Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney
Born	Richard Bruce Cheney 30 1, 1941
Birthplace	Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Politician, businessman
Known for	46th Vice President of the United States; 17th U.S. Secretary of Defense; Chairman and CEO of Halliburton
Education	University of Wyoming (M.A.)
Spouse(s)	Lynne Cheney
Children	2
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (2011)

Richard Bruce Cheney (January 30, 1941 – November 3, 2025) was an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Cheney accumulated a record of government service matched by few figures in modern American politics — from White House chief of staff at the age of thirty-four, to six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, to Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, and finally to the vice presidency during one of the most consequential periods in American history. A member of the Republican Party, Cheney played a central and often controversial role in shaping the United States' response to the September 11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, including the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. His influence within the executive branch led many observers and scholars to describe him as the most powerful vice president in the nation's history. He died on November 3, 2025, at the age of 84.

Early Life

Richard Bruce Cheney was born on January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska. He grew up in Nebraska before his family relocated to Casper, Wyoming, where he spent his formative years. Cheney attended Natrona County High School in Casper, where he was a football player and senior class president.

After graduating from high school, Cheney enrolled at Yale University on a scholarship. However, his time at Yale was brief; he left the institution without completing his degree. He subsequently returned to Wyoming, where he worked in a series of manual labor jobs, including laying power lines.

Cheney's early adulthood was marked by two arrests for driving under the influence, incidents he later acknowledged publicly. These experiences, by his own later account, prompted a reassessment of his direction in life. He re-enrolled in higher education at the University of Wyoming, where he would go on to earn both his undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Education

After leaving Yale University, Cheney attended the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1965 and subsequently completed a Master of Arts in political science from the same institution in 1966. He began doctoral studies in political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison but did not complete the program, instead turning to a career in government service.

Career

Early Political Career and the Ford White House

Cheney's entry into politics came through an internship with U.S. Congressman William A. Steiger of Wisconsin, which led to his introduction to Donald Rumsfeld, who was then serving in the Nixon administration. Cheney worked his way through the ranks of the executive branch during the Nixon and Ford administrations, serving in various advisory and staff roles. When Gerald Ford assumed the presidency following Nixon's resignation in August 1974, Rumsfeld was appointed White House chief of staff and brought Cheney on as his deputy.

When Rumsfeld was appointed Secretary of Defense in November 1975, Cheney succeeded him as White House Chief of Staff, becoming at age thirty-four one of the youngest people ever to hold the position. He served as chief of staff from 1975 to 1977, managing the daily operations of the Ford White House during a period of considerable political and economic turbulence. In this role, Cheney developed the organizational discipline, bureaucratic expertise, and connections within the Republican establishment that would define the rest of his career.

U.S. House of Representatives (1979–1989)

Following Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election, Cheney returned to Wyoming and entered electoral politics. In 1978, he ran for Wyoming's at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and won the election. He took office on January 3, 1979, succeeding Teno Roncalio.

Cheney was reelected five times, serving a total of six terms in the House. During his decade in Congress, he compiled a conservative voting record and rose steadily through the Republican leadership ranks. He served on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, among other assignments, gaining expertise in defense and national security matters that would shape his later career.

In December 1988, Cheney was elected House Republican Conference Chairman, and in March 1989, he was briefly elected House Minority Whip, the second-ranking Republican leadership position in the House. He held the whip position for only a matter of weeks before being tapped for a cabinet appointment by the incoming president, George H. W. Bush.

Secretary of Defense (1989–1993)

In March 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated Cheney to serve as the 17th United States Secretary of Defense. Cheney was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 92–0 and took office on March 21, 1989. He succeeded Frank Carlucci, who had served under President Ronald Reagan.

As Secretary of Defense, Cheney oversaw the U.S. military during a period of significant global change, including the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He managed substantial reductions in the size of the U.S. military force structure as the strategic landscape shifted.

Cheney's tenure at the Pentagon was defined by two major military operations. In December 1989, he oversaw Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama to depose General Manuel Noriega. The operation resulted in the capture of Noriega and the installation of a democratically elected government.

