During Dallas visit, Dick Cheney said cigarettes were the sign of ’70s White House clout

Dick Cheney and Go Red co-chair Capera Ryan on Friday at the Hilton Anatole

In Dallas Friday, Dick Cheney revealed that during the Gerald Ford presidency, when he was the 34-year-old White House chief of staff, the real sign of power was neither cufflinks nor lapel pins, it was cigarettes.

Not surprisingly, Cheney had his first heart attack at age 37.

“You might say [smoking] was encouraged,” Cheney told the audience at the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Luncheon. “The cigarette companies provided cigarettes to the White House for free. They would come in a box—white with gold trim and it had the presidential seal on the outside. If you really wanted to impress someone, you whipped out a pack of your presidential cigarettes and lit it with a matchbook from Air Force One.”

Seated at the Dallas event next to his wife, Lynne Cheney, he added, “It was a sure…well…I was married in those days.”

More at http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2014/02/in-dallas-dick-cheney-said-cigarettes-were-the-sign-of-70s-white-house-clout.html/ .