In My Time - Dick Cheney [80]
The result was the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, formally known as the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and named after Republican Senator Barry Goldwater and Democratic Congressman Bill Nichols. The purpose of it was to streamline the chain of command and to emphasize “jointness” in an effort to mitigate interservice rivalries. Although the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 95–0 and the House by 383–27 and was signed by President Reagan on October 1, the administration was less than enthusiastic about the legislation. Caspar Weinberger, who was secretary of defense, called me to protest. I understood that no administration wants to be told how to run the Pentagon, but I felt this was one case where Congress had properly asserted itself.
As it would turn out—though I could not have guessed it at the time I was supporting and voting for Goldwater-Nichols—I would be the first secretary of defense to serve a full term under the act.
ON SEPTEMBER 10, 1984, while I was in the Capitol Building, I had a sense that something wasn’t right with my heart. I had no pain. I’ve never had pain with a heart attack. But I knew enough to ride the elevator down to the physician’s office. The doctors there put me in an ambulance to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where I spent several days recuperating from my second heart attack. I rested at home for about a month after that, going to Capitol Hill only once. On October 2, the Wyoming Wilderness Bill was up, and hard as I’d worked for it, I wanted to cast my vote. Two weeks later, I headed home to campaign for my fourth term in Congress.
After the election I decided it was time for me to find a doctor with whom I could establish a long-term relationship. I needed a guide through my coronary artery disease, and I wanted a good one. Lynne sought advice from John Pekkanen, an award-winning journalist at Washingtonian magazine who specialized in health. One of the cardiologists he recommended was Allan Ross at George Washington University Hospital, who agreed to take me on.
In 1988, after I had a third heart attack, Dr. Ross thought it was time for bypass surgery. I agreed and scheduled the operation for August 19, the day after the Republican convention. I’d been appointed chairman of the Rules Committee at the convention, a responsibility I definitely wanted to fulfill. I was on Spanish Plaza on the sweltering day when our nominee, George H. W. Bush, announced from the deck of the steamboat Natchez that Dan Quayle would be his running mate, and I was in New Orleans to get phone calls from political friends frantic at how badly the vice presidential nominee had been rolled out. One of my clearest memories, however, is of sitting with Larry King on the stairs in the convention arena that led up to the CNN booth. He had recently had open heart surgery, and at my request, he explained his operation and his recovery step-by-step.
I left the convention on August 18 and watched George H. W. Bush give a terrific acceptance speech while I was being prepped for surgery at George Washington University Hospital. The next day, Benjamin Aaron, a talented surgeon who had also operated on Ronald Reagan, performed quadruple bypass surgery. My recovery went well. In the fall I was back on the campaign trail running for my sixth term in Congress, and after the election, I ran unopposed to become minority whip, the second-ranking position in the Republican leadership.
By Christmastime I was skiing.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mr. Secretary
The Senate had never turned down a nominee to a new president’s initial cabinet, nor had it ever turned down one of its own—and John Tower wasn’t just any former senator. He had served in that body for nearly a quarter century and been chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the very committee in charge of his nomination. He seemed like a sure bet for confirmation when President-elect George H. W. Bush chose him to be secretary of defense.