The most consequential military action during Cheney's time as Secretary of Defense was Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Cheney played a central role in assembling the international coalition that would liberate Kuwait. He worked closely with General Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, the theater commander, to plan and execute the military campaign. The coalition's air and ground campaign succeeded in driving Iraqi forces from Kuwait within weeks. The operation was considered a major military success and elevated Cheney's reputation as a defense strategist.

Notably, the Bush administration and Cheney decided not to pursue the war into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. In a 1994 interview, Cheney defended that decision, arguing that occupying Baghdad would have resulted in a "quagmire" and that the United States would have been left to manage the fractured political landscape of Iraq on its own. This position would stand in stark contrast to his later advocacy for regime change in Iraq during the George W. Bush administration.

Cheney served as Secretary of Defense until January 20, 1993, when the Clinton administration took office. He was succeeded by Les Aspin.

Halliburton (1995–2000)

After leaving government service, Cheney entered the private sector. In 1995, he was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton, a major oilfield services and defense contracting company based in Texas. Under Cheney's leadership, Halliburton expanded its operations and grew through mergers and acquisitions, including the acquisition of Dresser Industries in 1998.

Cheney's tenure at Halliburton later became a source of political controversy, particularly after the company received substantial contracts from the U.S. government related to military operations in Iraq. When Cheney left Halliburton in 2000 to join the Republican presidential ticket, he received a severance package valued at approximately $33.7 million. Critics raised questions about potential conflicts of interest given his continued financial ties to the company, though Cheney maintained that he had severed all business relationships with Halliburton upon taking office as vice president.

Vice Presidency (2001–2009)

Selection and Elections

In the spring of 2000, presumptive Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush asked Cheney to lead the search for a vice presidential running mate. Cheney vetted a number of potential candidates before Bush ultimately selected Cheney himself for the position in July 2000. The choice raised some legal questions because both Bush and Cheney had residences in Texas; the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits electors from voting for a president and vice president from the same state. Cheney addressed this by changing his voter registration back to Wyoming.

The Bush-Cheney ticket won the 2000 presidential election against the Democratic ticket of Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joe Lieberman following a protracted recount dispute in Florida that was ultimately resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. Cheney was inaugurated as the 46th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 2001.

In the 2004 presidential election, Bush and Cheney were reelected, defeating the Democratic ticket of Senators John Kerry and John Edwards.

September 11 Attacks and the War on Terror

The defining event of Cheney's vice presidency was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On the morning of September 11, after the second plane struck the World Trade Center, Cheney was evacuated to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center beneath the White House, where he played a leading role in coordinating the immediate government response while President Bush was traveling.

In the weeks and months following the attacks, Cheney emerged as one of the principal architects of the administration's response, which was termed the "War on Terror" or "Global War on Terrorism." He was a strong advocate for expanded executive authority and played an influential role in shaping the administration's counterterrorism policies, including the authorization of warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency and the use of what the administration termed "enhanced interrogation techniques" on detainees. Critics characterized these interrogation methods as torture.

Cheney's role in these policies generated sustained criticism from civil liberties organizations, legal scholars, and political opponents, who argued that the administration had overstepped constitutional boundaries and violated international law.

Iraq War

Cheney was one of the earliest and most forceful proponents within the Bush administration of military action against Iraq. Beginning in the months after September 11, he publicly and privately argued that the regime of Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. In a series of public statements, Cheney alleged that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and maintained an operational relationship with al-Qaeda.

In August 2002, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney stated that there was "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraqi leader was amassing them "to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." He also asserted connections between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda, including alleged meetings between Iraqi intelligence officials and September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.

These claims were central to the administration's case for the invasion of Iraq, which began in March 2003. However, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. The Iraq Survey Group, the official American inspection team, concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs years before the invasion. The alleged operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was similarly not substantiated by the 9/11 Commission or subsequent investigations.

Reports indicated that Cheney had pressured the intelligence community to produce assessments consistent with the administration's stated rationales for war. He made multiple visits to the CIA headquarters at Langley, which some intelligence analysts later described as an unusual and pressuring presence.

