Dick Cheney

Biography

Dick Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1941 and grew up partly in Casper, Wyoming. He dropped out of Yale, then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in political science at the University of Wyoming and began doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin, which he left in 1966 for a political staff job. Starting as an intern for Congressman William Steiger, he moved into the Nixon and Ford White Houses, becoming deputy chief of staff in 1974 and White House chief of staff from 1975 to 1977.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Wyoming in 1978, he served from 1979 to 1989, chairing the House Republican Policy Committee and then the Republican Conference before briefly becoming minority whip. As secretary of defense under George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993 he oversaw the invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm. From 1995 to 2000 he was chairman and chief executive of Halliburton.

George W. Bush chose him as running mate in 2000, and he served two terms as vice president from 2001 to 2009. He was a leading behind-the-scenes figure in the response to the September 11 attacks and an early advocate of invading Iraq, making claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda that were never substantiated. He defended warrantless surveillance and the CIA's harsh interrogation methods, and in 2006 he accidentally shot a companion on a quail hunt. He left office deeply unpopular. Once a Trump supporter, he turned critic after the January 6 attack, endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, and died in 2025.