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Libby: A private man with deep influence

Largely unknown outside the White House, "Scooter' Libby helped shape the policies of the Bush administration.

By wire services
Published October 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby quietly rose to the highest corridors of power in Washington only to be brought down in a scandal that thrust him into the limelight that he so explicitly avoided.

The powerful chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney has been extremely loyal to the vice president, and, in return, had Cheney's unwavering trust. Libby often fulfilled the same role of trust with Cheney that the vice president fills with President Bush.

"Essentially Libby is Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney," John Lyman wrote in a report for the Center for American Progress, a Democrat-leaning research organization.

"There's clearly comfortable enough a relationship there that he doesn't hesitate to disagree with the vice president or offer a different opinion or an unpopular opinion," said Republican consultant Stuart Stevens, who became a friend of Libby after helping prepare Cheney for the 2000 vice presidential debate.

To his critics, Libby embodies the neoconservative, hard-line philosophy that marched Bush into a war with Iraq and persuaded him to adopt a pre-emptive strike foreign policy against enemies of the U.S.

To friends and associates, Libby is a Renaissance man: a masterful lawyer, a smooth-writing novelist, an expert skier and a deep thinker who lets the cold hard facts, not ideology, dictate his politics.

"When Scooter brings an analysis, an idea, to the vice president, the vice president knows he's done all of the homework," said Mary Matalin, a former Cheney counselor.

Libby's portfolio - much like Cheney's - extended beyond his job title. "He wears two hats in that he's kind of a principal on all policy issues," Matalin said. "His other hat is he works with Karl (Rove) and (White House Chief of Staff) Andy Card. He's not just Cheney's go-to guy. ... We all work for Bush."

Until he was named as a secret source for New York Times reporter Judith Miller in the alleged outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, the name "Scooter Libby" was little known outside the nation's capital.

In a city where TV face time is eagerly sought, Libby, 55, has avoided the Sunday talk shows. Like his former boss, Cheney, he exerted his influence behind closed doors. Libby, who recently broke a bone in his foot and has been walking on crutches, is so secretive that he doesn't like to reveal his official first name. Insider speculation centers on "Irving."

Along with Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, and in Bush's first term, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage, Libby was among the "Vulcans." This inner circle helped the president set foreign policy since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They named themselves "in honor of the Roman god of fire, the forge and metalwork," wrote James Mann in his book, Rise of the Vulcans.

Now the nation has heard of Libby. Such publicity is likely not welcomed by a private man.

"Libby is strikingly reticent to volunteer personal details about himself," wrote Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. "He refuses to use his first name, for example, using only his initial, nor does he offer any details about his marital or family status."

So who is Scooter Libby? The key player in the CIA leak scandal is known by a lifelong nickname that his father gave a speedy baby who scooted across his crib.

"Scooter was always a fun guy, always ready for a game of touch football or a hand of bridge," said Jackson Hogen, a classmate of Libby's at Phillips Academy Andover and his freshman roommate at Yale. In prep school, Libby was president of the debating society, Hogen said.

At Yale, Libby took a political science course from Wolfowitz, who would go on to be a mentor for Libby as well as serving in the Reagan and both Bush administrations before becoming president of the World Bank. He also indulged his fascination with the written word by taking creative writing courses to hone his skills. In 1996, he published The Apprentice, a well-received novel set in Japan.

After earning a law degree from Columbia University in 1975, Libby practiced law in Philadelphia until 1981. He was recruited then by his old professor, Wolfowitz, to join the State Department in the Reagan administration. He moved to the Defense Department in the administration of former President George Bush. There he got to know Cheney, a fellow skier and former Republican congressman from Wyoming who was secretary of defense.

In 1992, disappointed that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had not been forcibly removed from office after the Persian Gulf War, Libby and Wolfowitz drafted a "Defense Planning Guidance" for Cheney that set out a doctrine for the era after the Cold War. Calling for unilateral, pre-emptive military action, if necessary, to keep developing countries from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, it helped establish Libby's reputation in the neoconservative movement.

Some on Cheney's staff did not like Libby's management skills. He didn't spend much time grooming those who worked for him and instead focused his attention on serving the president and vice president in a demanding job that can exact a high personal toll.

In his dual role as Cheney's chief of staff and adviser to Bush, Libby has reportedly had extraordinary influence and access in all aspects of White House policymaking, particularly national security. He was an expert in homeland security and weapons of mass destruction even before Sept. 11, 2001, and used that knowledge to shape administration policy after the terrorist attacks.

Information from the Associated Press, Cox News Service and Knight Ridder Newspapers was used in this report.

AGE, BIRTH DATE: 55, Aug. 22, 1950 in New Haven, Conn.

EDUCATION: B.A., Yale University, 1972; J.D., Columbia University, 1975

EXPERIENCE: Assistant to the president, chief of staff to the vice president and national security affairs adviser to the vice president, 2001-05; adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney in the 2000 presidential campaign; lawyer, Dechert, Price & Rhoads, 1995-2001; deputy undersecretary for policy, U.S. Defense Department, 1992-95; deputy undersecretary for strategy and resources, U.S. Department of Defense, 1989-92; lawyer, Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, 1985-89; special projects director, State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 1982-85; member, policy planning staff, State Department, 1981-82.

OTHER WORK: Wrote a novel, The Apprentice, 1996; founding member of the Project for a New American Century with Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush and others, 1997.

FAMILY: Married to Harriet Grant, two children.

NICKNAME: His father called him "Scooter" when as a baby he would "scoot" from place to place. It stuck.

- Sources: Associated Press, CNN

[Last modified October 29, 2005, 01:46:07]