In My Time - Dick Cheney [159]
As the transition drew to a close, I felt very good about all we had accomplished and the team we had put together. I couldn’t have imagined then the trials and challenges we would face together or the relationships that would be strained—some to the breaking point—during the eight years ahead.
CHAPTER TEN
Angler
The first draft I saw of inaugural events listed “A Tribute to Vice President–Elect Cheney.” Having people say nice things about me for an hour or two sounded pretty good, but I had a better idea—to honor America’s veterans. On January 19 we gathered together men and women who had served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm in the Smith Center at George Washington University, and among those we saluted were nearly a hundred Medal of Honor recipients. One of them, Nicholas Oresko, had single-handedly taken out a German machine-gun bunker during the Battle of the Bulge, and then, despite being wounded, had charged ahead and wiped out a second bunker. He had attended every inauguration since Eisenhower’s, I read later. “They’ve all been wonderful,” he said. “But today was one of the greatest because the president and the vice president and the secretary of defense all came by and shook our hands.” It was my honor to shake the hands of men like Nicholas Oresko.
The next morning a twelve-car motorcade lined up in the narrow street in front of our McLean town house. Our neighbors came outside to wish us luck and wave goodbye as we pulled away at 8:50 a.m., headed for St. John’s Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House. According to protocol, Lynne and I and our family sat in the front pew to the left in the small, historic Episcopal church. President-elect George Bush, Laura, and their daughters were to the right. We sang and prayed and listened to a sermon given by the Reverend Mark Craig, pastor of the Bushes’ church in Texas. When the service ended, we climbed back into the motorcade for the two-minute drive to the White House, where we were scheduled to have coffee with the outgoing president and vice president. But instead of pulling away from the curb, our motorcade idled in front of the church. Then it idled some more. We were doing the Inauguration Day equivalent of circling an airport in a holding pattern.
I leaned forward in the limo to ask Tony Zotto, my lead Secret Service agent, what was going on. “President Clinton isn’t ready, sir,” he said. I knew that President Clinton had a habit of running late, but it was hard to imagine he’d be tardy on this of all days. The clock was ticking, and whether he was ready or not, he would no longer be president in about two hours.
We finally arrived at the White House, and the Bushes, Clintons, Gores, and Cheneys made small talk as we sipped our coffee in the Blue Room. Lynne and I spent time visiting with Hillary Clinton, who had recently been sworn in as the junior senator from New York, and we were both impressed with Chelsea Clinton, who was particularly gracious and warm.
At 10:45 a.m. our motorcade left the White House for the Capitol. As we began the drive up Pennsylvania Avenue, I thought back thirty-two years to September 1968, when I’d traveled nearly the same route on foot my first day on the job as a congressional fellow. And now, here I was, riding up Pennsylvania Avenue in a long black limousine about to be sworn in as the forty-sixth vice president of the United States.
Al Gore rode with me to the Capitol, and he seemed relaxed and in good humor. Looking at his watch, he explained that we’d been kept waiting because President Clinton was signing last-minute pardons. He smiled and wondered aloud, “How many more do you think he can get signed before noon?”
Our motorcade pulled under the portico on the east front of the Capitol. I met Lynne, who had been riding with Tipper Gore, and we walked down the hallway together to room S-106, where we would wait until it was time to walk to the inaugural platform. Our movements at the Capitol were tightly scripted.