“The workload was horrendous,” Rumsfeld recalls. “There was the struggle to get a Ford presidency moving and the continuing drumbeat of Watergate.” Rumsfeld needed a deputy, and he had someone in mind. “I had tested Dick Cheney in a dozen ways, over the better part of three years, and I knew exactly what I was getting. I had seen him do all kinds of tough jobs and handle them with great skill and sensitivity. And the tougher the job was, the better he got.”
