by Cheney, Dick
• • •
My mother had died in 1993 of a stroke after nearly ten years of battling Parkinson’s disease. She had refused to give in to the Parkinson’s, insisting on doing all the things she had always done, including cooking for my dad. When she began falling occasionally, she started wearing knee pads, like a basketball player, so that when she fell, she could land on her knees and get right up and keep on working.
During my time at Halliburton, my father, who was living in an assisted living care facility in Casper, died. He was still able to get around unassisted and drive his own car, although he was increasingly displaying the symptoms of congestive heart failure. Periodically he would accumulate excess fluid in his body and would then enter the hospital for a few days so they could administer doses of Lasix intravenously and “dry him out.”
He had begun to get his affairs in order. He “had his sale,” an old Nebraska saying for getting rid of all the items accumulated over a lifetime. First, he told my sister, Susan; my brother, Bob; and me to take anything we might want, and then he brought in someone to run the sale. Early on the day of the sale, my sister found him sitting alone in the garage, among the belongings of his lifetime, with tears streaming down his face. I had never seen my dad cry, but coming to terms with the end of his life was understandably overwhelming.
I had told him not to worry about his sale—that we would take care of everything at the appropriate time. But he was determined to take care of it himself. After the sale was over, he put the house on the market and sold it.
A few days after Dad’s sale, I was back in Dallas on a Saturday when I decided to call him. He had checked back into the hospital for another round of “drying out.” When I called, I got a busy signal. At that same moment, we later discovered, my brother and sister also tried to call him. Bob also got a busy signal, but Susan got through. Later that afternoon, I received a call from the hospital in Casper telling me that Dad had died shortly after Sue talked to him.
As the family gathered in Casper for the funeral, I thought about the last time Dad and I had been together. A few weeks before his death, I’d been in Casper closing up a house Lynne and I had owned and rented out for many years to the parents of some friends. As I was packing up to close down and sell the house, Dad appeared. He had driven over to spend some time with me while I worked. Dad was not someone who engaged in idle chatter, but that afternoon we talked for nearly two hours.
Among other things, we talked about the fact that Congress had passed legislation naming the federal building in Casper after me. He liked knowing that the building where he had worked for many years as the state administrative officer for the Soil Conservation Service was to be named after his son, probably especially because his name was also Dick Cheney. He didn’t live long enough to be there for the formal ceremony, but he took pride in knowing it was going to happen.
As he left that afternoon, I walked him across the street to his car, an old Buick. Dad never bought a new car in his life, no matter how much money he had. He said you could get a perfectly good car without paying for a new one. Until the day he died, he was saving money every month of his life, a habit he acquired when he saw the pain his parents lived through during the Depression.
When Dad died, I was fifty-eight. I had already survived three heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery. Since that surgery in 1988, I had lived trouble free for more than a decade, and two things made me optimistic that I had a lot of years ahead. First, my dad had lived to be almost eighty-four, despite having serious coronary artery disease. Second, I had already been the beneficiary of amazing medical advances and was hopeful there would be more ahead.
CHAPTER 8
Fitness to Serve
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY
In fall 1999, Lynne and I hosted a fund-raiser at our home in Dallas for the literacy program sponsored by Barbara Bush. George W. Bush, governor of Texas, attended and during the evening asked if there were some place where we could talk privately. I took him into the library and closed the door. He asked me if I would be willing to take on a major role in his campaign for the presidency. I supported Bush and was prepared to do what I could to help him get elected, but I also had a full-time commitment to Halliburton and a significant position in the campaign simply wasn’t possible.
A few months later, once the primary campaign had gotten underway, Joe Allbaugh, one of the governor’s top aides, came to see me in my office in Dallas and asked if I would be willing to be considered as a candidate for vice president. I said no; I was not interested. I told Joe that I thought I was a bad choice from the campaign’s standpoint. My home state of Wyoming is one of the most Republican in the country and has only three electoral votes. I told Joe that if Governor Bush couldn’t carry Wyoming without me on the ticket, they had bigger problems. I made the point that because I was in the oil business and Governor Bush had previously been in the oil business, a Bush-Cheney ticket would be a ripe target for the Democrats. I also pointed out that I had a history of coronary artery disease—three heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery. Joe didn’t argue with me. He took my answers on board and reported back to the governor.
What I didn’t tell Joe, because I wanted to be polite, was that I had absolutely no interest in being vice president; I thought it was a terrible job. President Ford had told me on more than one occasion that the eight months he spent as vice president were the worst months of his life. I knew from personal experience that Nelson Rockefeller hated the job. The city of Washington is full of people telling stories about the irrelevance of the post. The only reason to take the job is to run for president, and I had decided not to do that several years before. Finally, I was very happy as chairman and CEO of Halliburton, and it paid a lot better than government work.
