Cheney Dies: Vice President Who Redefined Executive Power

Dick Cheney served as Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, when he oversaw the first large-scale American military operation in the Middle East since Vietnam. He was then CEO of Halliburton. Then Vice President during September 11. He pushed for the Iraq War, the NSA surveillance program, and the use of waterboarding at CIA black sites. Born in 1941 in Lincoln, Nebraska, he had five draft deferments during Vietnam and a heart transplant at 71. He died in 2025. Cheney's career spanned every level of Republican politics over five decades. He dropped out of Yale twice, earned degrees from the University of Wyoming, and entered government as a congressional intern in 1969. He rose rapidly through the Nixon and Ford administrations, becoming Gerald Ford's White House Chief of Staff at 34, the youngest person to hold the position. He served six terms in Congress from Wyoming before being appointed Secretary of Defense by George H. W. Bush in 1989. As Defense Secretary, he managed the military response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, overseeing Operation Desert Storm's rapid victory. After leaving government, he became CEO of Halliburton, an oil services company that would later receive billions in government contracts during the Iraq War he helped orchestrate. As Vice President under George W. Bush, Cheney was widely regarded as the most powerful vice president in American history. He was the primary advocate within the administration for invading Iraq, for the enhanced interrogation techniques that critics called torture, and for the warrantless surveillance programs that the NSA conducted on American citizens. His five heart attacks and eventual transplant at 71 made him the first sitting vice president to serve without a natural heartbeat for over a year while using a ventricular assist device.