WaPo Begins Series on Cheney

The Washington Post is presenting a four part series detailing the Cheney Vice Presidency. The first installment documents the obvious: Cheney/Bush = Edgar Bergen/Mortimer Snerd. Barton Gellman and Jo Becker report Part 1, 'A Different Understanding With the President.' On Oct. 25, 2001, the chairmen and ranking minority members of the intelligence committees were summoned to the White House for their first briefing on the eavesdropping and were told that it was one of the government's most closely compartmented secrets. Under Presidents George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, officials said, a conversation of that gravity would involve the commander in chief. But when the four lawmakers arrived in the West Wing lobby, an aide led them through the door on the right, away from the Oval Office. "We met in the vice president's office," recalled former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Bush had told Graham already, when the senator assumed the intelligence panel chairmanship, that "the vice president should be your point of contact in the White House." Cheney, the president said, "has the portfolio for intelligence activities."