Cambridge, Mass would become Ridge's political proving ground.

Harvard in the 1960s was consumed by radical liberalism, the result of the extension of the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War. There was also the opposition, many members of which scoffed at the demonstrators' pretensions and lamented their anti-patriotism.

Between the two poles was a sizeable flotilla of moderate leftists, including intellectual students like the future Vice President Al Gore '69 who sympathized with the demonstrators but stayed in the dorm during protests.

An 18-year-old Ridge, too, kept himself above the fray.

He threw himself into sports, playing baseball, basketball and football his first year. He was also a member of the Crimson Key Society and of a philanthropic group known as Combined Charities, of which he served as House chair during his junior year.

He concentrated in government but he eschewed the "gov jock" stereotype that was pervasive even in the '60s.

"[Ridge] was a very normal guy, not someone who you could easily categorize as a jock or preppy or anything like that," says Quincy House contemporary Frank A. Orban III '66.