I.

Introduction

Dick Cheney, born in 1941, American politician and 46th vice president of the United States (2001- ) under President George W. Bush. Bush and Cheney were elected in 2000 in one of the closest and most disputed elections in U.S. history. The two men were elected to a second term in 2004. Before becoming vice president, Cheney was White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford and secretary of defense for Bush’s father, President George Herbert Walker Bush.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born on January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Casper, Wyoming, where his father was a soil conservation agent for the Department of Agriculture. He received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree, both in political science, from the University of Wyoming. In 1964 he married his high school sweetheart, Lynne; she later served as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. The couple has two daughters.