In My Time - Dick Cheney [58]
There would be plenty of time down the road for taking stock of the Ford years and my part in the story. Better still, our thirty-eighth president would live well into his nineties, and as the years advanced so would our friendship. In the winter of 1977, however, it was hard to shake the feeling of disappointment at having come so close to earning a full term for Jerry Ford and not quite making it.
In the way of consolations, my colleagues and I knew at least that the presidency of Gerald Ford was incomplete only in its count of 895 days. It had been filled with testing and trial enough for a much longer stay. And we who had worked for this president knew he had proved as worthy of that office as any who had ever come before. I’ve always liked the late columnist David Broder’s observation that Ford was exactly the kind of person Americans say they want in a president, but didn’t know it when they had him.
My own debt to the man is beyond my power to settle, though he was not the type to make you feel indebted. Just about everything that followed in my career I trace back to the break he gave me and the confidence he placed in me. Many others will tell you the same story about themselves. Among veterans of the Ford years, there is also a warmth and camaraderie you don’t always find among the alumni of administrations past. To a person, they’ll all tell you that this good spirit began with our leader.
The disappointment I felt in the winter of 1977 has long since given way to sheer gratitude for one of the greatest and happiest experiences in my life. My favorite memento from the period is a letter from my mother that I’ve kept in a frame for years. She wrote it the day after the ’76 election, saying, “It’s hard to put down what I feel—much love, much pride, and I know you will come out of this knowing that you did your best.” Sometimes in life that’s all you’re left with, the knowledge that you gave a job your best shot. And sometimes that’s enough.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Gentleman from Wyoming
While the Carters were settling into the White House, the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds were on Eleuthera, a small island in the Bahamas, vacationing in a borrowed cottage. We swam and sailed, played tennis, and enjoyed conch soup, a local delicacy. We also spent several evenings dining off an enormous roast that Joyce Rumsfeld, who’d learned to be thrifty on a government salary, had cooked at home and brought along in her luggage.
After two and a half very intense years, our time in the Bahamas was a most welcome break, but when we got back to Washington, I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Age thirty-six was too young to retire. I had lost all desire to return to the academic world, which appeared pretty tame after a tour in the Ford White House. There were some private sector possibilities, but most involved becoming part of the permanent Washington establishment, and that held no attraction for me.
In the end I decided that what I really wanted to do was run for office. I wanted to put my name on the ballot, and if I was going to do that, the best place for me was Wyoming. It was not at all certain that the opportunity to run would occur anytime soon, but once I had decided I wanted to pursue a career in public office back home, it made no sense to hang around Washington. As I have told many an aspiring candidate since, if you want to run for office, you have to get out of D.C. and establish yourself someplace around the country where you may someday have the chance to run. Washington is full of people who would like to hold office and would be good at it, but they can’t bring themselves to take that first step.
In June 1977, as soon as school was out, I loaded