Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

by Peter Baker

Powell had developed a theory about Cheney and what made things so different this time around. While some believed the vice president had changed, Powell did not think so. In Cheney’s past jobs, under Gerald Ford or George H. W. Bush, he was contained. He was too young and inexperienced to impose his will on the Ford White House, and in the first Bush White House he was serving a president who was very sure of himself on foreign policy and national security. As defense secretary, Cheney had often expressed ideas similar to those he would advance as vice president. But back then, he was surrounded by other adults in the room with experience and gravitas—Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Powell himself, and of course the president. In this White House, Powell believed, Cheney was not effectively contained by anyone. He had a much freer hand with a president whose background gave him little real preparation to be commander in chief. Powell thought Cheney saw himself as Tom Hagen, the mentor-tutor of the Godfather movies, the consigliere advising a young mob leader.