One of America’s most polarizing political figures fought a deeply personal battle that lasted for decades — one that nearly claimed his life several times and became as defining to his legacy as his political decisions.
Throughout his long and high-stakes political career, former Vice President Dick Cheney battled a chronic heart condition that would lead to five heart attacks and numerous surgeries. His decades-long struggle with heart disease unfolded alongside some of the most pivotal moments in U.S. history, intertwining his health with his legacy.
In a 2013 interview with Sanjay Gupta for 60 Minutes titled “Dick Cheney’s Heart,” and later in his memoir Heart, co-written with cardiologist Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Cheney revealed just how long he had been living on borrowed time.
Despite a family history of heart disease, Cheney ignored early warnings. He started smoking at just 12 years old and by 34—while serving as Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford—was going through three packs a day and eating poorly. In Washington, lighting up was seen as a mark of status, with cigarette boxes even bearing the presidential seal. But at 37, shortly after leaving the White House to run for Congress, Cheney’s lifestyle caught up with him: he suffered his first heart attack.
Doctors urged him to leave politics, advice he claims not to remember. When Gupta suggested he might have chosen to ignore it, Cheney admitted, “Stress comes from doing something you don’t want to be doing.”
He didn’t quit. Cheney went on to win his Congressional seat and was re-elected five times. But two more heart attacks followed, as well as a quadruple bypass surgery—just as he became Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush in 1989. His tenure coincided with some of the world’s most turbulent events—the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Gulf War—yet Cheney insisted the stress never affected him.
In 2000, when George W. Bush chose him as running mate, doctors assured the campaign that his heart was “normal.” In truth, it wasn’t. But Cheney didn’t question their reports, and months later, in the midst of the presidential recount, he suffered his fourth heart attack and underwent a stent procedure.
The next year would test him in ways he couldn’t imagine. On September 11, 2001, while President Bush was in Florida, Cheney was taken to a secure White House bunker, where he helped make critical decisions amid national chaos. Even then, he said, he never thought about his health—though medical tests that morning showed dangerously high potassium levels, briefly putting him at risk of cardiac arrest.
By 2007, his health was again deteriorating. His defibrillator was replaced, and his doctor ordered its wireless function disabled—fearing it could be hacked by a foreign adversary.
In 2010, Cheney suffered his fifth heart attack. Later that year, he was fitted with a mechanical heart pump, an LVAD, to keep him alive until a transplant became possible. Two years later, in March 2012, he received a new heart.
Reflecting on his journey in his 60 Minutes interview, Cheney said the transplant gave him a second chance—one he spent quietly in Wyoming, cherishing time with his family and the unlikely gift of more years than anyone had expected.