Today the Washington Post begins a four-day profile of the man the Secret Service calls ‘Angler’: Dick Cheney. Part One: Working on Background, appears today. Monday they’ll look at War and Interrogations, Tuesday is Dominating Budget Decisions, and Wednesday is Environment.
For those of you that see Dick Cheney as a kind of Dr. Evil, there is plenty of fodder. Consider this chilling description of Cheney’s reaction to watching the south tower of the World Trade Center collapse.
In a bunker beneath the East Wing of the White House, Cheney locked his eyes on CNN, chin resting on interlaced fingers. He was about to watch, in real time, as thousands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Previous accounts have described Cheney’s adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning, a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.
“There was a groan in the room that I won’t forget, ever,” one witness said. “It seemed like one groan from everyone” — among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney’s chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president’s wife.
Cheney made no sound. “I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed,” said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.
Sounds almost like he was the only one in the room that knew what was about to happen. Here’s another sample that might make your blood run suddenly cold.
In his Park Avenue corner suite at Cerberus Global Investments, Dan Quayle recalled the moment he learned how much his old job had changed. Cheney had just taken the oath of office, and Quayle paid a visit to offer advice from one vice president to another.
“I said, ‘Dick, you know, you’re going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you’re going to be doing all this political fundraising . . . you’ll be going to the funerals,’ ” Quayle said in an interview earlier this year. “I mean, this is what vice presidents do. I said, ‘We’ve all done it.'”
Cheney “got that little smile,” Quayle said, and replied, “I have a different understanding with the president.”
No, Cheney would not be doing that ceremonial crap. Congress would find that out soon enough.
On Oct. 25, 2001, the chairmen and ranking minority members of the intelligence committees were summoned to the White House for their first briefing on the [ed note: illegal warrantless] eavesdropping and were told that it was one of the government’s most closely compartmented secrets. Under Presidents George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, officials said, a conversation of that gravity would involve the commander in chief. But when the four lawmakers arrived in the West Wing lobby, an aide led them through the door on the right, away from the Oval Office.
“We met in the vice president’s office,” recalled former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Bush had told Graham already, when the senator assumed the intelligence panel chairmanship, that “the vice president should be your point of contact in the White House.” Cheney, the president said, “has the portfolio for intelligence activities.”
There’s plenty more to send chills down your spine, including Cheney’s stealthy methods of creating the unlawful combatant designation without the knowledge of Condi Rice or Colin Powell. This is some excellent journalism and good history. Kudos to Barton Gellman and Jo Becker for a great job.
