On Background: Cheney, Credentials Without the Ego
W A S H I N G T O N, July 25, 2000 -- Dick Cheney is the ultimate, A-list Washington insider — elected to Congress for more than a decade, appointed to four years as secretary of defense just in time to wage a war. He even started at the top: chief of staff to President Ford at barely 34 years old.
Such credentials might stoke the ego of most Washington figures, but Cheney has always kept his under control.
He’s no show-horse. Friends and opponents alike describe the 59-year old as solid, serious, and very likeable.
Cheney’s quiet, unassuming figure brings to the Republican presidential ticket a “gravitas” that fills in some empty spots in the resume of presidential candidate George W. Bush. But it also may be a record that will give Democrats ample grounds to attack the team’s conservative policies.
Conservative Credentials
His record in Congress already has Democrats pointing to a pattern of socially-conservative votes, supporting President Reagan’s reforms and budget-cutting. At some moments, Cheney even broke with the mainstream, one of only 12 House members to cast a vote against the Older Americans Act of 1984 and one of a small group opposing an appropriation for Head Start. On the environment, Cheney repeatedly opposed Superfund toxic clean up money.
Cheney amassed power as he advanced to the No. 3 leadership position in the House during a time when dreams of a Republican speaker controlling the House seemed unattainable. But he resigned the safe seat, one he probably could have held for life, when President Bush needed a defense secretary, and quick.
Bush’s first congressional choice, flamboyant Texas Sen. John Tower, imploded in a long, losing battle. By comparison, the sober, serious young congressman from Wyoming was an easy sell.
Cheney was confirmed despite the fact that in the Vietnam era, he had never served in the military. His draft deferments came twice because he was a college or graduate student, a third time because he was supporting a family with small children. Cheney said later he would have served if called but had different “priorities” at that point.
The Pentagon Years
During his years at the Pentagon, the world was a very different place. The Berlin Wall crumbled. The Soviet Union went out of existence. The Reagan defense build-up gave Cheney military muscle to spare — but brought with it a new set of enemies. Regional conflicts in Iraq and the Balkans replaced the looming Soviet menace.
Cheney exercised decisive civilian control over the Pentagon’s military brass, even firing the Air Force chief of staff for saying in public what the United States might do to Saddam Hussein. And an historic account of the Persian Gulf War reports that Cheney forced a reluctant Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, to come up with contingency plans for launching a possible tactical nuclear strike.
Cheney supported the ban on gays in the military. These were the years before the Clinton administration’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Cheney told ABCNEWS at the time, “I don’t think it’s fundamentally wrong for us to make a distinction between civilian and military service … gay lifestyle is incompatible with military service.”
Civilian Life
Cheney’s recent sentiments are less clear on the civilian side. He is not recorded on the public record with regard to his younger daughter Mary, who worked until the end of May in several jobs for the Coors Brewing Co. in Colorado. News stories published over the last few years have quoted her as defending Coors employment policies for gays and lesbians, identifying Mary Cheney as manager of gay and lesbian corporate relations at the company.
When the Republicans lost the White House in 1992, Dick Cheney went about doing something he had not been able to do before — make money. Speaking fees, a slot at a big Washington think tank. And then the oil industry giant Halliburton signed him on as corporate chief. Cheney moved to Dallas to head up the firm, earning nearly $2 million last year, and staying out of the public spotlight until another Texan asked Cheney to scout around for the perfect vice-presidential running mate.
Preparing for a New Life
Halliburton announced today that Cheney has resigned as CEO, having alerted the board of directors to the possibility last Thursday. And, according to documents obtained by ABCNEWS, Cheney sold off nearly half his Halliburton stock in early June, at a value of $5 million. The move raises questions about when exactly Cheney, who was tasked with vetting several top Republicans as the head of Bush’s veep search, realized he might be on the ticket himself.
When word began to circulate that Cheney was under consideration, we caught up with him by phone at the townhouse he still keeps in Washington. Cheney confessed that he was baby-sitting two small granddaughters for the weekend following the birth of a third. He had plans for a fishing vacation along the Snake river in Wyoming in August. He saw it all evaporating.
Oddly, the one point at which George W. Bush’s path and Cheney’s overlap is Yale University. Years before Bush got there, Cheney flunked out and left the scholarship that got him to Yale. He later explained he didn’t fit in well in the East.
Yet Washington, not Wyoming, has come to define Dick Cheney’s political career.