Cheney: Highly Ambitious ‘Straight Arrow’ With an Intellectual Bent

President Bush could not have found anyone more distinctly different from John Tower than Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.) in his search for a new nominee as defense secretary.

Not only is Cheney a man with a squeaky-clean reputation, but unlike Tower--who spent his entire political career anticipating that he would someday run the Pentagon--the Wyoming congressman apparently never considered that possibility until he received a telephone call Thursday from the White House.

A soft-spoken, intensely ambitious man with an intellectual bent, Cheney, 48, who serves as assistant House minority leader, by all accounts has been on a fast track in recent years toward becoming minority leader--and perhaps even Speaker, if the Republicans could reclaim control of the House within the next decade.

Never in Service

Although he has served for five years on the House intelligence committee and was a leading light on the 1987 Iran-Contra investigating committee, Cheney has never been closely identified with Pentagon issues. Nor did he ever serve in the armed services.

His only genuine involvement with military affairs--other than his House votes on defense bills--was his presence at National Security Council meetings during his tenure as White House chief of staff during 1975 and 1976 under President Gerald R. Ford.

Elected to the House in 1978 after Ford’s defeat, Cheney also has a more conservative reputation than Tower and is viewed as a leader of the staunch right-wing faction in the House. In fact, his voting record has won him 100% ratings with the American Conservative Union and 0% ratings from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.

No Reason to Worry

As far as Cheney’s personal life is concerned, Bush has no reason to worry that the Senate will uncover any evidence of drinking or womanizing, as it did with Tower. In fact, many of his House colleagues use the same term to describe him: “straight arrow.”

According to Bush, Cheney also has weathered intensive FBI investigations into his background before two other government appointments in the last 20 years.

Cheney is a Methodist and a family man with two daughters. And when it comes to the question of whether he supports equal opportunity for women, the Senate needs only to look at his wife, Lynne, who heads the National Endowment for the Humanities. According to an aide, it was his family responsibilities that kept him out of the military in the 1960s.

Not surprisingly, given his House record, Cheney has few ties to the defense industry. In six elections to the House, he has gathered more than $700,000 in contributions from political action committees, $104,000 of it from defense concerns. The biggest defense contributor is a Chicago-based company, FMC, that contributed $15,000.

While he is known as one of the major beneficiaries in Congress of speaking fees and honorariums from special interest groups, which added $107,937 to his income over the last five years, none of his fees in the last reporting year of 1987 was derived from defense groups.

Despite Cheney’s lack of experience in defense issues, he is known as a quick study and a thoughtful man. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wyoming, and has finished all of the requirements for his doctorate except his thesis. In addition, he and his wife have co-authored one book, “Kings of the Hill,” a study of the office of House Speaker.

The one question that is most frequently raised by his detractors is whether Cheney, a native of Lincoln, Neb., is a true Westerner, as he frequently portrays himself. Although he always wears cowboy boots--even with tuxedos--most Washingtonians consider Cheney one of them. Some of his political opponents in Wyoming have even branded him a carpetbagger.

After government internships in Wyoming and Wisconsin in the mid-1960s, Cheney served in various federal posts in Washington from 1969 until 1973 under President Richard M. Nixon, stayed in Washington to work for an investment advisory firm in 1973 and 1974 and did not return to Wyoming until after Ford left office in 1977.

Conservatives also view him as a recent convert to their point of view. He began his career in Washington as an aide to then-Rep. Donald H. Rumsfeld (R-Ill.), a moderate, and succeeded Rumsfeld as White House chief of staff when his mentor became defense secretary.

But none of his acquaintances would dispute that Cheney is ambitious. Despite three heart attacks and a quadruple heart bypass operation last year, he works long hours at his job as assistant minority leader, to which he was elected last December.

At a White House news conference announcing his nomination, Cheney told reporters that he had expected to remain in the House for the bulk of his political career and he expressed the view that Republicans will control the chamber in the near future. The GOP has been in the minority in the House since the 1950s.

Although becoming defense secretary will eliminate the possibility that Cheney might someday be Speaker, it could mean that he has refocused his sights on a different leadership position and one more easily accessible to a Republican: the presidency.

“It makes a lot of sense,” a House acquaintance said. “He doesn’t come off as ambitious because of his calm demeanor, but I think running for President is where his ambitions have always been.”

Staff writers Paul Houston and William J. Eaton contributed to this story.