Looking Out For Next Time

By Karen Tumulty/Washington

As Governor of the state in which United Airlines Flight 93 crashed to earth on Sept. 11, Tom Ridge has seen what terrorism can do. Now he will see what can be done to stop it. Last Wednesday afternoon, Ridge was rushing to catch a plane when aides told him that White House chief of staff Andrew Card was on the phone. The Pennsylvania Governor wasn't expecting a job offer; he'd had lunch the day before with George W. Bush, and the President hadn't mentioned a thing. But Card connected Ridge with Dick Cheney, who offered Ridge a post that the Vice President had just that day proposed to Bush--a Cabinet-level position charged with protecting "homeland security." Ridge agonized overnight and was still undecided when he dropped by Card's office the following afternoon, only hours before Bush was to address the nation. Suddenly, Bush, Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared in the room. "That's when I knew I was in trouble," Ridge later told an aide.

He was only half joking. Ridge, 56, won't officially start work until next week, and the powers and budget of his new position are still ill defined. But by last Friday the White House was loading him down with briefing books and scouting office space in the West Wing. Before he can figure out how to beat terrorism, however, he'll have to take on the turf-conscious Cabinet Secretaries and bureaucrats of the 40-plus agencies that share antiterrorism responsibility, as well as their patrons on Capitol Hill. Bureaucracies have a long history of outlasting the "czars" who are brought in to oversee them. "I know a great number of these guys who were czars--energy, drugs," says former Senator Warren Rudman, the Republican co-chairman of a blue-ribbon commission on terrorism. "They start out with great fanfare, but pretty soon the President gets busy, and they're talking to a staff assistant."

Ridge has several advantages, not least of which is a relationship with Bush that dates back to 1980, when the two worked together on Bush's father's presidential campaign. In announcing Ridge's appointment Thursday night, Bush called him "a military veteran, an effective Governor, a true patriot and a trusted friend." Bush, fearing resistance, had not told his Cabinet about the new post until he was ready to announce it to the world. But ex-Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, a Democrat who has tangled with Ridge, says charm is in Ridge's favor: "He's an impossible guy to stay angry at."

Even more important is the fact that terrorism has been elevated from a theoretical threat to the nation's top priority. When Bush asked Cheney last May to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort against chemical, biological and nuclear attack, the assignment was considered such a backwater that some in the White House joked it was punishment for Cheney's having botched the Administration's energy plan. Despite all the evidence, terrorism seemed hypothetical; proposals for a federal homeland-security program, which had been floating around Washington since the mid-1980s, evoked memories of 1950s schoolchildren doing duck-and-cover drills under their desk.

No longer. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon exposed serious gaps in the nation's ability to collect and act on information about potential terrorists. The CIA knew almost two years ago that Khalid Al-Midhar had connections to Osama bin Laden, and by August of this year it had enough information to put him and a traveling companion on a watch list. But by then immigration officials had already allowed them into the country. The FBI couldn't find them, and when the men boarded American Flight 77, the airline had never been warned or provided with their names. Ridge will look for ways to improve both detection and communication. Border security is expected to be an early focus. But with 1.3 million people, 340,000 vehicles and 58,000 cargo containers entering the country every day, he'll need truckloads of money to improve it.

Ridge's task is not only to anticipate and prevent terrorist attacks but also to cope with them when they happen. That means coordinating not just federal agencies but countless state and local ones as well--"too many pieces," says James Lee Witt, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Bill Clinton. And their needs are enormous. When Congress offered $100 million to local fire departments for disaster preparedness last year, Witt notes, $3 billion worth of requests poured in.

The commission co-chaired by Rudman and former Democratic Senator Gary Hart concluded in January that the threat of terrorism called for nothing short of a new federal department combining FEMA, the Customs Service, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. Many in Congress agree. "If you want to get a job done, there's no substitute for having an agency with a budget," says Democrat Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. But given the fact that Republicans in Congress were trying to kill four Cabinet departments only six years ago, it's hard to imagine a Republican White House proposing a new one. And Bush stopped well short, giving Ridge a Cabinet-level title but no Cabinet-level department.

If Ridge does not have a departmental budget behind him, Bush aides insist he will have considerable say over other people's. And he will have authority to look for solutions outside Washington. One focus, experts believe, should be the National Guard, which state Governors control in peacetime but which the President can federalize in a national emergency.

The job is not without risk for a person considered one of the Republican Party's brightest stars. A decorated Vietnam veteran who grew up in veterans' public housing in Erie, Pa., the Governor is enormously popular in a crucial swing state. He was also high on Bush's list of potential running mates, although his support for abortion rights probably killed his chances. In his new role, he is certain to be blamed for any terrorist events that occur on his watch. "We could intercept 20 different plots," says Rendell, "but if three get carried out, he has failed."

--With reporting by James Carney, Viveca Novak, Douglas Waller and Michael Weisskopf/Washington

With reporting by James Carney, Viveca Novak, Douglas Waller and Michael Weisskopf/Washington