Pa.’s Ridge Gets New Security Job

He is a burly Vietnam veteran, a tough political combatant who for the last six years has served as the Republican governor of Pennsylvania.

But now, Thomas J. Ridge has a new assignment that will test not only his mettle but also the nation’s, a job that has never existed before in American history.

On Thursday night, in his address to a joint session of Congress, President Bush announced that Ridge has agreed to become director of a newly created Office of Homeland Security, a job that Bush said would be accorded Cabinet-level status. Such a job has never before existed in the United States.

The president described the 56-year-old governor as “a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend,” adding: “He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism and respond to any attacks that may come.”

A 6-foot-3 man built like a football linebacker, Ridge, a former Pennsylvania congressman, returns to Washington with a compelling up-by-the-bootstraps biography.

His mother was a Republican committeewoman, his father a blue-collar Democrat who sold shoes by day and delivered meat by night to support his wife and three children in Erie.

Ridge was a top student and debater, eventually winning a scholarship to Harvard University in 1963, from which he graduated with honors.

In 1968, he answered the call when drafted and became an infantry sergeant in Vietnam. He was awarded the Bronze Star for valor in combat.

“I was the only guy in my unit with a college degree,” Ridge said in one interview. When he came home, Ridge required a hearing aid--his ears damaged by the noise of artillery shells.

After Vietnam, Ridge earned a law degree in 1972 from Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University and worked as a prosecutor before entering private practice.

In 1982, he won a close race to represent a largely Democratic House district in Congress, compiling a moderate voting record.

A onetime altar boy who still attends Mass regularly, Ridge was elected governor in 1994.

In Harrisburg, Ridge increased spending on a variety of programs to clean up the environment, put computers in classrooms and stimulate high-tech job creation. But he failed in his attempts to enact education vouchers, said state Rep. Michael Sturla (D-Lancaster).

As Pennsylvania’s top official, Ridge has presided over relatively good times--and thus some in Harrisburg, the state capital, say he may not have been tested in a way that his new job surely will challenge him.

“There weren’t really any real crises. The economy was booming right along,” Sturla said. “We had a surplus in the budget. And every year he got to announce: ‘We’re cutting another tax!’

“It’s been seven years of treading water. But that doesn’t mean he’s not been up to the task.”

In the 2000 presidential campaign, Ridge was a finalist as then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush contemplated a running mate. But he was passed over, in part, because he is an abortion rights supporter--whose selection by Bush would have antagonized the Republican Party’s conservative base.

As recently as the July 4 weekend, Ridge was sitting on a restaurant balcony in Kennebunkport on a warm Maine night, contemplating his future.

With his second and final term coming to an end in early 2003, and with both of the state’s Senate seats already occupied by Republicans, Ridge’s political viability seemed limited.

But with two teenage children coming up on college, Ridge said jokingly, his wife, Michelle, has been after him to “get a real job,” one that could more easily help pay the tuition.

No one--including Ridge--could have guessed that night that he would soon take a high-profile job created in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil.