Dick Cheney

• Chart pointers (PVNR): Leo lagna 9°53′; Moon at the very end of Aquarius. Given as a homework chart with the brief "could Cheney face legal trouble?" — no full reading recorded.

• Kind of work: Government, statecraft, war, and big-energy commerce. A power-behind-the-scenes executive: presidential staff, congressional leadership, defense, oil-services corporate command, the vice-presidency. Operations, war planning, organizational control.
• Fame: Enormous and global, but adversarial — fame fused with notoriety. Admired by his own side as the steady hand of two wars; reviled by opponents as the dark architect of Iraq, torture, and unchecked executive power. A household name on every continent.
• Position / power: Among the highest a non-president can reach, and arguably exercised more raw power than the president he served. Chief of Staff, Defense Secretary, four-term Vice President's-level influence concentrated in one man. The phrase "most powerful VP in history" was applied to him by friend and foe alike.
• Wealth: Self-made wealth through the Halliburton years — tens of millions; net worth estimated in the range of roughly $19M–$86M in the early 2000s, plus a ~$34M severance and stock options. Not dynastic money; earned in his fifties through corporate command.
• Legal / negative: Two DUIs as a young man; lifelong cloud of controversy — the Plame/CIA-leak affair (his chief of staff convicted), enhanced-interrogation/torture policy, Halliburton no-bid Iraq contracts, the hunting accident in which he shot a man. He himself was never criminally charged, but legal jeopardy and scandal trailed his office continuously — the exact subject of PVNR's homework question.
• Health: Catastrophic, lifelong heart disease — five heart attacks beginning at age 37, bypass surgery, defibrillator, a mechanical heart pump (LVAD), and finally a heart transplant. He lived decades on the edge of cardiac death and outran it through medicine.
• Death: Natural causes at 84 — pneumonia compounding the cardiovascular disease that defined his whole adult life. At home, surrounded by family, after his transplanted heart had given him 13 extra years.