A few days after Joe’s visit, Governor Bush called me directly and asked if I would help him find a vice-presidential candidate. I readily agreed. It was an important assignment, and it was something I had done before for President Ford in 1976. It was also a short-term commitment that would not last beyond the national convention. I would not have to leave Halliburton to do it.
I pulled together a small team of key people to help review and screen the potential candidates. I had learned over the years that while there are a great many who want to be vice president, only a few meet the very high standards to qualify. First and foremost, the individual has to be capable of serving as president if something happens to the incumbent. Second, the candidate has to add to the overall political attractiveness of the ticket. Third, you want to avoid the train wreck of picking someone whose background or personal life contains embarrassing episodes or information.
The first list we put together numbered twenty-five or thirty prospects. We prepared and sent out a detailed form asking for a wide range of information from those still on the list after I had personally contacted each one. Not everyone wanted to be considered. One potential candidate threatened never to speak to me again if I put his name on the list. There were a couple of people not on the list who contacted me seeking to be included. They explained that they had tough reelection campaigns and it would help them back home in their districts if word got around that they were under consideration. I promptly put them on the list.
We put together a file on each candidate who was seriously under consideration. We promised to maintain the confidentiality of their submissions, and when the process was complete, we returned all the materials they had submitted. As we went through this process, the list grew shorter. I personally interviewed a number of candidates. Throughout the process, I kept in regular contact with the governor. For each of our sessions, we prepared two notebooks, one for each of us—and he returned his to me when we finished.
On July 2, 2000, I went to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, for a final meeting. We spent the morning reviewing the remaining candidates, a much shorter list than we had started with. Then Laura joined us for lunch. Afterward, the governor took me out o
n the back porch for some further conversation. It was a typical Texas July day, with the temperature well over 100 degrees. He looked me in the eye and said, “You know, you’re the solution to my problem.”
At that moment, it occurred to me that he had never accepted my “no” when Joe Allbaugh had asked if I was willing to be considered for vice president some months before. And I must admit that going through the search with him had a significant impact on me. I had seen up close how much time he had devoted to selecting a running mate. He had given a great deal of thought to what he wanted in a vice president. He wasn’t making a conventional choice in terms of the Electoral College, or the GOP, or the expected impact on the popular vote. He had emphasized repeatedly to me that he wanted his vice president to be an important part of his team, someone who could help govern.
He had worked my “no” around to a tentative “yes.” I told him I would consider it. I said I would see what I would have to do if he were to select me. I had obligations to Halliburton and would have to have a conversation with my directors.
I would also have to switch my voter registration from Texas to Wyoming. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the electoral votes of a state cannot be cast for a president and vice president from the same state.
There was also the matter of my medical history. We would need to satisfy ourselves that there was no health problem that would prevent me from running or serving.
Finally, I emphasized that I had not been vetted in the conventional sense and that I needed a day when I could meet with him and lay out all the reasons I wasn’t the right choice.
A few days later, I flew down to Austin and met with Governor Bush and campaign strategist Karl Rove at the mansion. We discussed the vice presidency, and Karl and I made essentially the same arguments against my candidacy, pointing out that I was not a good choice from a political standpoint. I underscored my misspent youth just as I had done with his father ten years before when I was under consideration for secretary of defense. I repeated that I had twice been kicked out of Yale and twice arrested for driving under the influence in my early twenties.
Finally, I focused on my history of coronary artery disease. I told him that I had to be aware at all times of my heart condition and that if I ever felt so much as a twinge, I would have to have it checked out immediately to determine whether I was having another heart attack. I said if it happened in the middle of the vice-presidential debate, I wouldn’t delay until the debate was over. I would, without hesitation, seek the nearest emergency room for the appropriate tests. The governor took all this in, and we arranged to have his physician, Dr. Denton Cooley, talk to my cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, about my fitness to run and serve as vice president.
It soon became clear that Rove and I hadn’t been very persuasive. I received a call from the governor telling me that Dr. Cooley had reviewed my medical situation with Dr. Reiner and concluded that there was no health reason that I couldn’t run for and serve as vice president. A few days later the governor posed the question formally, asking me in an early-morning call to be his running mate as the GOP candidate for vice president of the United States. That afternoon, Lynne, Liz, and I flew to Austin, and George Bush announced me as his choice for vice president on the GOP ticket.
I have never regretted my decision to accept his offer. I had been able to think of many reasons that it wasn’t a good idea, but in the end, there were two basic considerations that I found persuasive. First, I fit the profile of what he was looking for in a running mate because of my previous experience, especially in national security matters. Second, I was persuaded it would be a consequential vice presidency. He made it clear I would be an important part of his team, not just a typical vice president relegated to attending funerals and fund-raisers. President Bush kept his word throughout our eight years in the White House. He did not always follow my advice, but he always gave me an opportunity to tell him what I thought on important issues. I was able to play a significant role because that is what he wanted.
