In 1994, Cheney established the Alliance for
American Leadership, a political action committee.
Through this vehicle he was able to raise funds to
support Republican campaigns and tour the coun-
try giving speeches. Meanwhile, he debated whether
to run for president in 1996. On January 3, 1995, he
released a statement saying he had decided not to
run. From 1995 to 2000, Cheney served as chairman
of the board and chief executive officer of Halli-
burton, an oil and gas company. In the late 1990’s,
he brought the industry together to fight Congress
regarding sanctions on doing business with Iran but
was unable to overturn them. In 2000, Cheney was
elected vice president of the United States under
George W. Bush after consulting for Bush’s election
campaign for much of 1999.
Impact Cheney led several triumphant military
campaigns throughout his term as secretary of de-
fense, including the highly successful Operation
Desert Storm. He was admired during the 1990’s for
his wealth of knowledge regarding defense policy
and his ability to demonstrate grace under pressure.
Further Reading
Andrews, Elaine.Dick Cheney: A Life in Public Service.
Brookfield, Conn.: Millbrook Press, 2002.
Hayes, Stephen F.Cheney: The Untold Stor y of America’s
Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President.New
York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Kathr yn Vincent
See also Bosnia conflict; Bush, George H. W.; For-
eign policy of the United States; Gulf War; Middle
East and North America; Noriega capture and trial;
Powell, Colin; Schwarzkopf, Norman; Somalia con-
flict; Wolfowitz, Paul.
Chicago heat wave of 1995
The Event High temperatures in the Chicago
area contribute to the deaths of as many as
seven hundred people over five days
Date July 12-16, 1995
This disaster affected mostly the poor and the elderly, and
for this reason would be studied long after the event oc-
curred.
The Chicago heat wave of 1995 was one of the worst
weather-related events ever to hit the city and the
state of Illinois. Although an official death toll for
the Chicago heat wave is subject to controversy, esti-
mates range from 525 persons dead to over 700 fatal-
ities related to those few days in mid-July. Many
dispute the death count, attributing some of the
numbers to natural causes, illnesses, and disease,
not to physical stress from high temperatures. Stan-
dards for determining heat-related deaths did not
exist in 1995, so Cook County’s chief medical exam-
iner Edmund Donoghue used state-of-the-art crite-
ria that were later verified as being sound by medical
examiners around the country. However, even after
the statistics are adjusted, the number of human
lives lost during the heat wave remains high. The
question of why so many lives were lost in what ap-
pears to be a preventable disaster is still under scru-
tiny. Most of the dead were poor or elderly, with
many of those dying alone. It took several days for
some of the dead to be located, as many had simply
disappeared during their lifetime into the inner city,
having no contact with friends, family members, or
neighbors; no one reported them as being in danger
or missing, and the bodies were not located until af-
ter the heat wave was over.
According to the Illinois State Climatologist Of-
fice, more human life is lost to heat waves than all
other weather events combined, including lighten-
ing, floods, tornadoes, winter storms, and hurri-
canes. On July 10, 1995, the high in Chicago was
90 degrees Fahrenheit and rose dramatically over
the next few days, peaking at 106 degrees Fahrenheit
on July 13. Temperatures started declining, and by
July 17 the mercury dropped to 89 degrees Fahren-
heit. Also significant during the heat wave were the
nighttime lows, which were recorded in the upper
seventies and lower eighties combined with record-
high humidity levels. However, several experts who
studied this event acknowledge that the heat and hu-
midity were not the only contributing factors to the
mortality rate and that a collective failure probably
occurred.Urban Heat Islands and Other Factors The inner
city of Chicago is particularly susceptible to what is
known as an “urban heat island,” created when
buildings, roads, and parking lots concentrated in a
small area absorb, then radiate, more heat at night
compared to a rural site. Also worth noting is that
the temperatures were measured at Midway Airport,
located on the outskirts of the city in a more subur-The Nineties in America Chicago heat wave of 1995 161