Instead, he went to Washington as an up-and-coming Republican operative, taking a job as a congressional intern in 1969 before moving to the Nixon White House to work under Donald Rumsfeld in the Office of Economic Opportunity. Nixon’s second term featured a major change in his approach to the presidency, one that would impact Cheney’s political career. When Vice President Gerald Ford took over in 1974, Cheney returned to the White House as deputy chief of staff under Rumsfeld. AdvertisementWhite House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld (center) and his deputy Dick Cheney meet with President Gerald Ford in the White House's Oval Office in April 1975. The Bush administration had asked interrogators to find such links.
