RICHARD B. CHENEY (1941 - ) Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

 
 

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RICHARD B. CHENEY (1941 - )
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Vice president of the United States, former U.S. representative, and former secretary of defense. Born Richard Bruce Cheney, on January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Cheney was raised in Casper, Wyoming by his parents, Marjorie and Richard H. Cheney; his father worked for the Department of Agriculture as a soil conservation agent. The younger Cheney won a scholarship to Yale University but dropped out during his second year because of poor scholastic performance.

       

He worked for the next two years before returning to college at the University of Wyoming, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science by 1966. While working on his doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1960s, Cheney was selected for a one-year fellowship in the office of Representative William Steiger, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. In 1969, the ambitious young Cheney caught the attention of Representative Donald Rumsfeld, who had just been selected by President Richard M. Nixon to head the Office of Economic Opportunity and who hired Cheney as his special assistant.

       

In the early 1970s, when Rumsfeld became White House counsel, Cheney accompanied his mentor to the White House, where he served as a deputy counsel. He later became assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, with Rumsfeld as director. These jobs earned Cheney an enviable reputation as a Washington insider at a relatively young age. To provide himself with financial and professional security, Cheney also took a position as vice president of Bradley, Woods, & Company, an investment advisory group in Washington.

       

Ford picked Rumsfeld to head his transition team as chief of staff. Cheney became a deputy chief of staff. A year later, when Rumsfeld was named secretary of defense, Cheney replaced him at the White House, becoming (at age 34) one of the youngest men ever to serve as chief of staff. An anointed rising star of the Republican party, Cheney served Ford’s administration until the latter’s defeat by Jimmy Carter in 1976.

       

In early 1977, Cheney returned to Wyoming, where he soon found himself responding again to the lure of political life. He entered the race for the House of Representatives, winning a seat despite suffering a coronary attack during the Republican primary.

       

During his decade-long tenure in the House (1979-89), Cheney became known as a staunch conservative who nonetheless was able to get along with his political allies and opponents alike. In a rare achievement for a fledgling congressman, Cheney was elected chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee in only his second term. (He served in that position from 1981 to 1988.) His status in Congress was boosted in 1981, when the Republicans regained control of the White House in the form of President Ronald Reagan.

       

Like many of his right-wing colleagues in the House, Cheney strongly opposed abortion and gun control and supported such defense initiatives as aid to anti-Marxist rebels in Nicaragua and Reagan’s so-called “Star Wars” anti-missile shield. He became the minority whip in 1988, a position second in influence only to the minority leader.

       

During the Iran-Contra debacle of the late 1980s, he served on the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Deals with Iran, disagreeing with the majority findings and defending the Reagan administration.

       

Cheney’s strong party loyalty earned him a trusted position in the cabinet of Reagan’s successor, President George Bush, who nominated Cheney as secretary of defense in March 1989, after Bush’s original pick, former Senator John Tower of Texas, was rejected by the Senate. Although Cheney lacked military expertise or experience, his impressive executive and legislative record undoubtedly appealed to the members of the Senate, who confirmed him unanimously. In addition to Cheney, Bush’s national security team included Secretary of State James A. Baker and General Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

       

Cheney, who had avoided serving in the Vietnam War through student and parental deferments, conscientiously studied military tactics and doctrine in order to prepare himself for the challenges of his job heading the nation’s defense. Soon after he assumed office, Cheney successfully handled his first international crisis, sending 24,000 American troops to invade Panama and overthrow General Manuel Noriega. His biggest challenge by far, however, came in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Cheney encouraged the military to plan an aggressive counterattack against Iraqi forces, and personally traveled to Saudi Arabia to present King Fahd with Bush’s offer of 200,000 U.S. troops. The air and ground attack against Iraq during the first several months of 1991 proved overwhelmingly successful.

       

Though he clashed with Powell on some aspects of the proper defense strategy, both emerged from the Gulf War as popular heroes.

       

Despite his earlier support of bulking up the country’s defense, Cheney oversaw a downsizing of the U.S. military budget and forces over the next few years. With Bush and Baker, Cheney also negotiated the START I and START II treaties, the Conventional Forces in Europe agreement, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, all in the name of preserving international peace. Cheney served as secretary of defense until 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated Bush in the presidential election. After he gave up his position to Les Aspin, Cheney remained an important public voice in government, commenting on many of the Clinton administration’s actions and remaining in the national limelight despite his lack of an official government position.

       

Near the beginning of 1995, Cheney was seen as one of the top choices for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. He soon withdrew his name from contention, however, citing his frustration with the upcoming election’s focus on domestic issues instead of issues of national security. Instead, he took a position as chief executive of the Halliburton Company, an oil drilling, engineering, and construction services provider based in Dallas, Texas. He has since led the company to a doubling of its revenues and a reputation as the largest company of its kind in the world.

       

In late April of 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush, the likely Republican nominee for president, tapped Cheney to supervise his search for a running mate. In July, speculation began that Bush would decide on Cheney himself.

       

On July 25, Bush announced his choice of Cheney, citing the latter’s “great integrity, sound judgment, and experience.” Cheney and Bush formally accepted their party’s nominations at the Republican National Convention in early August.

       

Though Cheney is expected to help balance out the Republican ticket against the relative inexperience of the Texas governor, many believe his conservative views will make it harder for Bush to present himself as a mainstream candidate. Almost immediately, liberals began raising questions about Cheney’s congressional voting record, including his anti-abortion stance and his strong opposition to gays and lesbians openly serving in the military. Questions have also been raised about Cheney’s health and fitness, as he suffered three mild heart attacks before the age of 50 and underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery in 1988.

       

Cheney and Bush faced off against the Democratic ticket of Vice President Al Gore and Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman in one of the closest and most disputed presidential elections in U.S. history. On election night, November 7, it all came down to the state of Florida and its 25 electoral votes. With a razor-thin lead in the state (though he trailed Gore in the popular vote), Bush was first declared the winner by the news networks, and Gore called to concede the election. Hours later, the final count in Florida looked too close to call, and Gore rescinded his concession as the recounts began. In the midst of the post-election hubbub, Cheney suffered another mild heart attack and underwent an angioplasty procedure. He was given a clean bill of health in late November.

       

After five weeks of complicated legal battles that stretched all the way to the highest court in the land, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to stop the recounts in Florida, effectively declaring Bush the winner of the state by a margin of 537 votes. On December 13, one day after this decision, Gore ended his campaign and congratulated Bush on his victory, as both men urged the nation to try to put partisan differences aside in the wake of the extraordinary election.

       

Until his inauguration on January 20, 2001, Dick Cheney lived in Wyoming and Texas with Lynne, his high school sweetheart and wife of almost 40 years. For her part, Lynne Cheney is a political scholar and an active conservative voice in the Republican Party. She served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities during the Reagan and Bush years and later as a political commentator. The couple has two grown daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.

       

In March 2001, Cheney was admitted to the hospital after suffering chest pains. Doctors opened up a partly blocked artery that had been opened the previous fall but had narrowed again. Although the cardiologist that treated Cheney acknowledged that the vice president has a history of “chronic coronary artery disease", he predicted that he will be able to “finish out his term in his extremely vigorous capacity.”

       

In November 2004, the Bush/Cheney ticket won a second term after a victory over Masschusettes Senator John Kerry. Though the campaign leading up to the election was often bitter and divisive, Bush claimed a more decisive win than in 2000.


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