Former Vice President Dick Cheney, thought-about by many political observers to be probably the most politically lively and influential vice chairman in U.S. historical past, has died. He was 84.
“Richard B. Cheney, the forty sixth Vice President of the USA, died final evening, November 3, 2025,” his household stated in a press release. “He was 84 years outdated. His beloved spouse of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and different members of the family had been with him as he handed. The previous Vice President died on account of issues of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular illness.”
He labored for practically 4 many years in Washington. He served because the youngest White Home chief of workers below President Gerald Ford; represented Wyoming within the U.S. Home of Representatives — the place he labored with congressional management and President Ronald Reagan; was secretary of protection below President George H.W. Bush; and later served two phrases as vice chairman below Bush’s son, President George W. Bush.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney seems on “Meet the Press” in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2, 2018.
Nbc Newswire/NBCU Picture Financial institution/NBCUniversal through
He was additionally CEO of Halliburton, an power firm primarily based in Texas that had a worldwide presence.
When terrorists attacked the USA on Sept. 11, 2001, it was Cheney who first took cost whereas the president was out of Washington.
“When the president got here on the road, I advised him that the Pentagon had been hit and urged him to avoid Washington,” Cheney recalled in his memoir, “In My Time.” “The town was below assault, and the White Home was a goal. I understood that he did not wish to look like on the run, however he should not be right here till we knew extra about what was happening.”
He and senior workers gathered on the Presidential Emergency Operations Middle, the place they monitored the horror unfolding.
“I stayed up into the morning hours eager about what the assault meant and the way we should always reply,” Cheney wrote in his memoir. “We had been in a brand new period and wanted a completely new technique to preserve America safe. The primary warfare of the twenty-first century would not merely be a battle of nation in opposition to nation, military in opposition to military. It could be before everything a warfare in opposition to terrorists who operated within the shadows, feared no deterrent, and would use any weapon they might get their arms on to destroy us.”
As vice chairman, Cheney was also called the mastermind behind a lot of the Bush administration’s technique in Iraq.
This file picture sneakers then-Vice President Dick Cheney throughout an interview on Jan. 27, 2002.
Linda Spillers/ABC Information
“His energy is unparalleled within the historical past of the republic, frankly, for that place,” John Hulsman, a analysis fellow at The Heritage Basis, a conservative Washington-based suppose tank, advised ABC’s “Nightline” in 2005.
Cheney stated he appeared upon his position as vice chairman as being an adviser to the president.
“I do not run something, I am not in command of a division or a specific coverage space and for me to be out the entire time commenting on the problems of the day — pontificating if you’ll — on what is going on on, to some extent infringes upon all people else within the administration, particularly with these particular individuals who have gotten particular duties,” he advised ABC Information Chief World Affairs Martha Raddatz in an interview in March 2008, when she was a White Home correspondent.
And later, within the 2013 documentary “The World In response to Dick Cheney,” the previous vice chairman stated, “Inform me what terrorist assaults you’d have let go ahead since you did not wish to be a imply and nasty fellow. Are you going to commerce the lives of various folks since you wish to protect your honor, or are you going to do your job, do what’s required, before everything your accountability is to safeguard the USA of America and the lives of its residents.”
After his time in workplace ended, he remained politically lively whereas former President George W. Bush had moved again to Texas and shunned commenting on politics in an effort to keep away from “undermining” the present president.
Throughout President Barack Obama’s administration, Cheney emerged as an outspoken critic of the president’s nationwide safety insurance policies — charging that Obama’s counterterrorism insurance policies had been making the nation much less secure.
“It has at all times been straightforward for many who are evil to kill, however now it’s doable for a number of to take action on an unimaginable scale,” Cheney wrote in his 2011 memoir.
“The important thing, I feel, is to decide on critical and vigilant leaders, to hearken to the women and men who need us to entrust them with excessive workplace and decide whether or not they’re saying what they suppose we wish to hear or whether or not they have the bigger reason for the nation in thoughts,” he continued. “It isn’t at all times straightforward to maneuver past pleasing guarantees, however within the case of America, the higher good is so grand.”
This can be a creating story. Please verify again for updates.
ABC Information’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
