Introduction To Richard Cheney

Richard Cheney 2005 Official Portrait

Early Life and Family

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska to Richard Herbert Cheney and Marjorie Dickey. His father worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a soil conservation agent. He has a brother, Bob, and a sister, Susan. Cheney grew up in Casper, Wyoming.

In November 1962, at age twenty-one, Cheney was convicted for the first of two offenses of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI). According to the docket from the Municipal Court in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Cheney was arrested for drunkenness and "operating motor vehicle while intoxicated." A Cheyenne Police Judge found Cheney guilty of the two charges. Cheney's driving license was suspended for 30 days and he had to forfeit a $150 bond posted at the time of his arrest.

Eight months later, in July 1963, Cheney was arrested in Rock Springs, Wyoming and fined $100 for his second DWI conviction. At the time, it was not possible for the authorities in each area to link the two convictions, which would have resulted in the second offense being viewed much more seriously. Since this arrest, Cheney has had no further convictions.

Cheney discussed his record in a May 7, 1991 interview in The New Yorker. He said that he found himself "working, building power lines, having been in a couple of scrapes with the law." He said that the arrests made him "think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road, if I continued on that course."

In 1964, he married Lynne Vincent, his high-school sweetheart, whom he had met at age fourteen. Mrs. Cheney served as Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, from 1986 to 1996. She is now a public speaker, author, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Cheney was of military age and a supporter of the Vietnam War but he did not serve in the war, applying for and receiving five draft deferments. On May 19, 1965, Cheney was classified as 1-A "available for service" by the Selective Service. On October 26, 1965 the Selective Service lifted the constraints on drafting childless married men. However, after his daughter was born, Cheney applied for and received a reclassification of 3-A, gaining him a final draft deferment. In an interview with George C. Wilson that appeared in the April 5, 1989 issue of the Washington Post, when asked about his deferments the future Defense Secretary said "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

Cheney has two adult daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, and four grandchildren. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, is married to Philip J. Perry, General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security. Mary is one of her father's top campaign aides and closest confidantes; she lives in Denver, Colorado. Her sexual orientation as a lesbian has become a source of increasing public attention for Dick Cheney in light of the recent same-sex marriage debate. On August 25th 2004, Cheney said that same sex marriage is an issue that should be decided by individual states.

Cheney attends the United Methodist Church.

Education

Following high school, Cheney attended Yale University on an academic scholarship in 1959. After three semesters he put his studies on hold partly because of poor grades. He saved up money and returned to Yale only to leave again the following semester. Cheney returned to college in 1963, matriculating at Casper Community College and then transferring to the University of Wyoming, where he began earning straight A's.He received his bachelor's degree in 1965 and master's degree in political science in 1966, both from the University of Wyoming.

He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a doctoral candidate in political science and completed all required coursework but left and entered politics before completing his dissertation. Cheney was selected for a one-year fellowship in the office of Representative William Steiger, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin.

Early political career

Early White House appointments

Dick Cheney's political career began in 1969, during the Nixon administration. He held a number of positions in the years that followed: special assistant to the Director of the OEO, White House staff assistant, assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, and Deputy Assistant to the President. Under President Gerald Ford, Cheney became Assistant to the President and then the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history. Many have pointed to this time as the point where both he and Donald Rumsfeld began consolidating political power. An article in Rolling Stone said, "Having turned Ford into their instrument, Rumsfeld and Cheney staged a palace coup. They pushed Ford to fire Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, tell Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to look for another job and remove Henry Kissinger from his post as national security adviser. Rumsfeld was named secretary of defense, and Cheney became chief of staff to the president.

He was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, while James Baker served as campaign chairman.

Congress

The Dick Cheney Federal Building in Casper, Wyoming.In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives to replace resigning Congressman Teno Roncalio, defeating his Democratic opponent, Bill Bagley. Cheney was reelected five times, serving until 1989. He was Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987 when he was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference. The following year, he was elected House Minority Whip.

Among the many votes he cast during his tenure in the House, he voted in 1979 with the majority against making Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, and again voted with the majority in 1983 when the measure passed.

He voted against the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, citing his concern over budget deficits and expansion of the federal government. He also believed it to be an encroachment to states' rights.

In 1986, after President Reagan vetoed a bill to impose economic sanctions against South Africa for its official policy of apartheid, Cheney was one of 83 Representatives who voted against overriding the veto. In later years, Cheney articulated his opposition to "unilateral sanctions," against many different countries, stating "they almost never work." He also opposed unilateral sanctions against communist Cuba, and later in his career he would support multilateral sanctions against Iraq. However the comparison to Cuba is not exactly apt, as the European Community had voted to place limited sanctions upon South Africa in 1986.

