by Michael Mercadante

Created on: April 23, 2009   Last Updated: April 25, 2009

Richard Bruce Cheney has served in the administrations of four presidents: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush. Although he himself has never been elected to the office, he has exercised considerable influence on the modern presidency, and is without question the most powerful vice president in history. This paper will examine that influence on the office by applying four of the six criteria for evaluating presidential leadership developed by Fred Greenstein in his book The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style From FDR to George W. Bush. The four selected criteria are: Public Communication, Organizational Capacity, Political Skill, and Vision. Each criteria will be evaluated based upon Cheney's influence on the office of the presidency in general, referencing specific administrations as appropriate.

Cheney began his political career working within the Office of Economic Opportunity within the Nixon administration, under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld. He remained Rumsfeld's assistant when the latter was transferred to the Cost of Living Council, but left the White House when Rumsfeld was made ambassador to NATO in 1972. This departure from the White House shielded both men from the Watergate scandal, allowing them to re-enter the White House for the Ford adminstration. Ford and Rumsfeld had previously worked well together in Congress, and Rumsfeld became the new president's White House Chief of Staff. Cheney maintained his subordinate role, becoming deputy Chief of Staff. In the fall of 1975, Rumsfeld replaced Henry Kissinger as National Security Adviser, and Dick Cheney became the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history. He was thirty-four years old.

Cheney remained in the White House through the end of the Ford administration, and then won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1979, where he remained for a decade. In 1989, president George Herbert Walker Bush appointed Cheney as his Secretary of Defense, where Cheney remained throughout Bush's term.

When the White House returned to the Democrats in 1993, Cheney transitioned to leadership in the business world, becoming CEO of Halliburton, which had become the largest defense contractor in history while Cheney served as Secretary of Defense.

It was while still in this position that Cheney was asked by George Walker Bush to head the committee to select a vice presidential running mate. He chose himself. His longtime friend Stuart Spencer, who served as Reagan's

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