• 1941-01-30 — Born Richard Bruce Cheney in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Richard Herbert Cheney (a soil-conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and Marjorie Lorraine (Dickey) Cheney, a softball star of the 1930s. One of three children. Attends Calvert Elementary School.
• ~1954 — Family relocates to Casper, Wyoming, when his father's agency work moves them; Cheney grows up on the east side of Casper.
• late 1950s — Attends Natrona County High School, Casper. Plays football, is elected senior class president, and dates Lynne Vincent — a top student and champion baton twirler.
• ~1959 — Wins a scholarship to Yale University.
• early 1960s — Drops out of Yale (twice) after struggling to adjust; returns to Wyoming. He later worked as a lineman for a power company.
• 1962-11 — First DUI arrest/conviction (age 21).
• 1963-07 — Second DUI; jailed in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The brush with jail is later credited as a turning point that sobered and refocused him.
• 1964 — Marries Lynne Vincent, his high-school sweetheart.
• 1965 — Earns B.A. in political science from the University of Wyoming, Laramie (after coursework at Casper College).
• 1966 — Earns M.A. in political science, University of Wyoming. Daughter Elizabeth ("Liz") Cheney born this year.
• ~1966–1968 — Begins doctoral study in political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; leaves without completing the dissertation to take a congressional fellowship.
• 1967-01-30 — Becomes ineligible for the Vietnam draft on turning 26; had received five deferments during the war years.
• 1968 — Awarded an American Political Science Association congressional fellowship; moves to Washington, D.C.
• 1969 — Daughter Mary Cheney born. Enters government as an aide to Congressman William A. Steiger, then joins Donald Rumsfeld's staff at the Office of Economic Opportunity (Nixon administration).
• 1969-1973 — Rises through the Nixon administration: White House staff assistant (1971), then assistant director of the Cost of Living Council.
• 1974 — Joins the Ford administration; named Deputy Assistant to the President.
• 1974-12-18 — Becomes White House Deputy Chief of Staff under President Gerald Ford.
• 1975-11-21 — Becomes White House Chief of Staff (succeeding Rumsfeld) at age 34 — the youngest in U.S. history; serves to 1977-01-20.
• 1976 — Manages President Ford's unsuccessful re-election campaign.
• 1978 — Wins election to the U.S. House of Representatives for Wyoming's at-large seat. During the campaign suffers his FIRST HEART ATTACK at age 37.
• 1979-01-03 — Sworn in to the U.S. House; re-elected five times, serving until 1989. Builds a reputation as a staunch conservative.
• 1981-01-03 — Becomes Chair of the House Republican Policy Committee.
• 1984 — Second heart attack.
• 1986 — Votes against overriding Reagan's veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, and against the resolution calling for Nelson Mandela's release — votes that follow him for decades.
• 1987 — Serves as ranking Republican on the House Select Committee investigating the Iran–Contra affair.
• 1987-06-04 — Becomes Chair of the House Republican Conference.
• 1988 — Third heart attack; undergoes quadruple-bypass surgery.
• 1989-01-03 — Elected House Minority Whip — the No. 2 Republican leadership post.
• 1989-03 — Resigns the House to become Secretary of Defense; confirmed by the Senate 92–0 after the rejection of John Tower.
• 1989-03-21 — Sworn in as Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush; serves to 1993-01-20.
• 1989-12 — Directs Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama, leading to the capture of strongman Manuel Noriega.
• 1990-08 — Iraq invades Kuwait; Cheney helps marshal the U.S. military response (Operation Desert Shield).
• 1991-01-17 — Operation Desert Storm air war begins; the 1991 Gulf War. Ground war launched 24 February; objectives met within 100 hours.
• 1991-07-03 — Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush for his Gulf War leadership.
• 1991-1993 — Oversees post–Cold War defense drawdown; total military personnel cut roughly 19%.
• 1993-01 — Leaves the Pentagon; becomes a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and serves again on the Council on Foreign Relations.
• 1995-10-01 — Becomes Chairman and CEO of Halliburton, the Fortune-500 oil-field-services giant — his first and only private-sector executive role.
• 1998 — Engineers Halliburton's merger with Dresser Industries; later criticized over accounting and asbestos liabilities.
• ~1995–2000 — Under his leadership Halliburton's federal contracting surges (rising from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon contractor list).
• 2000 — Suffers his fourth heart attack.
• 2000 (spring) — Heads George W. Bush's vice-presidential search committee — then is himself chosen as the running mate.
• 2000-07-25 — Resigns from Halliburton the same day Bush names him as the VP pick; departs with a severance package reported around $34 million plus deferred compensation and stock options. Re-registers to vote in Wyoming to satisfy the Twelfth Amendment.
• 2000-11 — Bush–Cheney win the contested election (271 electoral votes), decided weeks later.
• 2001-01-20 — Sworn in as the 46th Vice President of the United States.
• 2001 — Has a defibrillator-pacemaker implanted to manage his heart disease.
• 2001-09-11 — After the terrorist attacks, becomes the operational center of the government's response; thereafter often kept at "undisclosed locations" for continuity-of-government security. Emerges as the chief architect of the "War on Terror."
• 2002-06-29 — Serves as acting president (~2 hours) during President Bush's colonoscopy.
• 2002-2003 — A principal advocate for the invasion of Iraq; presses the case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and visits CIA headquarters to question analysts.
• 2003 — Iraq War launched; Halliburton subsidiary KBR receives a major no-bid contract to restore Iraq's oil industry — a lasting conflict-of-interest controversy given Cheney's recent CEO tenure.
• 2003-2009 — Champions enhanced-interrogation techniques, including waterboarding; defends expansive executive power and secrecy.
• 2004-11 — Bush–Cheney re-elected (286 electoral votes). During the campaign, daughter Mary's status as an openly gay woman becomes a national talking point.
• 2005-10 — The Valerie Plame / CIA-leak affair reaches Cheney's office; his chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby resigns after being indicted.
• 2006-02-11 — Accidentally shoots Texas attorney Harry Whittington, 78, in the face, neck, and chest with a 28-gauge shotgun while quail hunting at the Armstrong Ranch near Riviera, Texas. Whittington suffers a minor heart attack from a lodged pellet on 14 February; survives; is discharged 17 February and publicly apologizes to Cheney. The White House's slow disclosure becomes its own scandal.
• 2007-03-06 — Libby convicted on four felony counts (perjury, obstruction, false statements). Cheney lobbies Bush hard for a full pardon (Bush commutes the prison term but declines a pardon; Trump pardons Libby in 2018).
• 2007-02-27 — A suicide bomber kills more than 20 outside Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, while Cheney is on the base; the Taliban claims it targeted him.
• 2007-07-21 — Again serves briefly as acting president during a Bush medical procedure.
• 2009-01-20 — Leaves office; his end-of-term approval rating is around 13%.
• 2010 — Suffers his fifth heart attack; has a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) — a mechanical pump — implanted as a last resort while awaiting a transplant.
• 2011 — Publishes his memoir, "In My Time," co-written with daughter Liz.
• 2012-03 — After ~20 months on the transplant list, receives a HEART TRANSPLANT, gaining what he called "the gift of life itself."
• 2013-03-15 — Showtime documentary "The World According to Dick Cheney" premieres.
• 2013-11 — His two daughters publicly feud over same-sex marriage: Mary (married to Heather Poe) versus Liz, who states opposition during a Senate run; Dick and Lynne side with Liz, while affirming love for both.
• 2016 — Daughter Liz Cheney elected to the U.S. House for Wyoming, eventually rising to No. 3 in House Republican leadership.
• 2021 — After the 6 January Capitol attack, Cheney breaks decisively with Donald Trump; Liz votes to impeach Trump and loses her leadership post, then her seat (2022).
• 2024-09 — Announces he will vote for Democrat Kamala Harris, declaring Trump "a greater threat to our republic" than anyone in the nation's history — a startling cross-party endorsement from a lifelong conservative icon, alongside daughter Liz.
• 2025-11-03 — Dies at home in McLean, Virginia, aged 84, of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
• 2025-11-20 — Funeral at Washington National Cathedral; eulogies include George W. Bush and Liz Cheney.

