Unlike other '90s centrists, Gore is not areformed radical. Even in college, friends noticedhis temperate stands.

"I would say that he was probably in theamorphous middle ground," says Robert B. ShetterlyJr. '69, who was active in SDS demonstrations.

Shetterly says he met Gore on the first-yearbasketball team. "Both of us were of similarability and talents. We both spent a lot of timeon the bench," Shetterly says.

"I don't remember him being aggressively on thecutting edge of left wing action, butsympathetic," Richard Barnum '69 says.

Gore's dorm, Dunster House, in fact, was the"hotbed of radical politics," Robertson says."There was a lot of trouble fitting in, unless youwanted to overthrow the government and become partof the protest."

"People who were prominent in Dunster werepeople in radical politics," Robertson says.

While Gore was not very active in campuspolitics, national politics and the Vietnam Warwere dominant topics of discussion among thefuture senator and his roommates.

Jones says they discussed politics "all day,every day, Politics was a pervasive subject inthose days."

Gore's roommate Robert A. Somerby '69 remembersstaying up until 5 a.m. with Gore on the night ofthe 1968 presidential election when everyone elsehad given up on the posibility that HubertHumphrey would pull off an upset of Richard M.Nixon.

Still, his close friends say that Gore gavelittle indication that he was considering apolitical career.

"The thought never crossed my mind...[Gore'spolitical career] kind of surprises me inretrospect," Somerby says.

"He wasn't someone you'd think of as ambitiousby Harvard standards.