Dick Cheney Feared Assassination by Shock to Implanted Heart Defibrillator

Photo Credit: David J Phillip/APThe former United States vice-president Dick Cheney was so fearful of assassination by terrorists sending an electronic shock to his implanted heart defibrillator that he ordered doctors to fit a new device without a wi-fi capability.

The extraordinary admission comes in the 72-year-old’s new book Heart: An American Medical Odyssey, in which he also reveals that two months after his 2001 inauguration he prepared a letter of resignation to President George W Bush that he carried with him almost constantly, which he could hand over if he felt his health deteriorating.

Cheney, a fiercely loyal deputy during both terms of Bush’s administration, has suffered five heart attacks since the age of 37 and had a heart transplant last year. In an interview to support his book on the CBS show 60 Minutes, due to air on Sunday night, he describes his current health as “a miracle”.

But it is Cheney’s fear of assassination that will provide a major talking point from the interview and book, which was written in conjunction with his longtime cardiologist, Dr Jonathan Reiner.

A fictional vice-president in the hit US television drama Homeland was murdered by terrorists sending an electronic signal to his pacemaker, in an episode several years after Cheney had his device fitted, in June 2001. It was an alarming plotline, he said.

Read more from this story HERE.