Dick Cheney dead: Former vice president held many roles in government

Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, was the architect of the “war on terror” and held many positions in government during his long career. Cheney’s family announced his death at the age of 84 early Tuesday.

In a statement, the Cheney family confirmed that the 46th vice president of the United States passed away on Monday with his family present, including his wife of 61 years, Lynne; his daughters, Liz and Mary; and other family members.

The cause of death was from “complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” the statement said.

“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the family’s statement read. “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

Cheney would become one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history.

He served during both Bush presidencies. Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, leading the armed forces during the Persian Gulf War.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Jan. 30, 1941, and grew up in Casper, Wyoming. He attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s.

His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon administration, serving in several positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House.

When Nixon resigned in August 1974, Cheney served on the transition team for incoming President Gerald Ford and was later named deputy assistant to the president.

In November 1975, he was named assistant to the president and White House chief of staff.

Cheney returned to Wyoming in 1977 and was elected to serve as the state’s lone congressman in the House of Representatives. He was re-elected five times and also served as chairman of the Republican Conference from 1981 to 1987.

He was elected as House minority whip the following year.

Cheney was in the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Florida that day, so Cheney became the point man from Washington.

Cheney gave the order to authorize the shooting down of any more hijacked airliners in the event they were headed to the White House or the U.S. Capitol building.

Cheney said the attack made him a changed man, and he vowed to avenge the al Qaeda-orchestrated attacks.

“I feel very good about what we did,” he said in 2008. “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”

He remained a war hawk but was content to be in a supporting role to the presidents he served.

“He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Wyoming and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”

“I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents,” Cheney once said. “And that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”

In addition to shaping the global war on terror, Cheney pushed for aggressive stances against Iraq, North Korea and Palestine.

“He’s been pretty damn good at accumulating power, extraordinarily effective and adept at exercising power,” former Secretary of State James Baker said in 2007.

Cheney was criticized and was the butt of jokes from comedians when he shot a hunting companion, Harry Whittington, in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006.

He called the incident “one of the worst days of my life.” Whittington, who died in 2023, recovered and quickly forgave him.

Cheney survived five heart attacks during his life. He received a heart transplant in 2012 that he called “the gift of life itself.”

He said in 2013 that he woke daily “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day.”

Cheney married his high school sweetheart, the former Lynne Ann Vincent, in 1964.

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