In this eagerly anticipated memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney
delivers an unyielding portrait of American politics over nearly forty
years and shares personal reflections on his role as one of the most
steadfast and influential statesmen in the history of our country.
The public perception of Dick Cheney has long been something of a
contradiction. He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice
presidents--secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated
and unflinchingly outspoken. He has been both praised and attacked by
his peers, the press, and the public. Through it all, courting only the
ideals that define him, he has remained true to himself, his principles,
his family, and his country. Now in an enlightening and provocative
memoir, a stately page-turner with flashes of surprising humor and
remarkable candor, Dick Cheney takes readers through his experiences as
family man, policymaker, businessman, and politician during years that
shaped our collective history.
Born into a family of New Deal Democrats in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney
was the son of a father at war and a high-spirited and resilient mother.
He came of age in Casper, Wyoming, playing baseball and football and, as
senior class president, courting homecoming queen Lynne Vincent, whom he
later married. This all-American story took an abrupt turn when he
flunked out of Yale University, signed on to build power line in the
West, and started living as hard as he worked. Cheney tells the story of
how he got himself back on track and began an extraordinary ascent to
the heights of American public life, where he would remain for nearly
four decades:
* He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff, working for President
Gerald Ford--the first of four chief executives he would come to know
well.
* He became Congressman from Wyoming and was soon a member of the
congressional leadership working closely with President Ronald Reagan.
* He became secretary of defense in the George H. W. Bush
administration, overseeing America's military during Operation Desert
Storm and in the historic transition at the end of the Cold War.
* He was CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company with projects and
personnel around the globe.
* He became the first vice president of the United States to serve out
his term of office in the twenty-first century. Working with George W.
Bush from the beginning of the global war on terror, he was--and
remains--an outspoken defender of taking every step necessary to defend
the nation.
Eyewitness to history at the highest levels, Cheney brings to life
scenes from past and present. He describes driving through the White
House gates on August 9, 1974, just hours after Richard Nixon resigned,
to begin work on the Ford transition; and he portrays a time of national
crisis a quarter century later when, on September 11, 2001, he was in
the White House bunker and conveyed orders to shoot down a hijacked
airliner if it would not divert.
With its unique perspective on a remarkable span of American history,
In My Time will enlighten. As an intimate and personal chronicle, it
will surprise, move, and inspire. Dick Cheney's is an enduring political
vision to be reckoned with and admired for its honesty, its wisdom, and
its resonance. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible
political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it--with courage
and without compromise.
