Dick Cheney
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2 Political career 3 Vice Presidency 4 External links |
Early life and family
"Dick" Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. He grew up in Casper, Wyoming, and earned his bachelor's and master's of arts degrees in Political Science from the University of Wyoming after spending three semesters at Yale University. In 1964 he married his high-school sweetheart Lynne, now an author and college teacher. They have two grown daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, and four grandchildren.
Political career
He began serving the Nixon administration in 1969, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the United States Office of Economic Opportunity (as a special assistant to Donald Rumsfeld), and within the White House. Under President Gerald Ford, Cheney became Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff. He was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, while James Baker served as campaign chairman.
In 1977 he was elected to represent Wyoming in the House of Representatives. Cheney was re-elected five times, serving until 1989. He was Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987. He was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1987 and elected House Minority Whip in 1988.
Cheney served as the Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993 under President George H. W. Bush and directed Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East. In 1991 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "preserving America's defenses at a time of great change around the world."
Cheney joined the American Enterprise Institute after leaving office in 1993. In 1995 he became Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company, a worldwide energy services corporation with a long history of service to the government. Some Halliburton subsidiaries serve as private military contractors. He also sat on the board of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, and EDS.
In the spring of 2000, while still serving as Halliburton's CEO, he headed George W. Bush's Vice-Presidential search committee. After reviewing Cheney's findings, Bush surprised pundits by asking Cheney himself to join the Republican ticket. Cheney resigned as CEO on July 25, and put all of his corporate shares and stock options into a charitable trust.
President George Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. Cheney is visible in the background
There was some controversy over the fact that Cheney had been living in Texas when he was selected as Bush's running mate. The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that electors shall vote for president and vice president "one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." Bush was obviously a Texas resident, being that state's governor. As of November 2000, Cheney's vehicles were alleged to be registered in Texas, he allegedly paid taxes on them in Dallas County, he allegedly had filed federal income tax returns listing himself as a Texas resident, and he had lived in a Highland Park, Texas home for the last five years. On July 21st Cheney had changed his voting registration to Teton County, Wyoming, where he had long maintained a residence. Critics charged that this actions was insufficient to switch Cheney's residency to Wyoming. A lawsuit was brought in Jones v. Bush attempting to invalidate electoral votes from Texas, but was rejected by a Texas district court.
Cheney quickly earned a reputation as a very "hands-on" Vice President, taking an active role in cabinet meetings and policy formation. He is often described as the most active Vice President in recent years, moving the office out of its traditional figurehead role.
Cheney directed the National Energy Policy Development Group(N.E.P.D.G.). This group included Enron executives who worked as team members despite the ongoing Enron scandal. Enron's involvement was not without precendent -- in 1995, former President Clinton's energy team reworked a proposal "to take into account the specific comments and suggestions [Enron] made." In July 2003, the Supreme Court ordered the Department of Commerce to make the N.E.P.D.G.'s documents public. The documents included information on companies that had made agreements with Saddam Hussein to develop Iraq's oil. The documents also included maps of oil deposits in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. The N.E.P.D.G.'s report contains several chapters, covering topics such as environmental protection, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy security. Critics focus on the eighth chapter, "Strengthening Global Alliances," claiming that this chapter urges military actions to remove strategic, political, and economic obstacles to increased U.S. consumption of oil. Others point out that the report contains no such recommendation.
Following the uncertainty immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, Cheney and President Bush were kept in physically distant locations for security reasons. For a period Cheney was not seen in public, remaining in an undisclosed location and communicating with the White House via secure video phones.
Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne with their fourth grandchild, Philip Richard Perry (born in Washington, D.C., July 2, 2004). His parents are Liz Cheney and Phil Perry, the daughter and son-in-law of the Cheneys
On the morning of June 29 2002, Cheney became only the second man in US history to be Acting President, while President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney acted as President from 7:09 a.m. that day until Bush resumed control at 9:24 a.m.
Supporters of Vice President Cheney point to his reputation for knowledge and character. Opponents and detractors accuse him of being too closely tied and beholden to the oil industry.
Cheney is in the unusual position of having been Secretary of Defense during a war with Iraq, heading a company (Halliburton) which sold equipment through foreign subsidiaries to rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure, then serving as Vice President during another war with Iraq.
U.S. Office of Government Ethics public financial disclosure sheets stated that Cheney received $162,392 in deferred compensation in 2002 from Halliburton and $205,298 in 2001, which raised some eyebrows when Halliburton received over $2 billion in no-bid, no-ceiling contracts in Iraq. This contract was an extension of an earlier, competitively bid contract. Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, has a contract to control oil fires in Iraq if the well heads are set on fire. This apparent conflict of interest, however, was mitigated by Cheney's purchase of an insurance policy to guarantee the payment of the deferred salary regardless of how Halliburton performed. The policy was taken when he became a nominee for Vice President.
Cheney sold his Halliburton shares when he left the company to join Bush's ticket, but retained 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million. Cheney arranged for profits from the sale of these options to be donated to charity, placed the options in a charitable trust, and relinquished control over them.
Cheney is viewed by some as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration, strongly pushing for the invasion of Iraq, along with Donald Rumsfeld. He was also a member of the conservative think tank Project for the New American Century whose goal is to promote American global leadership.
On June 22, 2004, while participating in the U.S. Senate class photo, Cheney and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont had a personal exchange that garnered headlines in the U.S. After comments by Leahy, Cheney allegedly told him to "...go fuck yourself," which was later characterized as "a frank exchange of views." In response, Leahy said that Cheney "was just having a bad day." Others have pointed to this incident and the events that led up to it as evidence of a culture of extreme partisanship that has developed in Washington. Senate rules prohibit profanity while the Senate is in session, but Cheney did not violate the rules because the Senate was not in session at the time.
"I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," Cheney said later on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News. "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue." [1]
Vice Presidency
External links
Cheney Speeches and Interviews
Anti-Cheney Opinions
| Preceded by: Al Gore | Vice President of the United States 2001- | Succeeded by: Incumbent |
| Preceded by: Frank C. Carlucci | United States Secretary of Defense 1989-1993 | Succeeded by: Les Aspin |
| Preceded by: Donald Rumsfeld | White House Chief of Staff 1975-1977 | Succeeded by: Hamilton Jordan |