Nature & personality

Soft-spoken, deliberate, and intensely private — a man who wielded great power with almost no public warmth or flourish. Colleagues described a methodical organizer who mastered process and bureaucracy: he understood how government actually worked and used that knowledge as leverage. A football-playing class president as a boy, he was no natural orator; his force came from will, certainty, and behind-the-scenes control rather than charisma. He was fiercely loyal to those he trusted (Rumsfeld, Libby), uncompromising in his convictions, and famously unbothered by his own unpopularity — once dismissing a 13% approval reading with indifference. Steady under crisis (notably on 9/11), he could be ruthless in pursuit of an objective. In private life he was, by all accounts, a devoted husband of 61 years and a father who stood by an openly gay daughter against his own party's orthodoxy, and ultimately by another daughter against his own party's leader.

Profession, fame & status

A career almost without parallel in the breadth of high office held: youngest-ever White House Chief of Staff at 34; ten years in Congress rising to Minority Whip; Secretary of Defense through Panama and the Gulf War; CEO of a Fortune-500 corporation; and two terms as Vice President. He is remembered above all as the most powerful Vice President in American history — an executive who reshaped the office into a co-presidency, driving war, intelligence, energy, and security policy. His fame is inseparable from controversy: to admirers, the indispensable adult of the war on terror; to critics, the embodiment of unaccountable power and the Iraq disaster. Either way, his name became globally synonymous with American hard power in the 2000s.

Wealth & money

Cheney spent most of his career in government salaries, but the Halliburton interval (1995–2000) made him wealthy: as Chairman and CEO of the oil-services giant he earned millions a year, and left in 2000 with a severance and stock package reported around $34 million plus deferred compensation. His net worth in office was estimated in a wide band — roughly $19 million to $86 million in the early 2000s. The Halliburton connection became one of the defining controversies of his vice-presidency when its KBR subsidiary won enormous no-bid Iraq contracts. His wealth was earned, not inherited — the product of a single, lucrative corporate chapter bracketing a life of public service.

Marriage, relationships & children

Married Lynne Vincent, his Casper high-school sweetheart, in 1964; the marriage lasted 61 years, until his death. Lynne became a scholar, author, and chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities — a formidable partner in her own right. Two daughters: Liz Cheney (b. 1966), who became a U.S. Representative and one of the most prominent anti-Trump Republicans; and Mary Cheney (b. 1969), who is openly gay, married Heather Poe, and whose life became a public counterpoint to Republican policy on same-sex marriage. Cheney broke with his party to support marriage equality "appropriately a matter for the states," citing his family directly. A painful 2013 public feud between his daughters over the issue tested the family but did not break it.

Health

Cheney's body was the great drama running underneath his public life. He suffered his first heart attack at 37 (1978), then four more (1984, 1988, 2000, 2010) — five in all over 32 years — attributed in part to heavy smoking and poor diet during the high-stress Ford years. He underwent quadruple-bypass surgery (1988), received a defibrillator-pacemaker (2001, the wireless feature of which he had disabled out of assassination fear), and had a mechanical LVAD heart pump implanted (2010) as a bridge to transplant. In March 2012 he received a full heart transplant after some 20 months on the waiting list, which he described as a rebirth. That he held the second-highest office in the land while a chronic, severe cardiac patient is itself remarkable; modern medicine extended his life by decades and gave him 13 final years on a new heart.

Legal troubles / controversies

The recurring shadow over an extraordinary career. As a young man, two DUI arrests (1962, 1963) and a night in a Rock Springs jail. In office, the controversies were structural and grave: the Valerie Plame / CIA-leak affair, in which his chief of staff Scooter Libby was convicted in 2007 (Cheney pressed unsuccessfully for a pardon); his championing of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation; the secrecy and expansive executive-privilege claims of his office; and the Halliburton/KBR no-bid Iraq contracts that fused his corporate past with wartime profiteering allegations. The February 2006 hunting accident — in which he shot 78-year-old Harry Whittington in the face — became a national spectacle, sharpened by the White House's delay in disclosing it. Cheney himself was never criminally charged, but legal exposure circled his office continuously — which is precisely why PVNR posed the homework question of whether Cheney himself could face legal trouble.

Death & legacy

Cheney died at home in McLean, Virginia on 3 November 2025, aged 84, of complications of pneumonia layered atop the cardiovascular disease that had stalked him for nearly half a century. He was surrounded by Lynne and his daughters; a funeral followed at Washington National Cathedral on 20 November, with George W. Bush and Liz Cheney among the eulogists. His legacy is among the most contested of any modern American figure: hailed as the architect of a muscular post-9/11 security state and damned as the engineer of the Iraq War, torture policy, and an imperial vice-presidency. In his final years he made an arc few foresaw — the arch-conservative who, with his daughter, broke from his party to call Donald Trump the gravest threat the republic had ever faced and to endorse a Democrat for president.

• Given by PVNR (SJC Lesson 61) as a homework chart: Leo lagna at 9°53′, Moon at the very end of Aquarius. The set question was whether Cheney could face legal trouble. No full delineation was recorded.

PVNR SJC Lesson 61. Life events from the public record.