Cheney One on One: A Candid Conversation with America's Most Controversial Statesman - Hardcover

Rosen, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1621574628 ISBN 13: 9781621574620

Publisher: Regnery Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

In December 2014, a few weeks before his seventy-fourth birthday, former Vice President Dick Cheney invited Fox News reporter James Rosen into his northern Virginia home. Over three days, Rosen recorded ten hours of conversations with the man known as the "Darth Vader" of American politics. A small fraction of the interview was adapted into an April 2015 Playboy interview; but now, Rosen shares the whole, incredible conversation. With no topic off limits, the former vice president opened up about his complicated relationships with President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and talks candidly about why his influence in the White House waned over Bush's second term. Rosen also presses Cheney about his WWII-era childhood, his two DUI arrests and expulsion from Yale, his political coming-of-age during the Watergate era, his reflections on 9/11 and the Iraq War, his misgivings about Syria and North Korea, his role in the development of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, and his views on life, death, and God.

Cheney One on One is an essential document of modern America: a major oral history whose every page contains important and fascinating recollections of one of the most tumultuous periods in our nation's history, from one of its most powerful and controversial figures.

About this title

About the Author

James Rosen is a leading reporter, historian, and bestselling author. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, theWashington Post, Politico, The Atlantic, Harper’s, National Review, and the American Bar Association Journal, among other periodicals. He is the chief White House correspondent for Newsmax, following two decades of acclaimed reporting at Fox News. During the Obama administration, Rosen’s exclusive reporting on national security subjects led to his being placed under surveillance by the FBI and censored by the State Department, episodes that triggered headlines, investigations, and reforms. His previous books include The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate, hailed by the New York Times Magazine as “Pulitzer-quality biography,” and Cheney One on One, a collection of transcripts from the ten-hour oral history Rosen conducted with former vice president Dick Cheney in 2014. His most recent book, A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century, an anthology of essays by the late William F. Buckley Jr., spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. With his wife, two sons, and two cats, he splits his time between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay.

From the Inside Flap

"Dick Cheney says he thinks I'm the worst president of his lifetime—which is interesting, because I think Dick Cheney is the worst president of my lifetime." —Barack Obama

With this jibe, President Obama acknowledged the extraordinary influence of Richard Cheney.

Armed with deep experience at the highest levels of government, Cheney confronted the threats facing America after 9/11 and emerged as the most powerful vice president in U.S. history and the most controversial political figure of our time.

In Cheney One on One, the man at the center of four decades of political upheaval—from Watergate to Iraq—takes stock of his life and legacy with unprecedented candor. In December 2014, Cheney sat down with James Rosen, chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, for three days of oral history interviews. No subject was off limits. The result is the most penetrating and detailed interrogation of Cheney ever conducted, an inside account of his extraordinary life and times.

Informed by his own reporting and the vast literature of the Bush-Cheney era, Rosen steers the conversation to the most sensitive subjects, some never addressed before:

How Cheney went from Yale dropout to White House chief of staff by his mid-thirties
The tense hours after 9/11, when Cheney ran the government from a White House bunker
Cheney’s role in shaping intelligence, sur- veillance, detention, and interrogation policies
His clashes with Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell
Cheney’s assessment of the mistakes he and President Bush made in Iraq
His views on life, death, and God—and much more

Rich and probing, highly readable yet supremely illuminating, Cheney One on One rescues a seminal figure from his “Darth Vader” caricature and confirms James Rosen’s reputation as one of the leading journalists of our time.

Edition details

• Publisher: Regnery Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1621574628
• ISBN 13: 9781621574620
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256