If Lynne Cheney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, could change the world, she would pair her agency in the public`s mind with something a tad less controversial than the National Endowment for the Arts.
Only half kidding, she suggests that her humanities organization be linked with the National Science Foundation, for instance.
”I spend a lot of time saying I am not the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts,” said Cheney, referring to the agency that is embroiled in a controversy over whether the government should fund what its critics call obscene art.
With eyes flashing partly with determination and partly with mirth, Cheney points out not only that the science foundation is a comparatively conservative organization, but that it also gets $2.4 billion every year in government funding, while her agency has to make do with about $160 million to fund research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities. ”If we had to have a sister agency, why not the National Science Foundation-for the money if nothing else,” she said at a recent congressional hearing on her budget.
But she noted that the arts endowment and the humanities endowment are tied together by congressional legislation. When the arts endowment was forced to change the way it makes grants, because of the controversy over funding, her agency had to follow the same rules.
Cheney, 48, is the only chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (created in 1965) to be reappointed for a second term, which began in April.
She and her husband, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, are one of Washington`s most notable couples.
Her varied career prepared her well for the job at the humanities endowment, Cheney said. She has written novels and contributed to popular magazines, taught in colleges and universities, worked in public TV, and raised two daughters practically alone while her husband was working in Gerald Ford`s White House, running for and serving in Congress, and heading the Pentagon.
”That was really an interesting resume, but it didn`t really come together until I had this job,” she said.
A mini-controversy
While the main purpose of the endowment is to fund scholarship, Cheney has also used her position to highlight areas of education that she believes need addressing. She sparked a mini-controversy in the academic community with her report ”50 Hours,” which set out a back-to-basics curriculum for college students.
”The engineers who don`t want to take French-that is a challenge for colleges and universities,” she said. ”But I`m convinced that the liberal arts majors who don`t want to take science are equally set in their ways. They need some kind of persuasion, some kind of case made to them.”
Cheney makes that case to the institutions of higher learning, and she made a similar case to her own two children, Mary, an undergraduate at her mother`s alma mater, Colorado College, and Elizabeth, who graduated from the college a couple of years ago.
”I am convinced that this college will be quite grateful when the last Cheney child graduates, because I take my privileges as a parent very seriously to constantly offer suggestions about the curriculum,” Lynne Cheney said.
Gresham Riley, president of Colorado College and an admirer of Cheney`s and her husband`s, noted that he and Lynne Cheney have had some differences about academic criteria over the years.
”Lynne is attracted much more than I am, and our faculty is, to a prescribed component of the undergraduate curriculum,” he said. ”Lynne is under the belief that a curriculum that is more flexible than she would prefer puts in jeopardy our responsibility for transmitting the ideals of Western civilization, and I disagree with that.”
But he said he will not be glad when the ”last Cheney child” graduates, and, in fact, often calls on Cheney and her husband to lecture and visit the campus. He notes that Lynne Cheney has an honorary degree from the college as well as her bachelor of arts degree. She also has a master`s degree from the University of Colorado and a doctorate in 19th Century British literature from the University of Wisconsin.
A writing career
Among her writings are a history of leaders of the House of Representatives, ”Kings of the Hill,” written with her husband; and three novels: ”Executive Privilege,” about the presidency, ”Sisters,” about women Western pioneers, and ”The Body Politic,” about a vice president who dies in office but whose aides fake his being alive.
Cheney`s co-author of ”The Body Politic,” former vice presidential speechwriter Vic Gold, said Cheney contributed wit and a professor`s kind of perfectionism to the book. After Cheney read Gold`s draft of one chapter, he said, she telephoned him on a Saturday to say she was a bit uneasy about the description of the fictional vice president`s death-in bed, with a TV newswoman-which was conveyed by the phrase ”in flagrante delicto.”
”She said it wasn`t precise enough,” Gold said. ”So, I came up with
`in carnal arrest` instead, which she said was better. As a result, we came up with a funnier phrase.”
Gold also said Cheney added a level of Washington sophistication to the book, which was important to its authenticity, and paid a great deal of attention to the tone of the book.
It`s just that sort of precision and tone that appear to steer Cheney clear of the current controversy involving her sister agency, the National Endowment for the Arts. Because of the difficulties, Congress has decreed that there should be no more subgrants, or grants of money from one recipient to another, that a federal agency has not screened.
”So we`ve had to wrestle with that, even though our record is unblemished,” Cheney said. ”But that`s been more of a pain in the neck than a source of frustration or inhibition or anything.”
No restrictions
Cheney insisted that the controversy over the arts endowment has not restricted her nor guided her in choosing which projects get money.
”One of the things that makes this endowment less controversial is simply the nature of the humanities,” she said. ”We`re about reflecting and being objective, and the whole notion of deliberately setting out to shock or offend is unscholarly.”
Cheney likes to point to the diversity of her grants. ”I like to say I have the most interesting `in` box in town,” she said.
She cited several recent grants to Chicago-area projects, including one for $16,000 to the Art Institute of Chicago to support a symposium on the continuing influence in the Americas of Nigeria`s Yoruba people.
A grant of $110,000 went to Chicago State University to support a project on ancient history and literature for elementary and secondary social studies and English teachers for the Chicago public schools, while the Newberry Library got $20,500 to support an exhibition on American Indian cultures and their encounters with early European explorers.
Although those projects seem innocuous, Cheney`s job is not entirely without controversy.
Making her case
For example, at the hearing on Cheney`s budget, Rep. Chester Atkins (D-Mass.) repeatedly quizzed her about her commitment to improving the study of history in the U.S., citing a $500,000, three-year grant made to UCLA to improve history teaching.
He noted that Cheney had mentioned several new programs the endowment was funding, including one for French study, and worried that history programs were being neglected as a result.
Cheney answered him coolly and steadily.
”This is a complicated program that you have to attack on many fronts at once,” she said. ”I`m sorry if we give the appearance of diluting our efforts by attacking on all fronts.” She assured Atkins that history, her pet topic, would not be neglected.
Later, she reflected on the criticism. ”Not everybody likes my priorities, but there doesn`t seem to be any doubt about what they are,” she said, listing history and ”education and education” as her primary topics.
Cheney also has been criticized for being partial to conservative scholarship as opposed to that which might be considered liberal.
But Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.), the relatively liberal chairman of the House subcommittee that controls Cheney`s budget, discounts that. ”She doesn`t choose applications on the basis of philosophy,” Yates said.
Yates said Cheney has avoided controversy partly because of her savvy and partly because she is so plugged in to Republican circles. ”Most of the
(arts) critics are Republican,” Yates said. ”She and her husband are well-known Republicans and are close to the president. And she is very well-respected.”
If there was any doubt that Lynne Cheney is an equal member of the Cheney-Cheney political team, it was dispelled at the endowment`s budget hearing.
Cheney presented her budget, and then was asked by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) whether the amount was adequate.
”Yes,” she replied simply.
”You don`t need more money?” Murtha asked, somewhat incredulously.
”No, we don`t.”
Murtha, a cagey, 16-year veteran of the House who heads the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, saw his chance to send a message to the Cheney home.
”The Defense Department doesn`t ever say that,” Murtha said. ”They don`t ever come up and say that they`ve got enough money.”
Chuckles broke out in the hearing room. The audience knew what was going on.
Lynne Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney, prominent Republican and ever the diplomat, paused a beat, considering her answer.
”My impression is they have been very bold of late in cutting their budget,” she said, leaving the room all in smiles and with a good chance that her own budget would be treated favorably regardless of what happened to the Pentagon`s.