In 1986, Cheney, along with 145 Republicans and 31 Democrats, voted against a nonbinding Congressional resolution calling on the South African government to release Nelson Mandela from prison, after the majority Democrats defeated proposed amendments to the language that would have required Mandela to renounce violence sponsored by the ANC and requiring the ANC to oust the Communist faction from leadership. The resolution was defeated. Appearing on CNN during the Presidential campaign in 2000, Cheney addressed criticism for this, saying he opposed the resolution because the ANC "at the time was viewed as a terrorist organization and had a number of interests that were fundamentally inimical to the United States."

As a Wyoming representative, he was also known for his vigorous advocacy of the state's petroleum and coal businesses. The federal building in Casper, a regional center of the oil and coal business, was named the "Dick Cheney Federal Building" for him.

Secretary of Defense

Cheney served as the Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. He 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."

Private sector career

With Democrats returning to the White House in January 1993, Cheney left the Department of Defense and joined the American Enterprise Institute. From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company and market leader in the energy sector. Under Cheney's tenure, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries in offshore tax havens increased from 9 to 44. As CEO of Halliburton, Cheney lobbied to lift U.S. sanctions against Iran and Libya, saying they hurt business and failed to stop terrorism. He also sat on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, and EDS.

In 1997, he, along with Donald Rumsfeld and others, founded the "Project for the New American Century," a think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote American global leadership". He was also part of the board of adviser of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) before becoming Vice President.

Vice-Presidency

In the spring of 2000, while 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.

In the 2000 presidential election, a question was raised by the Democrats as to Cheney's state of residency since he had been living in Texas. A lawsuit was brought in Jones v. Bush attempting to invalidate electoral votes from Texas under the provisions of the Twelfth amendment, but was rejected by a Federal district court in Texas.

After taking office, 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 and powerful Vice President in recent years. Some, like Kenneth Duberstein (Reagan's last Chief of Staff), have likened him to a prime minister because of his powerful position inside the Bush Administration. Bush himself has described the relationship between him and his vice president in the language of corporate governance: the president likened himself to a chief executive officer and Cheney to a chief operating officer. [citation needed]

As President of the Senate, he has cast six (so far) tie-breaking votes, including deciding votes on concurring in the conference reports of the 2004 congressional budget and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.

Cheney directed the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG)commonly known as the Energy task force. Comprised by people in the energy industry, this group included several Enron executives. Because of the subsequent Enron scandal, critics accused the Bush Administration of improper political and business ties. In July 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Commerce must make the NEPDG'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 NEPDG'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"[16], claiming that this chapter urges military actions to remove strategic, political, and economic obstacles to increased U.S. consumption of oil, while others argue 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.

On the morning of June 29, 2002, Cheney became only the second man in history to serve as Acting President of the United States under the terms of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, while President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney acted as President from 11:09 UTC that day until Bush resumed control at 13:24 UTC.

In March 2003 Executive Order 13292 gave the Vice President the power to classify documents. However, the Vice President's ability to de-classify documents exists in a legal grey area and, as of February 2006, remains as a point of controversy.

Both supporters and opponents of Cheney point to his reputation as a very shrewd and knowledgeable politician who knows the functions and intricacies of the federal government. Opponents however accuse him of following policies that indirectly subsidize the oil industry and major campaign contributors and hold that Cheney strongly influenced the decision to use military force in Iraq. He is the leading proponent within the Bush administration of the right of the United States to use torture as part of the War on Terror and has been lobbying Congress to exempt the CIA from Senator John McCain's proposed anti-torture bill.

One sign of Cheney's active policy-making role is the fact that the Speaker of the House gave him an office near the House floor in addition to his office in the West Wing, his ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building, and his Senate offices (one in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and another off the floor of the Senate).


Relationship to Halliburton as Vice President

Cheney has financial interests in Halliburton through 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million. They are part of a Gift Trust Agreement pursuant to which an Administrative Agent has the right to exercise those options and distribute the proceeds from the sale of the resulting stock to certain charitable organizations.[citation needed] Who that administrative agent is and what charitable organizations have not been disclosed.

Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000, and put all of his corporate shares into a blind trust. As part of his deferred compensation agreements with Halliburton contractually arranged prior to Cheney becoming Vice President, Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed he received $162,392 in 2002 and $205,298 in 2001. Upon his nomination as a Vice Presidential candidate, Cheney purchased an annuity that would guarantee his deferred payments regardless of the company's performance. He argued that this step removed any conflict of interest. Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, is largely derived from his post at Halliburton.

