Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern American politics, died on Monday, November 3, at the age of 84. According to his family, the cause of death was “complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.”
In a statement, his loved ones said, “His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed. Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
Cheney’s death marks the end of a political career that spanned more than four decades and left a lasting imprint on U.S. policy. He first rose to prominence as White House Chief of Staff under President Gerald Ford, later serving as Wyoming’s sole congressman, Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush, and finally as vice president to George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.
Throughout his life, Cheney battled severe and chronic heart problems. His first heart attack struck in 1978, when he was just 37 years old. Over the following decades, he suffered four more. In his 2013 memoir HEART: An American Medical Odyssey, Cheney wrote about the toll these health crises took on him, recounting how by 2010—17 months after leaving the vice presidency—he was in end-stage heart failure and had begun to prepare his family for the possibility of his death.
Unable to perform even basic tasks like walking to retrieve the morning paper, Cheney had a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) surgically implanted in 2010. The device helped pump blood through his body, keeping him alive until he received a heart transplant from an anonymous donor in 2012 at the age of 71. “Although the former Vice President and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift,” a statement from his office said at the time.
Cheney often acknowledged that he felt he was living on borrowed time. In 2013, he reflected on that sense of gratitude, saying he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” a striking image for a man long known for his stoic and guarded demeanor. During his time as vice president, Cheney revealed that he had the wireless capability of his defibrillator disabled years earlier, fearing that terrorists might exploit the technology to deliver a fatal electric shock to his heart.
Cheney’s long battle with cardiovascular disease and his eventual heart transplant made him a symbol of both medical resilience and personal determination. At the time of his death, doctors noted that his age and history of heart and vascular disease made him particularly vulnerable to serious complications from pneumonia.
Tributes to Cheney poured in from across the political spectrum. On NBC’s Today Show, co-host Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of former President George W. Bush, shared: “When you hear of a politician who passes, there’s tons of coverage about what they are like as a politician. But as a daughter of a politician, as a granddaughter of a politician, I just am thinking of his daughters and who they are missing which is not necessarily a man who casts votes, but rather a man who raised them. So I am thinking of Mary and Liz this morning, who I’m going to reach out to as well just to send my love and I know my parents are thinking the very same.”
Cheney is survived by his wife of 61 years, Lynne, and daughters Liz and Mary. Cheney also leaves behind seven grandchildren. Liz and husband Philip Perry are the parents of five, while Mary and her partner, Heather Poe, share two children.
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