Excerpted From "Angler: A Strong Push From Backstage"

As President Gerald R. Ford's chief of staff in the 1970s, Cheney saw firsthand how White House policies got shaped -- and how a vice president such as Nelson Rockefeller could become so marginalized as to be dumped from the ticket. Former Army secretary John O. Marsh Jr. said Cheney knew that he needed to control the process by which the president makes choices to ride "the rushing river of power" that winds through the West Wing to the Oval Office.

"Dick's major concern, one of them was, and I agree, that there needs to be a greater and more effective role for the vice president," Marsh, a longtime Cheney friend, said in an interview. "He holds the view, as do I, that the vice president should be the chief of staff in effect, that everything should run through his office."

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