TIME EUROPE
December 4, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 23
Heart Murmurs
Dick Cheney's brief but sudden hospitalization raises questions about fitness and truthfulness
By RICHARD LACAYO
As defense secretary for the father of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney has
already spent a lot more time in the Oval Office than the man he would like to
serve as Vice President. If the younger Bush eventually enters the White
House, Cheney promises to be an even more influential Vice President than,
well, Al Gore. As head of the informal transition team, Cheney has been
making regular trips to Bush's ranch outside Austin, Texas, to start shaping a
potential Cabinet. In the excitement about the vote in Florida, he and James
Baker are George W.'s chief strategists. It was Cheney who brought in Baker in
the first place, and the two men hold a daily conferencef call with Bush that is
George W.'s first order of business each morning.
Bush aides say Cheney is far more involved than Bush with both the transition
and the postelection recount struggles. All the more reason for George W. to
look so relieved when he appeared before reporters on Wednesday, a few
hours after Cheney had been admitted to George Washington University
hospital in Washington. He "sounded very strong," said Bush, who had talked
to Cheney earlier by phone from the ranch. "Dick Cheney is healthy."
It was a reassuring performance, but it wasn't exactly the straight story. In
fact, Cheney had suffered what his doctors belatedly described as a mild heart
attack, though Bush almost certainly didn't know that when he appeared
before the cameras. Cheney had just undergone a surgical procedure to insert
a stent, a steel mesh cylinder that expands to pry open a clogged artery. A
Bush aide, Dan Bartlett, said later that Bush knew the procedure had taken
place but did not tell the public because he did not feel equipped to discuss it.
And anyway, he wanted to focus on the good news about Cheney's condition.
But Bush communications director Karen Hughes says that at the moment he
spoke to the press, Bush was not aware of the stent insertion.
Whichever is true, Wednesday's display of conflicting information did nothing
to relieve the longstanding questions about just how serious Cheney's
coronary problems are and why he won't say more about them. Cheney had
three heart attacks between 1978 and 1988, the year he underwent
quadruple-bypass surgery. In July, after Bush picked Cheney as his running
mate, two of his doctors issued letters giving him a clean bill of health. But it
was a bill without particulars. Cheney has repeatedly refused to allow
reporters to interview him or his doctors about his health, to name the
numerous medications he admits to taking or even to say where on his heart
his bypasses are located.
All of that would put Cheney firmly in the long line of public figures who were
less than candid about their medical history, especially when they have
something to hide. In 1919 Woodrow Wilson suffered the massive stroke that
left him partly paralyzed. But Wilson's doctors and his wife Edith hid the
seriousness of his condition so well that even Congress was in the dark. The
Senate was reduced to dispatching a "smelling committee" to the White House
in a failed attempt to sniff out his real condition. John Kennedy flatly denied
that he had Addison's disease, an often fatal immune-system disorder that he
struggled with all his life. After he was shot by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981,
Ronald Reagan was closer to death, and slower to recover, than anyone
admitted at the time. And in 1992, when Paul Tsongas was a Democratic
presidential candidate, he and his doctors said he was free of the lymphoma
that led to his 1986 bone-marrow transplant. He died of the disease in 1997.
But Cheney's closemouthed approach to his medical history has only
encouraged more questions about it. His latest coronary episode, and the
bumptious way the news went public, is likely to stir them up further. After
Bush spoke, there was more confusion at a news conference held by the
doctors who attended Cheney at the hospital. Alan Wasserman, president of
the hospital's medical faculty associates, mentioned that Cheney's second
blood test for the cardiac enzymes given off by a damaged heart muscle
showed that Cheney's "enzyme levels were slightly elevated." Anyone who is
not a cardiologist might suppose he was just passing on an innocuous test
result. What he was actually offering was medical jargon that signifies a mild
heart attack. Emphasis on mild — Cheney's episode qualified as a heart attack
only under a stringent new definition adopted by the American Heart
Association about a year ago. All the same, 21/2 hours later Wasserman had to
reappear to speak the plain English words: "a very slight heart attack."
