Tom Ridge, Director, White House Office of Homeland Security
 Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who heads the new cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security, began his public career as a local prosecutor.
His new position, which was created by President Bush in the wake of the September 11 terrorist/hijacker attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, has been described as “the biggest job in Washington.” It brings Ridge into uncharted bureaucratic waters as he assumes the responsibility for overseeing government-wide efforts to defend Americans from domestic terrorism.
The only comparable situation occurred after the United States entered World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Production Board to oversee all aspects of the production of warplanes, ships, tanks, munitions and other war material. Roosevelt named industrialist Donald Nelson to head the board with virtually dictatorial powers.
Ridge’s presidential charge is to “lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism, and respond to any attacks that may come.” To accomplish this charge, he must coordinate the efforts of some 40 federal agencies and departments, with a budget estimated at $11 billion. Those who know him best say he’s the right man for the job.
Born in Pennsylvania’s Steel Valley, Tom Ridge was raised in a working-class family in veterans’ public housing in Erie, in the northwest corner of the state. He earned a scholarship to Harvard University, graduating with honors in 1967. After his first year in the Dickinson College School of Law, he was drafted into the army, where he served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for valor. After returning to Pennsylvania and earning his law degree, his first job as a lawyer and in public service was as an assistant district attorney in Erie County. In 1982, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, a Republican in a heavily Democratic district and the first Vietnam enlisted veteran to be elected to the House. He was re-elected by overwhelming margins six times.
In 1994 Ridge was elected Pennsylvania’s 43rd governor and was re-elected in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote in a four-way race (where Democrats out-number Republicans by close to 500,000). His 780,000-vote margin was the largest for a Republican governor in state history. Ridge and George W. Bush became close friends when Ridge offered to help with the presidential election campaign of Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush in 1988. Last year, he was on George W. Bush’s short list for vice president.
In his farewell remarks to the Pennsylvania Legislature, Ridge quoted one of his state’s favorite sons in emphasizing that his office would not infringe on any traditional liberties in carrying out its mission.
“Ben Franklin once said,” he declared, “that those who would give up essential liberties to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Liberty is a precious gift.”
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