Some of my critics have suggested that I “manipulated the process” to get selected as vice president. That proposition is simply not supported by the facts. If I had wanted to be vice president, all I had to do was say “yes” the first time it came up with Joe Allbaugh.
In the end, I agreed to become vice president because George Bush persuaded me I was what he was looking for and that my experience would be a valued addition to this ticket. When you are asked to do something on behalf of the country, you have an obligation to try to do it. Looking back now some thirteen years after I made that decision, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I had to serve during those difficult and challenging years. And I owe President George W. Bush a deep debt of gratitude for having made that possible.
DR. REINER
The pink “While You Were Away” note said simply, “Dick Cheney called.”
A little annoyed to discover the message so late in the day, I asked my assistant, Yaa Oforiwaa, why she didn’t page me when Cheney called hours earlier.
“He didn’t want to bother you,” she said.
For many years, Cheney’s cardiologist had been Dr. Allan Ross, an internationally renowned clinician and researcher. Allan was chief of cardiology at GW when I began my fellowship in 1990, and he quickly became a mentor. Allan brought me into his research group when I was a first-year fellow and later, when I completed my training, he gave me a job. After Allan’s retirement in 1998, Cheney’s internist, Gary Malakoff, asked if I would assume Cheney’s care. Gary told me that Secretary Cheney was now CEO of Halliburton, a Dallas-based company, but he still came to Washington periodically for checkups. I had met Cheney a few years earlier when he came in for a catheterization, and I told Gary I would be happy to see him.
Mr. Cheney’s most recent clinic visit was in November 1999, at which time he seemed to be doing pretty well. In spring 2000, Cheney had been in the news a lot. He was vetting potential vice-presidential running mates for Governor Bush, and the press was speculating that an announcement was going to be made soon. The Veep sweepstakes is a quadrennial DC obsession, and the spotlight at the time seemed to be focusing on Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge.
Yaa told me that Mr. Cheney needed to schedule a clinic appointment in the next week or so, but he wanted to have a stress test first.
Why does Cheney need a stress test now? I wondered.
I walked over to the clinic and tracked down Gary and asked him if Cheney was feeling all right. Gary told me that as far as he knew, everything was okay.
“Gary,” I said, “I think Cheney is going to run for vice president!”
• • •
Stress testing has been used for decades as a noninvasive way to assess the adequacy of the heart’s blood supply and is based on a fairly simple principle. Progressively vigorous exercise, usually walking on a treadmill with increasing pace and incline, results in a rise in blood pressure and pulse, and consequently increases the work required of the heart. If the blood supply to the myocardium is intact and unimpeded, the continuously monitored EKG reveals only a faster heart rate. If a coronary artery contains a narrowing restricting blood flow, characteristic changes are often evident in the EKG tracing and patients may also develop chest pain. Ironically, this abnormal result is called a “positive” test (positive for whom?) whereas a normal result is referred to as “negative.”
If a patient has had a prior heart attack or has an otherwise abnormal baseline EKG, a standard stress test can be difficult to interpret, and myocardial perfusion imaging is often performed instead. At the outset of this procedure, commonly called a nuclear stress test, patients are injected intravenously with either the radioactive isotope thallium-201 or technetium-99m, agents that are avidly absorbed by the heart as long as the muscle is alive and the blood supply to it is unobstructed. Images of the heart are acquired while the patient lies under a gamma camera, essentially a digital detector of radioactive particles, a technology that
was invented in the 1940s during work on the Manhattan Project. The patient then exercises, is injected with a second dose of radioisotope, and again is imaged under the camera. The entire process takes about two hours.
Normal heart muscle absorbs the tracer homogeneously, which the computer displays as color-enhanced, cross-sectional silhouettes, and the pictures at peak exercise should be similar to those obtained at baseline. If there is a blockage in one or more of the coronary arteries or the patient has had a prior heart attack, a defect is apparent in the digital images. A nuclear stress test is more sensitive and specific for detecting the presence of coronary disease than is a regular stress test, raising the precision of the exam. It does, however, expose the patient to a significant amount of radiation, about the same as a CT scan, equivalent to about 850 chest X-rays, enough to set off the radiation detectors at federal buildings like the White House. Still, for patients with a prior heart attack, known complex coronary disease, or women in whom the false-positive rate for a regular stress test is quite high, nuclear imaging, can be quite useful.
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Dick Cheney arrived unaccompanied for his stress test at George Washington University Hospital on July 11, 2000. He was able to exercise for nine minutes on the treadmill (about average for a fifty-nine-year-old man) and had no chest pain. Not bad. The nuclear images, however, were a mixed bag. While the test was unchanged compared to the prior year’s exam, with no signs of new ischemia, there was clearly evidence of significant damage from the old heart attacks involving both the lateral and inferior walls of the heart. Overall it was a stable but definitely abnormal test.