Second, the IOP's new head intends to schedulemore events, such as a presidential debate nextyear, that center on elections and to work withundergraduates to develop more non-credit studygroups that examine the increasingly complicatedelectoral process. Third, the former U.S.assistant attorney general under President Fordwants to sponsor more substantive scholarship andstudies at Harvard on electoral politics.

The '88 presidential elections, in addition totempting Thornburgh to run himself, present aperfect point of focus for the former governor'simmediate mission of inspiring the K-School, andHarvard in general, to take an interest inelectoral politics. "We must encourage students toget involved in the campaigns," he says.

To that end, Thornburgh is planning a debate inthe Arco Forum between the candidates of bothparties, as well as a series of public events thatwill bring together scholars and experts todiscuss issues of the coming campaign, such aswelfare reform, the deficit, Star Wars andeconomic competitiveness. "I hope to promote somemeaningful discussion, which you'll see isn'talways the case as you saw in the Democraticdebate [last week]," he says.

Meanwhile, on other fronts, Thornburgh haspushed to expand the study of electoral politicsthroughout the University. Part of the dealbringing him to Harvard included the formation ofa faculty committee to study closely how electoralpolitics could be included in different schools'curricula and how they could be taught. He admitsthat instruction on electoral politics has notbeen extensive at Harvard and throughout academia,but he eventually hopes to see some type ofinstruction on the subject available at theCollege, the Law School, and the Business School,among others.

"The question is 'How do we translate thisconcern [for electoral politics] into the academicenvironment?'" asks Thornburgh. "What is the bestway? A course? A workshop? What kind faculty wouldteach them? Is there room in the curriculum?"

Thornburgh hopes to find answers to thesequestions in order to establish the study ofelectoral politics at Harvard and in academia on apar with more popular subjects such as managementand policymaking. It is a mission that he feels isvital to the improvement of the American politicalsystem, and one that he says is often overlookedby today's technocrat politicians.

"In our society we have chosen to giveresponsibility and power to the elected official,"says Thornburgh. "While skill is needed toformulate and carry out policy by non-electedpeople, the elected official is more important."

"That's a civics lesson that is oftenforgotten," Thornburgh says.

Looking out the window from his office with itsview of Kirkland House, Thornburgh could say hehas learned his lesson well.

Born on July 16, 1932 in Pittsburgh, Thornburghwas the son of an engineer and grandson of aprofessor. He graduated from Yale in 1954 with adegree in engineering and went to law school, andpracticed law in Pittsburgh. He married his secondwife in 1963, Virginia "Ginny" Judson, who hasworked to help the handicapped and mentallyretarded.

Thornburgh got his start in politics in 1969when he was appointed U.S. attorney for westernPennsylvania. The young Thornburgh quickly won aname for himself as he aggressively attackedorganized crime, corruption, drug trafficking andpornography. As a result of his strong anti-crimestance, in 1975 he was appointed by President Fordto the post of Assistant Attorney General of theU.S., in charge of the Justice Department'sCriminal Division.

Ending his tour as Assistant U.S. AttorneyGeneral in 1977, the Yale graduate decided to trya run as his party's candidate for governor ofPennsylvania. Facing a strong Democratic opponentwho held an early 30-point lead in aoverwhelmingly Democratic state, Thornburgh wageda tough campaign to win the post he would hold forthe next eight years.

As governor in 1979, Thornburgh quicklyembarked on his platform to reduce taxes and theamount of state expenditures. During hiseight-year term he cut state income and businesstaxes by $1 billion over three years and fired15,000 state employees. He further reducedgovernment expenditures by kicking what helabelled able bodied adults off the welfare rollsand passing laws restricting the amount of medicalcost assistance.

Thornburgh governed his state through one ofits toughest economic periods in history. Hard hitby economic recession and the decline of itssmoke-stack industries in coal and steel,Pennsylvania's unemployment rate reached seventhhighest in the nation when he took office. Byencouraging national economic trends towardservice-oriented and high technology businessesand creating job retraining programs, Thornburghis credited by his followers with creating morethan 500,000 new jobs and reducing unemployment tothe point where Pennsylvania was at the nationalaverage. His voters seemed to approve as theyreturned him to office by more than 100,000 votesin 1982.

Although the state constitution forbade himfrom holding office a third consecutive term, theattraction of running in an election was not loston Thornburgh as 1986 approached. First he lovedwith the idea of running against incumbent ArlenSpecter (R.-Pa.) for a U.S. Senate seat. Hisstatewide popularity would have made that electiona close one, but friendship with Specter anddesire to "get out of politics for a while" madeThornburgh change his mind.