Richard Bruce Cheney is 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.
74 Facts About Dick Cheney
2.
Dick Cheney is currently the oldest living former US vice president, following the death of Walter Mondale in 2021.
3.
Dick Cheney attended Yale University before earning a bachelor of arts and master of arts in political science from the University of Wyoming.
4.
Dick Cheney began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
5.
Dick Cheney served as White House chief of staff from 1975 to 1977.
6.
In July 2000, Cheney was chosen by presumptive Republican presidential nominee George W Bush as his running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
7.
Dick Cheney was an early proponent of invading Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed a weapons of mass destruction program and had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda; however, neither allegation was ever substantiated.
8.
Dick Cheney pressured the intelligence community to provide intelligence consistent with the administration's rationales for invading Iraq.
9.
Dick Cheney was often criticized for the Bush Administration's policies regarding the campaign against terrorism, for his support of wiretapping by the National Security Agency and for his endorsement of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which several critics have labeled as torture.
10.
Dick Cheney publicly disagreed with President Bush's position against same-sex marriage in 2004, but said it is "appropriately a matter for the states to decide".
11.
Dick Cheney, often cited as the most powerful vice president in American history, ended his tenure as an unpopular figure in American politics with an approval rating of 13 percent.
12.
Dick Cheney is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot ancestry.
13.
Dick Cheney's father was a soil conservation agent for the US Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney was one of three children.
14.
Dick Cheney attended Calvert Elementary School before his family moved to Casper, Wyoming, where he attended Natrona County High School.
15.
Dick Cheney attended Yale University, but by his own account had problems adjusting to the college, and dropped out.
16.
Dick Cheney later attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned both a bachelor of arts and a master of arts in political science.
17.
Dick Cheney was arrested for DWI again the following year.
18.
Dick Cheney then joined the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1969 to 1970.
19.
Dick Cheney held several positions in the years that followed: White House Staff Assistant in 1971, Assistant Director of the Cost of Living Council from 1971 to 1973, and Deputy Assistant to the president from 1974 to 1975.
20.
Dick Cheney was Assistant to the President and White House Deputy Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford from December 1974 to November 1975.
21.
Dick Cheney later was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.
22.
Dick Cheney served for two and a half months before he was appointed Secretary of Defense instead of former US Senator John G Tower, whose nomination had been rejected by the US Senate in March 1989.
23.
Dick Cheney voted against the creation of the US Department of Education, citing his concern over budget deficits and expansion of the federal government, and claiming that the Department was an encroachment on states' rights.
24.
Dick Cheney voted against funding Head Start, but reversed his position in 2000.
25.
Dick Cheney initially voted in 1978 against establishing a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
26.
Dick Cheney supported Bob Michel's bid to become Republican Minority Leader.
27.
Dick Cheney was elected Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987.
28.
Dick Cheney was the Ranking Member of the Select Committee to investigate the Iran-Contra Affair.
29.
Dick Cheney promoted Wyoming's petroleum and coal businesses as well.
30.
Dick Cheney directed the United States invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East.
31.
Dick Cheney worked closely with Pete Williams, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, from the beginning of his tenure.
32.
Dick Cheney focused primarily on external matters, and left most of the internal DoD management to Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood.
33.
Dick Cheney deemed it appropriate to cut the budget and downsize the military, following the Reagan Administration's peacetime defense buildup at the height of the Cold War.
34.
Dick Cheney opposed the V-22 program, which Congress had already appropriated funds for, and initially refused to issue contracts for it before relenting.
35.
Dick Cheney publicly expressed concern that nations such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, could acquire nuclear components after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
36.
Dick Cheney believed that NATO should remain the foundation of European security relationships and that it would remain important to the United States in the long term; he urged the alliance to lend more assistance to the new democracies in Eastern Europe.
37.
Dick Cheney felt that the Bush Administration was too optimistic in supporting General Secretary of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
38.
Dick Cheney worked to maintain strong ties between the United States and its European allies.
39.
Dick Cheney persuaded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to allow bases for US ground troops and war planes in the nation.
