Just eight days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Pennsylvania's Republican Gov. Tom Ridge boarded his state plane near Harris-burg for a brief visit to Erie, Pa. The normally talkative Ridge seemed aloof. "He was preoccupied," says Barbara Chaffee, the state's deputy director of tourism. "He did a lot of looking outside the airplane." His aides realized something important was brewing when they pulled up to the hangar outside Harrisburg that evening. "A state trooper opened the door," recalls Chaffee, "and said, 'Governor, the President is on the phone for you.' "

Earlier that day Ridge had been offered the job of heading the newly created Office of Homeland Security, and George W. Bush was calling to close the deal. Officially sworn in on Oct. 8, the day after American and British bombers began leveling Afghan targets, Ridge will be responsible for coordinating the federal effort to prepare for, prevent and respond to acts of domestic terrorism. "The task before us is difficult, but not impossible," said Ridge, 56, acknowledging that the offensive in Afghanistan made retaliatory attacks in the U.S. more likely.

He comes to the cabinet-level post with little experience in law enforcement or national security matters, and there are questions about whether he can marshal the vast federal bureaucracy to carry out his mission. "We can't even find America's Ten Most Wanted," said Warren Rudman, the former GOP senator who is now chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Still, Ridge enjoys a close friendship with President Bush—they met when Ridge worked on George Bush Sr.'s failed 1980 presidential bid—which will surely give him considerable clout. Moreover, he has seen the horrors of terrorism up close. On Sept. 11 United Airlines Flight 93, commandeered by four hijackers, crashed outside Pittsburgh, killing all 49 onboard. At a press conference that afternoon, says aide Tim Reeves, "he was talking about what to say to children about the attacks. For the first time, I saw his eyes water."

One hallmark of Ridge's life and career is that he has never taken the easy road. He is the eldest of three children born in Erie, where his father, Thomas, a meat salesman, and homemaker mother, Laura, 78, struggled to get by. A skilled debater and excellent student at Erie Cathedral Prep, Tom went on to Harvard University. After graduation in 1967, he returned home to Pennsylvania to enroll in Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle. A year later, though, with the Vietnam War heating up, Ridge was called up for the draft. Instead of enrolling in Officers' Training School, which he could have readily done, he enlisted and served in Vietnam as an Army staff sergeant. According to childhood friend Homer Mosco, the Harvard grad simply felt more comfortable with the grunts. "He came from a very humble beginning," says Mosco. During his eight-month hitch in Vietnam, Ridge won the Bronze Star for routing an enemy patrol during a skirmish. When he returned home, he finished law school, began practicing as a private attorney and became active in local Republican politics.

In 1979 Ridge married Michele Moore, now 54, a librarian by training, whom he had met at a party years earlier when he was in the military. (The couple have two children, Lesley, 15, and Tommy, 14.) Three years later Ridge won election to Congress, where he served six terms, from a predominantly Democratic district. He succeeded partly by dint of his moderate politics—he is prochoice, a stance that may have cost him a chance to be George W. Bush's running mate last year, and favored a ban on assault weapons—as well as his considerable charm. As a two-term governor, Ridge pushed through an estimated 90 percent of his legislative agenda.

For now, Ridge, who normally relaxes by jogging or playing golf, is focusing only on the task at hand, reading books and intelligence reports. "When he decides what his goal is," says wife Michele, "he is relentless."

Bill Hewitt
Matt Birkbeck in Harrisburg and Rose Ellen O'Connor in Washington, D.C.