History can be a very strange subject. First of all, it is written by the victors, secondly time has a strange effect on history. Harry Truman was vilified during his years as President. When he left the White House on January 20, 1953 there was no one to say good bye to him. Arriving at Union Station for the long train trip back to Independence, Missouri there were no crowds, no bands. America was glad to be rid of him and welcome Ike into their arms. As it was then, perhaps is how it is now. A half century later Truman is lauded for making extraordinary decisions with neither the experience nor the advice of his predecessor. It is the subject of numerous revisionist biographies.
Dick Cheney and President Bush have taken tremendous heat from just about everybody who holds both of them accountable for what seems like some poor decision making although history will have something to say about that. The lens through which we see history has a strange way of changing the facts and the conclusions, once the distance brought by time goes into effect and it will be the same for Vice President Cheney. We don't know if history will be kind or angry with the Vice President, we do know it will be different.
In his book "In Our Time", the Vice President gives his side of the story. Like all biography it is both self-serving, and overly complementary. Let us make no mistake about it, you expect bias in an autobiography as opposed to the pen of an historian, and so let us begin. This is the story of an extraordinary American who has led an extraordinary life experiencing world changing events first hand where he had influence. Having been a player in many of these same events I can attest that Dick Cheney is one of the smartest men to occupy public life in the last half century. I have seen him in action. The mind is razor sharp, his decision making capacity is unparalleled, and he has an innate ability to work through a problem in lightening speed, cutting right to the chase. Few men can stand with him, let alone match him, and then there's the influence.
At the same time we must recognized that such comments have been said about others such as Robert McNamara, Clark Clifford, McGeorge Bundy, and all of them got their Presidents into trouble as well, namely Kennedy and Johnson. "In My Time" lays out 40 years of service to his country. The book gives us 519 pages of narrative outlined in sixteen chapters. Cheney has appropriately begun Chapter I with Beginnings, and finishes the book with Chapter 16 Endings. The entire book evokes emotion in the reader. You are in the arena, feeling the heat, and watching the story unfold in front of you.
He covers everything that he feels is pertinent to getting his story out there. For me the chapters dealing with him becoming the youngest Chief of Staff to a President (Ford) in history are absolutely instrumental to understanding all consequent events in his life. For it is here that he forms a strong friendship and working relationship with a young Donald Rumsfeld, and a now retired General Brent Scowcroft. It is Scowcroft who has never received credit for perhaps being the indispensible player among the three of them for 40 years.
These three men, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Scowcroft would together as a team render tremendous service to their country in several administrations and make history together. It is interesting to note that it is only when Scowcroft is missing from the three advisors during George W. Bush's administration that things seem to go awry. During the Bush I administration, it is Scowcroft who warns the first President Bush, beware of invading Baghdad, once in, you may not get out. During the Bush II administration, it is Scowcroft, now an outsider who urges Cheney to re-think this invasion of Iraq. It is Scowcroft who tells his friends, "Dick has changed." None of us understood it at the time.
It is Cheney on the inside who squelches all outside opinion and advice, and determines that once the course is set - STAY THE COURSE. It's all here and more. The book speaks for itself. You will read the story for yourself from his side of the table, and it is a fascinating read. Cheney did not write this book in his own hand. It is obvious that Liz Cheney who knows the Vice-President as well as anyone had a very big hand in the actual writing of this book, and that's okay. It is Cheney's thinking, and his personality that comes through the book. You feel what he feels as he is feeling it. You understand the process he is going through to make decisions, and see those feelings and decisions filtered through a politically conservative philosophy that has evolved for the Vice President over a lifetime of being in the arena.
Whether it is discussing being Secretary of Defense during the Bush I Administration in Chapter V, "Mr. Secretary", or "Liberating Iraq" in Chapter XII, the book is hard hitting, blunt, and takes no prisoners as demonstrated in the language the author employs. Some people will be upset by Cheney's bluntness on many topics including many of his assessments of the President he served for 8 years, and why not. This book is not about the Vice-President making a couple of million dollars. What he took out of Halliburton as CEO (Chapter VIII) "Out of the Arena" assured him that he would never have to work again.
Each of us as a reader will look to draw different things from a book like this. Some of us will find our needs wanting, and some will be more than fulfilled. In my case, I am a reader, and I required a book like this to help me get the other side of the story. Not what comes through a grossly distorting press on both sides, but a story from a guy who was actually there, making things happen. Since there are always other contemporaneous historical accounts of the same events, we are all free to interpret and weave the real story together, because we will never get it from any one book, nor should we as readers expect it.
We are getting Cheney's version of the unvarnished truth as he sees it, and that's a very good thing. He comes right at you the reader. It is his voice all right. It is his personality, his tone, his temperament. The Vice President retains all of his former brilliance that was displayed throughout his four decades of service. His discussion of 9/11 will more than convince you of that.
CONCLUSION
The most important concept I took out of a book like this is the actual operation of the wheels of government. How was Bush II different from Bush I (answer very)? How was Ford different from both of them? Why was Cheney not a principal player in the Reagan Administration? Why did Bush endear himself to Cheney during the Vice-Presidential Search period and why was Cheney chosen as Bush's Vice President. What was it like to sit at the epicenter of the action of so many history altering events, and finally what about regrets? Did Dick Cheney have regrets about the decisions, the advice, and the influence he wielded? Was there a dark side? I will not discuss his answers but it is in the book, and I urge you to read this wonderful narrative. Like Dick Cheney or dislike him, there is no one in the middle on this man, and thank you for reading this review.
Richard C. Stoyeck
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