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White House Statement on Secretary of Defense-Designate Richard B. Cheney

March 10, 1989

Secretary of Defense-designate Dick Cheney has served in the House since 1978 as the Representative from Wyoming, and has served in each succeeding Congress. In December 1988 he was unanimously elected House Republican Whip for the 101st Congress, the second-ranking leadership position. He is a member of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. He is also a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, serving as the ranking Republican on its Subcommittee on Program and Budget Authorization. He was ranking Republican in the 15-member House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Deals with Iran.

Mr. Cheney began his public service in 1965, when he served as an intern in the Wyoming State legislature in Cheyenne. In 1966 he was selected by the National Center for Education in Politics to intern on the staff of Warren Knowles, then-Governor of Wisconsin. In 1968 the American Political Science Association selected him for its Joseph E. Davies Congressional Fellowship, which he served as an assistant to the late Congressman William A. Steiger (R-WI). In May 1969 Mr. Cheney began several years of Federal service under Presidents Nixon and Ford. From 1969 to 1970, he was Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity; from 1970 to 1971, he was Deputy Assistant to the President; and from 1971 to 1972, he was assistant director for operations of the Cost of Living Council. In March 1973 he left government service to become vice president of Bradley, Woods & Company, Inc., an investment advisory firm. In August 1974, when Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency, Mr. Cheney served on the Ford Transition Team, and beginning in September, as a Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975 he was named Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff.

Mr. Cheney was born in Lincoln, NE, on January 30, 1941. He attended Yale University in New Haven, CT, and Casper College in Casper, WY. In 1965 he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Wyoming, and in 1966 earned a master's degree from the same university. He is married to the former Lynne Ann Vincent, and they have two daughters.

George Bush, White House Statement on Secretary of Defense-Designate Richard B. Cheney Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/248447

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