Backseat Driver: From the Ford Years to the Gulf War, Dick Cheney Served as the Model of a Discreet Insider. Now He Will Add Depth to the Bush Ticket-But Will He Also Tilt It to the Right? the Man beneath the Placid Surface

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Colin Powell had barely closed the door to Dick Cheney's Pentagon office when the secretary of Defense broke the news. "I'm going to fire Mike Dugan," Cheney told Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was September 1990, and the United States was headed for war with Iraq. Dugan, the Air Force chief of staff, had just told The Washington Post, among other things, that air power was the only way to beat Saddam Hussein, and that the Israelis had advised that the best way to hurt him was to target his family, personal guard and mistress. Powell was appalled by Dugan's loose lips but, according to his 1995 memoirs, still tried to save the general's job. "Let's make sure the punishment fits the crime," he cautioned Cheney. When Powell watched his facial expression "set like hardening concrete," he knew there was no dissuading him. "As soon as you leave the room," Cheney said, "I'm calling Dugan and I'm relieving him."

Indiscretion and self-promotion are high crimes in Cheney's world. His Secret Service code name was once "Backseat," and not …