![]() ![]() Central and Eastern Europe, he told his NATO colleagues, presented the most threatening potential security problems in the years ahead. At the last NATO meeting he attended, in Brussels in December 1992, Cheney said that the alliance needed to lend more assistance to the new democracies in Eastern Europe and eventually offer them membership in NATO. He believed that NATO had to remain the foundation of European security relationships and that it would continue to be important to the United States in the long term. ![]() How to restructure the alliance and modify its strategy to reflect changes in the military situation posed major questions for Cheney. The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact obliged the Bush administration to reevaluate NATO's purpose and makeup. He supported the initiatives that President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin took in 19 to cut back the production and deployment of nuclear weapons and to move toward new arms control agreements. Cheney warned about the possibility that other nations, such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, would acquire nuclear components after the Soviet collapse. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cheney worried about the dangers of nuclear proliferation and effective control of nuclear weapons from the Soviet nuclear arsenal that had come under the control of newly independent republics–Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan–as well as in Russia itself. On the important problem of arms control, Cheney and General Powell tried to reach consensus on DoD's position in order to deal more effectively with the State Department. In general Cheney got along well with Congress and with DoD's main oversight committees in the House and the Senate, though he suffered disappointments and frustrations.Īlthough some of the usual turf battles between the State and Defense Departments continued during his term, Cheney and Secretary of State Baker were old friends and avoided the acrimony that sometimes occurred between the two departments during the Weinberger period. He understood how Congress, and more particularly the legislative process, operated, and he used this knowledge and experience to avoid the kind of difficulties Caspar Weinberger had encountered with Congress. When not at the White House, Cheney was often on Capitol Hill. Occasionally Bush consulted with Cheney on matters unrelated to defense, such as White House organization and management. Many of Cheney's major decisions resulted from the almost daily meetings he had in the Pentagon with Powell and Atwood.Ĭheney met regularly with Bush and other top-level members of the administration, including Secretary of State James Baker, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, and General Powell. Powell, who assumed the post on 1 October 1989. For chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff he selected General Colin L. (Pete) Williams, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, and Paul Wolfowitz, under secretary of defense for policy. Less than a week after Bush nominated him, the Senate confirmed Cheney as secretary of defense he entered office on 21 March 1989.Ĭheney generally focused on external matters and delegated most internal Pentagon management details to Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald J. ![]() In December 1988 House Republicans chose him to serve as whip in the incoming 101st Congress. Reelected for five additional terms, he served several years on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Budget Subcommittee. ![]() In November 1978 Cheney, a Republican, won election as Wyoming's representative at large in the House of Representatives. After a year in private business, he returned to the White House to become deputy assistant to President Gerald Ford (1974–75) and then White House chief of staff (1975–77). In 1971 he became a White House staff assistant, and soon moved on to become assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, where he stayed until 1973. He went on to further graduate study in political science at the University of Wisconsin, and moved to Washington as a congressional fellow for the 1968–69 year.Ĭheney entered federal service in 1969 as a special assistant to the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Cheney, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 30 January 1941, attended Yale University, Casper College, and the University of Wyoming, where he earned B.A. When the Senate in March 1989 rejected his nomination, Bush selected Rep. President George Bush initially chose former Texas Sen. ![]()
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