Cheney, Dick

Cheney, Dick (Richard Bruce Cheney) (chē`nē, chā`–), 1941–, vice president of the United States (2001–), b. Lincoln, Nebr. At 13 he and his family moved to Casper, Wyo.; he attended the Univ. of Wyoming (B.A., 1965; M.A., 1966) and the Univ. of Wisconsin. A conservative Republican, he served (1970–73) in various White House posts during the Nixon administration and as President Gerald Ford's deputy assistant (1974–75) and de facto chief of staff (1975–77). Elected to the House of Representatives from Wyoming in 1978 and reelected times, he became House minority whip in 1988. Cheney remained in Congress until 1989, when President George H. W. Bush appointed him secretary of defense, a post he held until 1993. Cheney played an important role in the strategic planning of the Persian Gulf War (1991). In 1995 he became the CEO of the Dallas-based Halliburton Company.

Five years later Cheney was picked by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush to be his vice-presidential running mate, and, despite losing the popular vote, they narrowly defeated the Gore-Lieberman ticket in the electoral college. Extremely close to President Bush, Cheney has brought an unusual degree of executive branch experience to the vice presidency. These factors and his status as a Republican party elder and unlikely presidential candidate have made him one of the most influential vice presidents in more recent American history, particularly in the the areas of national security and the economy. Cheney became an advocate of a presidency of reinvigorated and minimally constrained power, and was a prominent advocate with the administration of invading Iraq.

Bush and Cheney were reelected in 2004, this time winning a clear majority of the popular vote. In 2005, however, the indictment of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, Jr., on charges of lying to and obstructing an investigation into the leaking (2003) of a CIA officer's name was an embarrassment for the administration. (Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, revealed in 2006 that he had been responsible for the leak of the CIA officer's name that had led to the investigation; he said the act had been inadvertent.) Libby's trial (2007) revealed information about Cheney's involvement in Libby's actions in 2003 and raised questions about whether Cheney had any involvement in obstructing the investigation.

In 1964 Cheney married

Lynne V. Cheney, 1941–, b. Casper, Wyo., as Lynne Ann Vincent. Noted as a conservative advocate of traditional educational standards, she headed the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993 and was co-host (1996–8) of television's Crossfire Sunday. Since 1993 she has been a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank.

Bibliography

See J. Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (2004).

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Cheney, Dick

 in full Richard Bruce Cheney

(born Jan. 30, 1941, Lincoln, Neb., U.S.) U.S. politician, vice president of the U.S. from 2001. Cheney grew up in Casper, Wyo., and received bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wyoming. He became a deputy assistant to Pres. Gerald Ford in 1974 and served as his chief of staff from 1975 to 1977. In 1978 Cheney was elected from Wyoming to a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; he served six terms. As secretary of defense (1989–93) in the administration of Pres. George Bush, he presided over reductions in the military following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Following Bush's electoral defeat in 1992, Cheney became a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and later chairman and chief executive officer of the Halliburton Company, a supplier of technology and services to the oil and gas industries. He was elected vice president on a ticket with George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.