Former Vice President D!es At 84
Former Vice President Dies At 84
A statement from the Cheney family said he passed away “on the evening of Nov. 3, of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” surrounded by his family.
Richard Bruce Cheney, the hard-nosed political tactician who wielded enormous influence across multiple Republican administrations and redefined the power of the American vice presidency, has died at the age of 84.
A statement from the Cheney family said he passed away “on the evening of Nov. 3, of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” surrounded by his family.
The family described him as “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.”
Cheney’s rise to power was unlikely.
A laconic one-time college dropout from Wyoming, he found his footing in Washington after arriving as a congressional fellow.
He climbed swiftly through the ranks —becoming White House Chief of Staff under President Gerald Ford, then a Republican leader in Congress, and later Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War.
But it was under President George W. Bush that Cheney’s imprint on U.S. governance became most profound and controversial.
For eight years, he acted as no vice president had before: driving the transition process, pushing energy policies, and leading what many saw as a deliberate effort to reclaim executive powers he believed had been eroded by Congress and the courts.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Cheney became the chief strategist behind Washington’s global “War on Terror.”
He championed warrantless domestic surveillance, defended waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques widely condemned as torture, and was a key architect of the invasion of Iraq—a war that scarred U.S. foreign policy for decades and helped define Bush’s presidency.
His dominance within the Bush administration was such that many observers saw him as a co-president, shaping decisions on national security, foreign affairs, and energy far beyond the traditional remit of his office.
Over time, however, his influence waned, and his relationship with Bush reportedly cooled toward the end of their tenure.
“He was certainly the most powerful vice president, but I hate to damn him with that moniker,” said Paul Light, a political scientist at New York University and author of “Vice-Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in the White House.”
“He was much more than vice president,” Light said. “He ended up doing so many things that go well beyond the boundaries of the vice presidency.”
