With his sepulchral voice and rare words, Dick Cheney claimed his nickname of “Darth Vader” and his taste for the dark side of power with provocative pride. After three decades behind the scenes, with George W. Bush’s consent, he imposed himself during two terms as perhaps the most influential and powerful vice president in the history of the United States. History’s verdict has been merciless with the “father” of the Iraq invasion and of the excesses of the war on terror. He never expressed the slightest regret. He passed away at the age of 84, his family announced on Tuesday, November 4.

Richard Bruce Cheney was born on January 30, 1941, to a Democratic family in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Casper, Wyoming, a conservative stronghold. His father was an official with the Department of Agriculture and his mother a former local softball star. Thanks to an oil businessman, Tom Strook, who had connections, he enrolled at the prestigious Yale University, attended by the children of New England patricians. However, the experience quickly turned out to be a failure and he returned to Wyoming, where he worked as an external platform worker for an electric company. Another attempt at Yale was not any more successful. Back in the West, he was arrested twice for drunk driving, a double warning that precipitated a drastic change of heart in which his girlfriend, Lynne Ann Vincent, played a determining role.

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