The hospital says the Bush campaign had nothing to do with preparing
Wasserman's first dissembling statement. And though Cheney's wife Lynne
and daughter Liz were involved, Cheney's press secretary, Juleanna Glover
Weiss, insists they did not at first understand that what he had suffered
qualified as a heart attack. Communications director Hughes says she also did
not understand until she asked the hospital's P.R. director to explain the
meaning of the elevated enzyme levels. Once she realized that this signaled a
mild heart attack, she says, she immediately told the hospital that the doctors
should go before the press again to say so. "One of the networks was still
reporting that he had not had a heart attack," says Hughes. "I was adamant
that it needed to be corrected."
It was only after last week's emergency that Cheney's doctors finally made
public a crucial measure of his coronary performance, the "ejection fraction,"
which indicates the heart's pumping power. A healthy heart registers within
the 50% to 70% range. Cheney's is a serviceable 40%. His cardiologist, Dr.
Jonathan Reiner, called that a sign of moderate impairment. Cheney's doctors
also announced that for 30 days Cheney will take a blood thinner, Plavix, to
prevent blood clots from forming around the stent before it can be covered by
the growth of new tissue.
As he left the hospital Friday, Cheney told reporters he would return this week
to "a fairly normal schedule." He was going home with an upbeat prognosis
from his doctors, so there's little reason to suppose that poor health would
cause him to step aside before Dec. 18, when the Electoral College will
formally choose the President and Vice President. If that were to happen,
however, and if Bush turns out to be the winner of the presidential race, he
could simply name Cheney's replacement, a choice that would have to be
approved in a vote by the 165-member Republican National Committee. But
after the Electoral College votes, or at any time during a Bush Administration,
Bush's choice to succeed Cheney would have to be approved by both houses of
Congress, a process set out in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. In
1973, when Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to step down in a kickback
scandal, Richard Nixon named Gerald Ford to replace him, in part because
Ford was House minority leader, which made quick approval in Congress
more likely. By contrast, Ford's selection of Nelson Rockefeller, a
congressional outsider, was held up for months by hearings into Rockefeller's
finances.
As Cheney was leaving the hospital last week, reporters inquired if he had
plans to ask Bush to replace him as his running mate. He laughed and said,
"No, not yet." He and his doctors insist that the stress of his latest campaign,
to say nothing of the chaos that followed Election Day, did not have much to
do with his problems last week. Nothing he went through as a candidate for
Vice President, Cheney said, compared to the stress he faced as Defense
Secretary during the Persian Gulf War.
But Cheney's first heart attack also happened during a political campaign, his
first run for the House. And if George W. Bush actually makes it to the White
House, the pressure on Cheney will be something else again. In a Senate likely
to be split 50-50, the Vice President presides as the tie-breaking vote.
Compared with the Democrats, the Iraqis were a piece of cake.
— Reported by Jay Carney / Austin and John Dickerson / Washington
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COVER STORY
Bush's Contested Lead
Now it goes to the courts as Gore challenges Sunday night's Florida tally
Heart Murmurs
Dick Cheney's brief but sudden hospitalization raises questions about fitness and truthfulness
Just How Bad Was It?
TIME's Christine Gorman on the vice-presidential candidate's diagnosis
Mob Scene In Miami
We look at the players behind the 'spontaneous' protest that preceded the shutdown of Miami-Dade's recount
Two-Headed Senate
With a potential Democratic victory in Washington State, the likelihood of gridlock and bickering looms large
EUROPE
Ready, Aim ... React
What can a Rapid Reaction Force from 14 E.U. countries do that NATO can't? Not much
In a Legend's Steps
Shackleton's brave Antarctic trip still awes the world. On his trail are three Britons
MIDDLE EAST
Into the War Zone
Palestinians are now directly attacking Israeli settlements. It's a new - and dangerous - tactic
THE ARTS
Full-Screen Press
French television program Arrêt sur Images entertains audiences by taking the media to task
Pictures From An Exhibitionist
Elton John has put together a big, brainy collection. Now Atlanta, his adopted city, is showing it off
The Vulnerable Woman
Jessica Lange tackles O'Neill's Long Day's Journey and shows she is more than just a great ape's date
Some More Good Men
The plot's predictable, the characters are clichés. Yet this naval drama sails through with flying colors
Fallen Angels
The stars of 'Charlie's Angels' try to soar, but the plot clips their wings
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
Worldwatch
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