In 2005, The Cheney's reported their gross income as nearly $8.82 million. This was largely the result of exercising Halliburton stock options that had been set aside in 2001 with the Gift Trust Agreement. The Cheneys donated just under $6.87 million to charity from the stock options and royalties from Mrs. Cheney's books

Rebuilding of Iraq

Halliburton was granted a $7 billion no-bid contract, the execution of which received much scrutiny from U.S. Government auditors along with the media and various political opponents who also scrutinized the awarding of the contract, claiming that it represented a conflict of interest for Mr. Cheney. In June 2004, the General Accounting Office reviewed the contracting procedures and found Halliburton's no-bid contracts were legal and likely justified by the Pentagon's wartime needs.

A few days after accusing the Vice President of cronyism regarding Halliburton, Democratic senator Patrick Leahy crossed the Senate floor to the Republican side to speak with Vice President Cheney during a Senate photo shoot. According to Cheney, Leahy was trying to "make small talk" and "act like everything's peaches and cream." Cheney ended the conversation by saying "go fuck yourself" to Leahy.


Plame Affair

Main article: Plame affair
See also: CIA leak grand jury investigation

On October 18, 2005, The Washington Post reported that the Vice President's office was central to the investigation of the Plame affair. Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, is one of the main figures under investigation. On October 28, Libby was indicted on five felony counts.

On February 9, 2006, The National Journal reported that Libby had said before a grand jury that his superiors, including Dick Cheney, had authorized him to disclose highly classified information to the press regarding Iraq's weapons intelligence.[25] In early April, 2006, Scooter Libby testified that both Cheney and George W. Bush had directly ordered him to reveal Plame's name.

Hunting Incident

Main article: Dick Cheney hunting incident

On February 11, 2006, Cheney, reportedly in view of 6 witnesses, accidentally shot Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, in the face, neck, and upper torso with birdshot pellets from a shotgun when he turned to shoot a quail while hunting on a southern Texas ranch. Three days later, Whittington suffered a "minor heart attack" and atrial fibrillation due to a pellet that embedded in the outer layers of his heart. The Vice President acknowledged consuming a beer with lunch, but stated he was in no way impaired when his group returned to hunt at 3 p.m. or when the accident happened between 5:30 p.m. and 5:50 p.m. Police and Secret Services statements imply the shooting occurred closer to 4:40pm. The Kenedy County Sheriff's office has cleared Cheney of any criminal wrongdoing in the matter. In an interview with Fox News, Cheney accepted full responsibility for the incident. Whittington was discharged from the hospital on February 17, 2006, and characterized the incident as an unfortunate accident.

Plans for the future

Since 2001, when asked if he is interested in the Republican presidential nomination, Cheney has said he wishes to retire to private life after his term as Vice President expires. In 2004, he reaffirmed this position strongly on Fox News Sunday, saying, "I will say just as hard as I possibly know how to say... 'If nominated, I will not run,' 'If elected, I will not serve,' or not only no, but 'Hell no,' I've got my plans laid out. I'm going to serve this president for the next four years, and then I'm out of here." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is often referred to as a "Sherman Statement" for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman after his dismissal of presidential considerations in 1884.

The conservative Insight magazine reported February 27, 2006, that "senior GOP sources" say Cheney is expected to retire after the mid-term Congressional elections in November, 2006. The sources cited Cheney's personal liability to the administration, "a growing rift between the president and vice president as well as their staffs" and the inability of President Bush or his staff to reach Cheney in a timely manner after the Texas hunting incident.

Plans for the future


Since 2001, when asked if he is interested in the Republican presidential nomination, Cheney has said he wishes to retire to private life after his term as Vice President expires. In 2004, he reaffirmed this position strongly on Fox News Sunday, saying, "I will say just as hard as I possibly know how to say... 'If nominated, I will not run,' 'If elected, I will not serve,' or not only no, but 'Hell no,' I've got my plans laid out. I'm going to serve this president for the next four years, and then I'm out of here." Such a categorical rejection of a candidacy is often referred to as a "Sherman Statement" for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman after his dismissal of presidential considerations in 1884.

The conservative Insight magazine reported February 27, 2006, that "senior GOP sources" say Cheney is expected to retire after the mid-term Congressional elections in November, 2006. The sources cited Cheney's personal liability to the administration, "a growing rift between the president and vice president as well as their staffs" and the inability of President Bush or his staff to reach Cheney in a timely manner after the Texas hunting incident.