WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney, 84, died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
Cheney served as a Wyoming congressman, defense secretary during the Persian Gulf War and vice president.
Here’s 5 things to know about Cheney and his connections to Texas.
Defense Secretary
Cheney went to work for his first president from Texas in the late 1980s.
George H.W. Bush had represented a Houston-area district in Congress and tried unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas before serving as vice president under Ronald Reagan.
Political Points
After his 1988 election as president, Bush picked Cheney to be secretary of defense.
While leading the Pentagon, Cheney set a new course for the country’s military forces and helped guide national security policy as the country navigated the end of the Cold War.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait, Cheney played a key role in the planning and execution of Operation Desert Storm, in which a U.S.-led international coalition repelled the Iraqi forces.
Move to Texas
After Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton, Cheney took a break from public service to join the think tank world and then made his way in the private sector.
He moved to Texas in the mid-1990s and became chief executive officer of oil field service company Halliburton.
Cheney lived in Highland Park while leading Halliburton, a multinational corporate giant that supplies equipment to the oil industry.
Business analysts credited him with using his political connections to open doors for the company around the world.
Back to Washington
Cheney returned to the nation’s capital to serve another president from Texas, the son of the first.
George W. Bush was governor of Texas when he asked Cheney to vet potential vice presidential candidates as part of his 2000 White House bid.
Bush ultimately settled on Cheney himself for the role.
To avoid any constitutional questions about having running mates from the same state, Cheney changed his voter registration to a home in Wyoming.
The two won the 2000 presidential election and were reelected four years later to a second term.
Hunting mishap
In 2006, Cheney was on a quail-shooting trip at a Texas ranch when his shotgun blast inadvertently caught his hunting partner, Austin lawyer Harry Whittington.
Birdshot pellets hit Whittington in the face, neck and chest. He suffered a minor heart attack from a pellet near his heart.
After being released from the hospital, Whittington said, “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week.”
Cheney and his camp drew criticism for being slow to release information about what happened, and comedians had a field day with the incident.
Daughter Liz
Dick Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, was first elected in 2016 to the U.S. House to represent Wyoming.
She broke with President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and served as vice chair of a congressional committee charged with investigating the day’s events.
Her willingness to break with Trump cost her a spot in House GOP leadership, and she lost her 2022 primary.
During an on-stage interview last year at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, she announced she was supporting U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, in his campaign against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Liz Cheney also shared she and her father were voting for Vice President Kamala Harris for president over Donald Trump.
Cruz went on to beat Allred by about nine percentage points.