Bob Schieffer Reflects On “Dozens” Of Interviews With Dick Cheney

“None of us ever know what tomorrow brings but it does make me feel a little nostalgic thinking back to those other days when he was thirty two and I was just a little bit older,” CBS News’ Bob Schieffer said of Dick Cheney in an interview with CBSNews.com. “It was different world, a lot has happened since then. So, I will enjoy seeing him when he comes here just from a personal standpoint.”

Schieffer will interview the vice president (and his longtime acquaintance) this Sunday on “Face the Nation" at 10:30am ET. More from Schieffer's conversation with CBSNews.com is below.

Schieffer: You know I really have no idea how many times I have interviewed him, dozens at a very minimum. I first came to know Dick Cheney when he was Don Rumsfeld’s deputy when Rumsfeld was first Chief of Staff for Gerald Ford when Ford became president. Then later, when he was thirty- two years old Cheney became the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history and so I dealt with him on a daily basis. He was very open and forthcoming, he was almost a de facto press secretary. I would speak to him sometimes as much as twice a day. I was the White House correspondent in those days.

Have you seen him change over the course of his political career?

Schieffer: I have actually asked him that question, do you think you have changed, and he would say it was the job that changed. Obviously, I would not expect him as vice president to be as open or forthcoming or as accessible as he was in those days when I would deal with him on a daily basis when I was a reporter covering the White House and he was the White House Chief of Gerald Ford. I think, also, 9/11 changed Dick Cheney. It may have changed all of us.

Look Below To Watch Our Interview


You put him in the hot seat a lot. Can you remember any contentious moments in any interviews you ever had?

Schieffer: Oh, I suppose there were some. I don’t think I have ever rattled him. He is one of these people, he is very taciturn. He doesn’t show emotion very much so I don’t think I ever, in any way, threw him off his guard. He usually comes up with some answers.

How does it feel for you going in to what may be your final interview with Dick Cheney, certainly as Vice President, having watched him grow up in Washington?

Schieffer: It makes me feel very, very old (laughter). I don’t know how it makes him feel. But I saw something the other day where he said he had left government four times over his lifetime and I would expect this will be his final turn in government. None of us ever know what tomorrow brings but it does make me feel a little nostalgic thinking back to those other days when he was thirty two and I was just a little bit older. It was different world, a lot has happened since then. So, I will enjoy seeing him when he comes here just from a personal standpoint.

Can you give us any hint what kind of questions we can expect to be asked on Sunday?

Schieffer: I think you have to ask him to give his assessment of where he thinks the Bush administration is. This is an administration that bet it all. They bet the ranch on Iraq and I think whatever history writes about George Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice president, will depend very much on how Iraq comes out. Now, one of the things I have come to believe is that you really can’t judge a presidency until at least 5 years after that president has left office I have kind of made a personal rule that I will not pass judgment on any administration until at least five years have passed.