40.
Dick Cheney spent hours in the National Military Command Center peppering my staff with questions.
41.
Dick Cheney turned most other Department of Defense matters over to Deputy Secretary Atwood and briefed Congress during the air and ground phases of the war.
42.
Dick Cheney flew with Powell to the region to review and finalize the ground war plans.
43.
Dick Cheney replied that occupying and attempting to take over the country would have been a "bad idea" and would have led to a "quagmire", explaining that:.
44.
Dick Cheney regarded the Gulf War as an example of the kind of regional problem the United States was likely to continue to face in the future.
45.
Dick Cheney served a second term as a Council on Foreign Relations director from 1993 to 1995.
46.
Dick Cheney resigned as CEO on the same day he was announced as George Bush's vice presidential pick in the 2000 election.
47.
Dick Cheney was named in a December 2010 corruption complaint filed by the Nigerian government against Halliburton, which the company settled for $250 million.
48.
Dick Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25,2000.
49.
Dick Cheney was a member of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs before becoming vice president.
50.
In early 2000, while serving as the CEO of Halliburton, Cheney headed then-Governor of Texas George W Bush's vice-presidential search committee.
51.
Dick Cheney campaigned against Al Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, in the 2000 presidential election.
52.
Dick Cheney later revealed in his memoir In My Time that these "undisclosed locations" included his official vice presidential residence, his home in Wyoming, and Camp David.
53.
Dick Cheney utilized a heavy security detail, employing a motorcade of 12 to 18 government vehicles for his daily commute from the vice presidential residence at the US Naval Observatory to the White House.
54.
Dick Cheney helped shape Bush's approach to the "War on Terror", making numerous public statements alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and making several personal visits to CIA headquarters, where he questioned mid-level agency analysts on their conclusions.
55.
Dick Cheney often criticized war critics, calling them "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while US soldiers died in Iraq.
56.
Dick Cheney has since stated that he is in favor of gay marriages personally, but that each individual US state should decide whether to permit it or not.
57.
Dick Cheney was a prominent member of the National Energy Policy Development Group, commonly known as the Energy Task Force, composed of energy industry representatives, including several Enron executives.
58.
Dick Cheney refused to release the documents, citing his executive privilege to deny congressional information requests.
59.
Dick Cheney has been characterized as the most powerful and influential Vice President in history.
60.
Dick Cheney maintains homes in Wyoming and on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
61.
Dick Cheney was reported to be the subject of an HBO television mini-series based on Barton Gellman's 2008 book Angler and the 2006 documentary The Dark Side, produced by the Public Broadcasting Service.
62.
Dick Cheney maintained a visible public profile after leaving office, being especially critical of Obama administration policies on national security.
63.
Dick Cheney criticized the Trump administration during a forum at the American Enterprise Institute alongside Vice President Mike Pence in March 2019.
64.
Dick Cheney later appeared in a 2022 primary campaign ad for Liz in which he called Trump a "coward" and "threat to our republic" due to his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.
65.
Dick Cheney has been cited as the most powerful vice president in American history.
66.
Dick Cheney has been compared to Darth Vader, a characterization originated by his critics, but which was later adopted humorously by Cheney himself as well as by members of his family and staff.
67.
Dick Cheney is a member of the United Methodist Church and was the first Methodist vice president to serve under a Methodist president.
68.
Dick Cheney's brother, Bob, is a former civil servant at the Bureau of Land Management.
69.
Dick Cheney is a public speaker, author, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
70.
Dick Cheney has publicly supported gay marriage since leaving the vice presidency.
71.
Dick Cheney underwent four-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting in 1988, coronary artery stenting in November 2000, urgent coronary balloon angioplasty in March 2001, and the implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator in June 2001.
72.
Dick Cheney was hospitalized for tests after experiencing shortness of breath five months later.
73.
Dick Cheney was released from Inova on August 9,2010, and had to decide whether to seek a full heart transplant.
74.
Dick Cheney had been on a waiting list for more than 20 months before receiving the heart from an anonymous donor.