The Iraq War became the most controversial aspect of Cheney's vice presidency and one of the most debated foreign policy decisions in modern American history. The war resulted in the deaths of more than 4,400 American service members and an estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and it destabilized the broader Middle East region for years to come.

Hunting Incident

On February 11, 2006, Cheney accidentally shot his hunting companion, Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, with birdshot during a quail hunting trip on a ranch in Kenedy County, Texas. Whittington suffered injuries to his face, neck, and chest, and was hospitalized. The incident drew extensive media coverage, particularly because the White House did not publicly disclose the shooting until the day after it occurred. Cheney later accepted full responsibility for the accident in a televised interview.

Post–Vice Presidency

After leaving office in January 2009, Cheney remained an active public commentator on national security and foreign policy matters. He was a frequent critic of the Obama administration's counterterrorism and foreign policies, arguing that the new administration's approach made the country less safe.

In later years, Cheney broke sharply with the direction of the Republican Party under former President Donald Trump. Following the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Cheney publicly criticized Trump and supported the congressional investigation into the events. His daughter, Liz Cheney, who served as the U.S. representative for Wyoming, was vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack and was subsequently defeated in her 2022 Republican primary after being censured by the Republican National Committee.

In a significant departure from a lifetime of Republican Party loyalty, Cheney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the 2024 presidential election, stating that Trump posed a threat to the republic.

Personal Life

Cheney married Lynne Vincent in 1964. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth (Liz) and Mary. Lynne Cheney had a career as an author and served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993.

Cheney's daughter Mary is openly lesbian, a fact that became a matter of public discussion during the 2004 presidential campaign. In 2004, Cheney stated his support for same-sex marriage, breaking with the official position of the Republican Party and the Bush administration, which supported a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Cheney had a long history of cardiovascular disease. He suffered his first heart attack in 1978 at the age of 37, followed by subsequent heart attacks in 1984, 1988, and 2000. He underwent coronary artery bypass surgery and had a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implanted in 2010 to help his heart pump blood. In March 2012, at the age of 71, he received a heart transplant.

Dick Cheney died on November 3, 2025, at the age of 84. Following his death, flags were ordered to be lowered to half-staff in his honor.

Recognition

Following Cheney's death on November 3, 2025, former President George W. Bush issued a statement describing Cheney's passing as "a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends." Bush stated: "Laura and I will remember Dick Cheney for the decent, capable man he was."

State and federal officials ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in Cheney's honor following his death, in accordance with protocols for former vice presidents.

During his lifetime, Cheney received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama as part of a tradition of honoring former vice presidents. His career in public service — spanning roles as White House chief of staff, congressman, Secretary of Defense, and vice president — made him one of the most experienced figures in the history of the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Legacy

Dick Cheney's legacy remains a subject of substantial debate among historians, political scientists, and commentators. His supporters credit him with strengthening the national security apparatus of the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks and with providing experienced, steady counsel during a period of crisis. His role in overseeing the military response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991 was broadly regarded as a success of American military planning and coalition diplomacy.

His critics point to the Iraq War, launched on the basis of intelligence claims that proved unfounded, as a defining failure. The absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, combined with the war's human and financial costs, left a lasting mark on American foreign policy and on public trust in government institutions. Cheney's advocacy for expanded executive power, warrantless surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques prompted legal and ethical debates that continued long after he left office.

The scope of Cheney's influence within the vice presidency itself reshaped understandings of the office. He expanded the institutional capacity of the vice presidency, embedding himself in policy deliberations across domestic and foreign affairs to a degree that had no modern precedent. Scholars and journalists described his tenure as transforming the vice presidency from a largely ceremonial position into a center of executive power.

In his final years, Cheney's break with the Republican Party over Donald Trump and the January 6 Capitol attack added another dimension to his public legacy. His endorsement of a Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 underscored the extent to which his conception of conservative governance — rooted in institutions, alliances, and the rule of law — diverged from the populist direction the Republican Party had taken.