Mr. Gellman, co-author of a Pulitzer prize-winning set of stories in the Washington Post on Vice President Dick Cheney, spoke about the subtle but important cases in which the office of the vice president usurped power from the higher levels of the executive branch. It was Cheney’s attention to detail and “process” and the decisive and pragmatic execution of his vision that differentiated him from others in the executive branch, including President Bush. For example, Cheney would listen to intelligence briefings with Bush in a way not unlike that of other previous vice-presidents; however, Cheney would also first receive briefings at his own quarters and then subtly shape the content that would reach the ear of the President. To pass his agenda, Cheney would ask questions of people that alluded to the answers he wanted, a tactic used to not necessarily win people over with ideas but rather diffuse the objections of critics by making all policy debates almost ambiguous. This would make passing the Cheney agenda easier.

Gellman also articulated that the creation and implementation of the domestic surveillance program was kept secret from Bush and relevant officers in the Justice Department and Homeland Security. As the details of the program were released slowly, a battle beneath the Office of the Presidency broke out in which a dozen-plus number of top officials in the Justice Department and other branches were close to resignation, the result of which would have most likely been a one-term presidency for Bush.  

Cheney and his lead cohort, intellectual counterpart, and legal analyst, David Addington, were “zealots” for their respective causes, which were usually one and the same. The details of this relationship are laid out more deeply in the book but in his presentation, Gellman did detail that it was Addington that often appeared in place of Cheney at meetings that the past vice-presidents usually did not attend. Addington was a regular extension of Cheney’s influence.

In his comments, Steve Coll, CEO of the New America Foundation, asked Gellman a profound question: were one to rewrite the book from the perspective of President Bush, what would it look like? Gellman responds that the information on private conversations between Cheney and Bush is minimal but there is some information leaked from conversations Bush had with other officials. The impression, as gathered by Gellman, is that Bush began to doubt the fullness or comprehensiveness of the advice provided to him by Cheney. Nonetheless, it was Cheney’s attention to detail that in the first term enabled him to execute a controversial agenda and in the second term enable him to put the breaks on proposed roll-backs of Cheney initiated policies. 

But there were ample instances where President Bush overtly denied policy-initiatives by Cheney, but many of them are not known simply because blunting Cheney’s influence is not typically a news story. One instance, however, is when Cheney proposes universal inoculation of Americans against the smallpox virus to defend against a potential smallpox-based terrorist attack. Bush flatly rejects this proposal.

Ultimately, Gellman placed the Cheney vice-presidency in a ground-breaking context in which the will and vision of virtually one man captured skillfully the various constitutional and institutional levers of power bequeathed to him. Cheney, Gellman notes, was often simply better at the game of internal politics and process than any other member of the Bush administration.

- Event summary written by Josh Meah, Intern, American Strategy Program