful environment.

In this way, social studies was an ideal concentration for Dionne, who still fuses together many aspects of the social sciences--from philosophy to sociology to economics--in his job as a journalist.

The concentration also provided him with a background in polling and statistics, which later made him adept at covering national elections, Dionne says.

"I suppose I'm a professional social studies graduate. That's kind of what I do for a living now," he says.

A Brookings Institution fellow, he is one of Washington's foremost political pundits, the author of two acclaimed books on politics and the writer of three national weekly columns.

He also appears regularly on television in round table discussions such as NBC's "Meet the Press" and MSNBC's "The Big Show."