Dick Cheney has been one of the most influential vice-presidents in American history. With his quiet but determined demeanour, he has sometimes been seen as an eminence grise behind the Bush presidency.
He was certainly influential in charting the course for war against Saddam Hussain. And such was his reputation as the “hardman” of the administration that he was used in the Republican Convention to attack Bush’s Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry.
A man of settled, conservative views, only rarely his calm exterior showed the feelings underneath. One such occasion came when Cheney publicly swore at Democratic Senator John Leahy. The vice-president said afterwards that it had made him feel better.
Cheney was a surprise choice as a running mate during the election of 2000, but he became such an indispensable part of the Bush administration that his selection for the 2004 campaign was never in doubt.
The appointment of the young North Carolina Senator John Edwards as John Kerry’s vice-presidential choice provided a contrast with the older Dick Cheney.
Bush dismissed suggestions that this reflected adversely on the older man by giving his opinion on the differences between the two: “Dick Cheney can be president,” he said.
Cheney made important speeches laying out the case against Saddam Hussain. That case has come under question and criticism since, but he has never expressed regret about the Iraq war. There was a sense that he felt that unfinished business had to be completed. He opposed taking the issue to the United Nations, though that was one argument he lost.
One of his main conclusions, that the United States needed to drill for more oil and gas, was welcomed by the industry but attacked by conservationists. They said that he was too close to the oil industry, having been chief executive of Halliburton, an oil and construction company, between 1995 and 2000.
When Halliburton won big contracts to help supply the US military in Iraq in 2003, there was further comment, even though Cheney had cut his ties to the firm before the 2000 election.
His supporters saw in him the man described by his White House biography: “Vice-President Richard B. Cheney has had a distinguished career as a businessman and public servant, serving four presidents and as an elected official. Throughout his service, Cheney served with duty, honour and unwavering leadership.”
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 30, 1941, Richard Bruce ‘Dick’ Cheney’s parents were Richard Herbert Cheney, a soil-conservation agent, and Marjorie Lauraine Dickey Cheney, a former softball player. Both of his parents were Democrats. Cheney grew up in Casper, Wyoming, a town he would later describe as being idyllic with a classic 1950s feel. It was there that he met his high school sweetheart and future wife, Lynne Vincent.
He studied at Calvert Elementary School, before moving to Casper, Wyoming where he joined Natrona Country High School.
Upon graduating from high school, Cheney was accepted to Yale University and offered a full-ride scholarship. He enrolled, but eventually dropped out due to poor grades. While attending classes, he worked as a power lineman in a working-class town. Although Yale had not suited Cheney, he decided to pursue college once more. He enrolled at the University of Wyoming, where he received a B.A. in political science in 1965 and an M.A. in political science in 1966.
During his time as a student, Cheney applied for and received five draft deferments and thus avoided being drafted in the Vietnam War, stating that he “had other priorities in the 1960s than military service.” Cheney and Lynne married in 1964, and would have two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
Cheney entered politics in 1965. Beginning as an intern for the Senate, Cheney quickly rose to power by first becoming an aide to the Wisconsin governor, then working for President Richard Nixon’s administration in 1969. He served as Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff from 1975 to 1977, then served six terms in Congress before being appointed Secretary of Defence by President George H.W. Bush in 1989. About 10 years later, he worked for another Bush administration, this time as vice president to President George W. Bush in 2000 for two terms. As vice president, Cheney was known for taking on a prominent role in the bush administration, being a more active vice president than what had ever been seen in the Oval Office before.
As Defence Secretary, Cheney dealt with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the downsizing of defence spending. He earned the respect of the military with his careful handling of Operation Desert Storm.
When Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency in 1992, Cheney left government and joined the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Though he contemplated running for president in 1996, he instead opted in 1995 to become CEO of Halliburton, which required him to move to Dallas.
In 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush asked Cheney to head up the search for his vice presidential nominee. Bush eventually asked Cheney himself to serve as his vice president. Cheney then resigned as CEO of Halliburton and focused on the campaign. After a long and contested process, Bush and Cheney were declared the winners of the 2000 election.
From the start, there were signs that the Bush-Cheney relationship would not be a typical president-vice president relationship. Former vice president Dan Quayle recalled attempting to brief Cheney on a vice president’s typical duties, which include fundraising and public appearances. Cheney reportedly replied, “I have a different understanding with the president.”
In effect, Cheney served as Bush’s surrogate chief of staff throughout his administration, with access to every layer of Bush’s White House and many surrogates on the Hill. Fiercely loyal to Bush, and with no ambition to serve as president himself, Cheney was not a “shadow president” implementing his own agenda, but rather the person implementing the details of Bush’s outlined plans. Heavily involved in both military and national security issues at the highest levels, Cheney greatly expanded the power of both the executive branch and of the vice presidency itself, even at the risk of exerting unconstitutional powers, many of which were later explored in a Pulitzer-Prize winning series by Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman.
Perhaps the largest overstepping of bounds came from Dick Cheney’s involvement with the Valerie Plame scandal. In 2003, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, was involved in leaking to the press the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent who was also the wife of Bush critic and ambassador Joe Wilson. Libby was eventually found guilty of lying during the investigation and was sentenced to jail; President Bush commuted his sentence but did not pardon him. Cheney later publicly announced that he disagreed with Bush’s decision, marking one of their very few public disagreements.
Another major area of disagreement between Cheney and Bush was same-sex marriage: Bush is opposed, whereas Cheney’s younger daughter, Mary, is a lesbian. Neither Dick and Lynne Cheney supports a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage, as they believe that states should be able to decide; however, they allowed Bush to form his own federal policy on this issue during the administration.
Cheney declined to seek the Republican nomination during the 2008 election. Since 2009, Cheney has regularly appeared in the news as a critic of President Barack Obama’s administration, though he praised Obama for his handling of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination. As of 2010, he has had five heart attacks, though this has not slowed down his pace of speaking and writing.
This column aims to profile personalities who made the news once but have now faded from the spotlight.
Sourced from BBC, thefamouspeople.com and biography.com
What he said:
From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.
The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama administration believes.
I think the key that happened on 9/11 is we went from considering terrorist attacks as a law enforcement problem to considering terrorist attacks, especially on the scale we have on 9/11, as being an act of war.
