Post by GeorgeWalkerBush on Aug 13, 2004 11:16:21 GMT -5
Vice President Richard B. Cheney was born in Lincoln, Neb., on January, 30, 1941, but he moved to Casper, Wyo., his hometown, after his father, who worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, was transferred there in 1954.
Deep in Wyoming, far away from buzzing urban centers and 2000 miles from Washington, Cheney had an almost stereotypical 1950's, mainstream America upbringing. Topped with a crew-cut, he belonged to the Cub Scouts, then the Boy Scouts, and later became the football team captain. In his free time he worked as a janitor at a variety store, hung out with friends at the local soda shop and water-skied on irrigation canals. He was voted president of his class at Natrona High School and his sweetheart and future wife, Lynne, was the homecoming queen.
Cheney's career got off to a bumpy start though. After high school, he attended Yale, but the former high school football star flunked out and returned home after three semesters. Cheney then worked as electrical worker constructing high voltage power lines across Wyoming for two years before he enrolled at the University of Wyoming to complete his education. In 1965 he graduated with a B.A. in political science and in 1966, he completed his M.A. in the same field.
Originally, Cheney had not intended to participate in political life directly. He was planning to be political science teacher when he first went to Washington D.C. in 1968 to complete his PhD dissertation. It was only by chance that while working as a congressional fellow for Wisconsin Rep. William Steiger that he met Donald Rumsfeld, then director of the Office of Economic Oppurtunity (OEO). Rumsfeld was so impressed by a memo that Cheney wrote that he offered him a job as his special assistant. Cheney jumped at the offer and never looked back or finished his PhD.
Cheney worked for Rumsfeld at the OEO for two years before be moved on to hold various positions in Washington. In 1971, he became White House Assistant and soon left to become the Assistant Director of the Cost of Living Council where he stayed until 1973. Cheney then returned briefly to private life, but was soon contacted by Rumsfeld about another position in the government.
Rumsfeld had left Washington in 1973 to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO in Brussels, Belgium; however, he was called back to Washington in 1974 to chair Gerald Ford's transition to the Presidency in the wake of Richard Nixon's resignation and the Watergate scandal. As he was helping to fashion the Ford administration, Rumsfeld remembered his former special assistant, Cheney, and asked him to come aboard. From 1974-75, Cheney would serve as the deputy assistant to President Ford while Rumsfeld was the White House chief of staff.
In 1975, Cheney was once again in the right place at the right time. That year Rumsfeld was appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense and Cheney was called on to fill his former boss/benefactor's position. Thus, at age 34, he became the third most influential man in the executive branch and the youngest chief of staff in history.
For the remainder of Ford's term, Cheney served as chief of staff. After Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, Cheney and his family returned to Wyoming in 1977. The state's incumbent representative in Congress – Wyoming has just one seat – chose not to seek reelection in 1978, and Cheney quickly began to organize a campaign, and ultimately ran against Democratic candidate William Bagley, a Cheyene deputy prosecutor. In the early stages of the campaign, Cheney faced some obstacles. Despite his extensive experience in Washington, he suffered from a lack of name recognition in his home state, and also faced claims that he was a "carpetbagger" and that Wyoming was a second best to him after Washington. To compound this, during the campaign he had a heart attack.
Evincing ingenuity and old fashioned gumption, Cheney came out all right though and won the election. He quit his three-pack a day smoking habit and wrote every Republican voter a letter that he would not be held back by his condition. Ironically, the heart attack helped the Cheney campaign. Polls showed that it gave him something for voters to associate him with.
Cheney was re-elected in five consecutive elections. As Wyoming's sole Congressman he served on the Interior Committee, was the Ranking Republican on the Water and Power Resources Committee. Before the end of his tenure in 1988, Cheney was the 2nd ranking member of the GOP in the House, had had two more heart attacks, and a quadruple bypass surgery.
In 1989, newly elected President George H.W. Bush urgently needed a defense secretary after his initial nomination, John Tower, was rejected by the Senate. Cheney heeded the call. Praised by members of both parties as a "widely respected man of principle," Cheney did not wait to finish his sixth term as representative. His nomination was hurriedly accepted by the Senate and in this hasty fashion he embarked on one of the most active tenures of any secretary of defense in history.
As secretary of defense, Cheney saw the fall of the Soviet Union, helped conduct the Panama invasion to oust Manuel Noriega, and sent the first American troops to Somalia with the Unified Task Force (UNITAF) to help provide relief assistance. But his greatest challenge was the Persian Gulf War.
On August 1, 1990 when Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait and the Bush administration was divided on how to proceed, Cheney was an early and outspoken supporter of intervention. Colin Powell recalled in his 1995 autobiography, My American Journal, that when he asked if it was worth going to war over Kuwait, Cheney rebuked him by saying, "Colin, you're chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You're not secretary of state. You're not the national security advisor anymore. And you're not secretary of defense. So stick to military matters."
During the Gulf War, Cheney would be instrumental in coordinating the American role. After the Iraqi invasion, Cheney made several trips to Saudi Arabia and secured King Fahd's permission to begin implementing Operation Desert Shield, the build up of U.S. forces on Saudi soil. In addition, Cheney worked closely with the military on planning and logistics. Powell recalled that Cheney "became a glutton for information, with an appetite we could barely satisfy. He spent hours in the National Military Command Center peppering my staff with questions."
While the performance of the military in the Gulf War was successful, the Bush administration did not fare as well in the 1992 elections. After Bill Clinton's victory over Bush, Cheney left Washington again, this time to find his fortune in the private sector.
The former White House chief of staff, congressman and secretary of defense quickly added to his resume. While working a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, Cheney served on the board of directors for such prominent companies like US West, Procter & Gamble, and Lockheed Martin and still managed to lecture widely across the United States.
But it wasn't until 1995 that his career really took off when he became the CEO of the Dallas-based oil services firm, Halliburton Co. Cheney's arrival was a watershed event that brought the company an unprecedented level of profitability. During Cheney's tenure at Halliburton revenue more than doubled, thanks in part to Cheney's ability to secure overseas business for the firm. By the time Cheney left the firm, in the summer of 2000, overseas operations accounted for 68 percent for total revenues, up from 51 percent when he arrived. By the time the 2000 Presidential election was gearing up, Halliburton had become the world's largest diversified energy services company of its kind.
In the April 2000, Cheney agreed to chair then-Gov. George W. Bush's vice-presidential selection committee. In May, he assured Halliburton stockholders that he had no intentions of leaving his position for another Bush administration. But this proved to be a promise that he wouldn't keep.
In July 2000, Bush announced that Cheney would be his running mate. Cheney prepared for the campaign and pledged to forfeit his interests in the private sector, specifically in Halliburton.
In January 2001, Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President after the closest election in U.S. history, with Cheney serving as his vice president.