Cheney’s Wealth

The best one-liner in the Oct. 5 vice presidential debate came when Dick Cheney said that the government had absolutely nothing to do with his private sector success. Yet would the directors of Halliburton have hired him as their CEO had it not been for the numerous important personal international contacts that he had made during his decades of service (President Ford’s chief of staff, President Bush’s secretary of defense, congressman, etc.) on the federal payroll? Didn’t some of his private-sector compensation come from the billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts that Halliburton received while he was heading the company?

DON BENDER

Burbank