Cheney died Monday night from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said.
The Republican – a former Wyoming congressman and secretary of defense – was already a major Washington player when then-Texas governor George W. Bush chose him to be his running mate in the 2000 presidential race that Bush went on to win.
As vice president from 2001 to 2009, Cheney fought vigorously for an expansion of the power of the presidency, having felt that it had been eroding since the Watergate scandal that drove his one-time boss Richard Nixon from office.
He also expanded the clout of the vice president’s office by putting together a national security team that often served as a power center of its own within the administration.
Cheney was a strong advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was among the most outspoken of Bush administration officials warning of the danger from Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found.
He clashed with several top Bush aides, including Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and defended “enhanced” interrogation techniques of terrorism suspects that included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Others, including the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.N. special rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, called these techniques “torture.”
His daughter Liz Cheney also became an influential Republican lawmaker, serving in the House of Representatives but losing her seat after opposing Republican President Donald Trump and voting to impeach him in the wake of the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Her father agreed with her and said he would vote for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
“In our nation’s 248 year-history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” said the man who had long been a foe of the left.
Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney on Jan 30, 1941, the day then-President Franklin Roosevelt turned 59. His mother was a waitress turned softball player, his father a federal worker with the Soil Conservation Service.
Cheney was troubled much of his life by heart problems, suffering the first of a number of heart attacks at age 37. He had a heart transplant in 2012.
During the 10 years he served as Wyoming’s only congressman, Cheney had a highly conservative record, consistently voting against abortion rights. He also voted against the release of imprisoned South African leader Nelson Mandela and against gun control and environmental and education funding measures.
His wife Lynne, who had been his high school sweetheart, became a conservative voice on cultural issues. Liz, the couple’s eldest daughter, was elected to the House in 2016 after building a reputation for pushing hawkish foreign policy views similar to her father’s.
During his time as vice president, late-night television comedians referred to Cheney as Darth Vader. He shrugged it off by joking that he was honored to be compared to the “Star Wars” villain, even dressing as Vader for an appearance on the “Tonight Show” to promote his memoir.
Even before the rise of Trump, his support for conservative issues was not uniform. His second daughter, Mary, a Republican fundraiser, is a lesbian. Cheney spoke supportively of same-sex relationships, which put him at odds with the Bush administration’s push for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. That amendment ultimately failed.
Controversy continued to dog Cheney even after he left the Bush administration. He was the subject of a scathing biographical film in 2018 titled “Vice,” starring Christian Bale, who gained 40 pounds (18 kg) and shaved his head to mimic the former vice president’s paunchiness and baldness.
“Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role,” Bale said in accepting a Golden Globes award for his Cheney portrayal.
During a book tour for his memoir, Cheney seemed to relish raising the ire of critics. Just before its release he gleefully predicted it would leave heads “exploding” all over Washington.
He devoted parts of the book to settling scores with former colleagues such as Rice, whom he depicted as naive. Cheney also took aim at then-President Barack Obama’s world view, puzzling over the Democrat’s concern that the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was harmful to America’s image.