Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

Politicians with presidential ambitions will often solicit a sympathetic journalist to write a flattering biography as a preliminary for the campaign. Authorized biographies tell the life story from the politicians ’ perspective, highlighting their assets, ignoring their defects, and blaming their opponents. Usually based on interviews, they appear either as first person “as told to” autobiographies or as third-person narratives in which the biographer paraphrases and supplements material gleaned from the interviews. Campaign biographies date back into the nineteenth century —Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote one for his friend Franklin Pierce—and, if taken with a few grains of salt, they can provide useful sources of information for historians later trying to write more objective accounts.

Unlike his predecessors, Vice President Richard B. Cheney announced from the start that he had no intention of running for president himself, a decision that made him appear impervious to public opinion. Cheney preferred to work out of secure, undisclosed locations, to avoid on-the-record interviews with news reporters and to suppress the names of those with whom he held meetings. But as he began attracting negative publicity over his use of faulty evidence to justify the Iraq war, the vice president agreed to cooperate with what Stephen F. Hayes calls a “reported biography.” A writer for the conservative Weekly Standard, with a record of sharing Cheney’s views of Iraq, Hayes had his subject’s confidence. He cites nine interviews that the vice president gave him, on the record, between 2004 and 2007; one other is marked “n.d.” for no date. He also claims to have conducted “more than six hundred interviews” with people from various stages of Cheney’s life. Hayes provides no list, however, explaining that some requested anonymity; and his notes identify only fifty-four by name and date of interview.

Hayes does not reveal what he plans to do with his many hours of recorded interviews. He ought to deposit them in an archive since it is unlikely that any interviewer will again get so much face time with the notoriously taciturn Cheney. Much of the book deals with the vice president’s innumerable roles within the Bush administration (where President George W. Bush appears mostly in the background). These accounts are derived largely from the vice president’s interviews, but even so, it must have been a frustrating experience for a journalist eager to produce a credible and marketable book to interview someone so reluctant to share information. In his introduction, Hayes recounts asking Cheney about his recollections of being called to the White House on his first day as Defense Secretary in 1989. The vice president remembered the incident well but declined to reveal the subject of the meeting because “it’s classified still” (x). A question about a possible timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq drew the terse response: “If there were, I wouldn’t want to talk about it. ” To others, he answered, “Yeah, I can’t really give you anything on that, ” and “There’s nothing I can give you on that ” (viii).

By including these responses, the author seems to be signaling that if the biography offers little new about either the private or public side of his subject, it was not because he failed to ask probing questions, but because his interviewee declined to discuss them. The most telling moment in the book is an excerpt from the vice president’s commencement address at the high school in Casper, Wyoming, from which both he and his wife graduated. Cheney advised the students to stay focused on one job at a time, not on the next job they might want, to do their work seriously, take on increasing responsibility, and make themselves indispensable. “And I can almost guarantee that recognition, advancement, and other good things will follow” (8). This personal prescription for success lifted him from congressional fellow to White House chief of staff in seven fast years, further taking him to Congress, the Pentagon, Halliburton, and the vice presidency. Having reached the top ranks, Dick Cheney’s willingness to work quietly behind the scenes expanded his powers far beyond those held by any other vice president, but his style ran contrary to people’s expectations of openness from their highest elected officials. An authorized biography makes a poor substitute for public accountability.