Dick Cheney, the iron-willed architect of American power who served four Republican presidents while his own heart progressively betrayed him, has died at age 84. From his early days as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff to his pivotal roles under Reagan, Bush 41, and George W. Bush, Cheney operated at the nerve center of executive authority even as cardiac crises mounted. His first heart attack struck in 1978 at age 37, followed by four more, bypass surgery, stents, and eventually a left ventricular assist device that pumped blood through a failing organ. Yet through sheer tenacity and cutting-edge medicine, he not only survived but amassed unprecedented influence, culminating in his vice presidency from 2001 to 2009, where he shaped national security policy with a scope few deputies have ever matched.

Cheney’s legacy is inseparable from the post-9/11 era, where he emerged as the primary intellectual force behind the Global War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq, and the expansion of executive surveillance powers. Critics, including many within his own party, accused him of orchestrating a shadow government that bypassed traditional checks and balances, while defenders credit him with decisive action in the face of existential threat. His daughter Liz, propelled by his political network into Wyoming’s lone congressional seat, carried forward his brand of unyielding conservatism until her outspoken opposition to Donald Trump cost her re-election in 2022. To detractors, the Cheneys represented a dynastic extension of hawkish ideology; to loyalists, a necessary bulwark against chaos.

On March 24, 2012, after twenty months on the transplant list, surgeons at Inova Fairfax Hospital replaced Cheney’s irreparably damaged heart with that of an anonymous donor, granting him more than thirteen additional years. The procedure capped a lifetime of mechanical interventions that kept a man alive who, by the standards of an earlier era, would have perished decades prior. When the borrowed heart finally stopped, it ended not just a singular political career but a half-century arc of American history defined by secrecy, resolve, and relentless survival.