ASHINGTON - As a top Republican in the US House, Dick Cheney outdid the National Rifle Association in his opposition to gun control. He was an impassioned backer of aid to the Nicaraguan contras but declined to join a call for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela. And he made no exceptions in his opposition to federal funding for abortions, even in cases of rape or incest.
Cheney, in short, compiled one of the most conservative voting records of any member of Congress in the 1980s. Yet the civility of his personal style and his earlier service as chief of staff to President Ford lent him moderate credentials that softened his image over the years.
While in the House from 1979 to 1989, Cheney sided with one of the most conservative Washington watchdogs, the American Conservative Union, 91 percent of the time. That is 10 to 20 points higher than the average Republican during the period. Moreover, Cheney's voting record became more conservative the longer he served in Congress, reflecting his rise in the House leadership.
He won those ratings with his backing of the contras and a resolute opposition to abortion. He also, partly as a reflection of his Wyoming roots, gained a reputation as one of the most hardened opponents of gun control, going even further than the NRA suggested when he was one of only four House members to oppose a ban on plastic guns used by terrorists to avoid detection by airport security. Cheney also opposed a ban on armor-piercing bullets.
At other ideological checkpoints, too, Cheney was consistent in his conservatism.
He voted against the creation of the Department of Education and opposed funding for the Head Start program. He was one of only 16 House members who voted in 1983 against a nonbinding measure to protect a nutrition program for women, infants, and children from budget cuts.
In 1986, he voted against a sense-of-the-House resolution calling on the white-controlled government in South Africa to free Mandela. (He eventually was released in 1990.) Cheney also opposed economic sanctions against South Africa. He voted against measures that sought to ensure the application of a variety of US civil rights laws.
Cheney did break occasionally with the Reagan administration, disagreeing with the way the White House was compromising with Democrats on tax reform. In his rare breaks with the American Conservative Union, Cheney supported multibillion-dollar foreign aid programs.
Richard Armitage, a former Defense Department official who has long been a close Cheney associate, said Cheney's dual reputation as a conservative with a moderate patina can be easily explained. Cheney voted conservatively as a House Republican leader. But earlier, as Ford's chief of staff from 1975 to 1976, Cheney was perceived as more moderate because he had to work daily with Democrats to get legislation through Congress.
''You can't be a rabid partisan, particularly with a Democratic-controlled Congress, and get things done,'' Armitage said. ''Democracy is the art of compromise.''
But when Cheney was elected to Congress in 1978, and especially as he ascended in the Republican leadership, his priorities changed and he worked hard to promote his views. But he did so in a temperate, well-mannered style that was a marked contrast to that of another rising Republican leader, Newt Gingrich, who eventually became speaker by demonizing Democrats as corrupt.
Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who has known Cheney for 30 years, said the former Wyoming congressman is a different kind of conservative than the Gingrich model. While Gingrich presented himself as a ''revolutionary,'' Cheney was ''more classically conservative. He believed in the institutions of government and wanted to make them work.''
''Dick is a partisan but in a different way; he doesn't want to demonize the enemies,'' Ornstein said.
Representative Barney Frank, the Newton Democrat, who served with Cheney in the House, said: ''He was a deeply committed conservative. Cheney is an example of how you can get a reputation as a moderate if you don't yell at anybody, unlike Gingrich. But he is very, very right wing.''
Still, Frank recalled two incidents where Cheney showed a more moderate side. In 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary and testified before a House committee, Frank asked him about the military's ban on gays. Frank said Cheney characterized the ban as an ''old chestnut,'' an ambiguous statement that may have helped set the stage for the Pentagon to adopt the ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy on gays in the military.
On another occasion, Frank said, he told Cheney that US military academies were requiring some students to lose scholarship money if they were gay.
''He said, `That's not fair,''' Frank said, and the policy was eventually changed.
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said it was notable that Cheney often scored much higher in the group's voting scorecard than most Republicans. For example, in 1985, the average Republican voted with the conservative union 77 percent of the time, while Cheney had a 100 percent record. Similarly, in 1986, the average Republican score was 74 percent, while Cheney had 100 percent.
''He was always a conservative member of Congress, probably in the top 10 percent,'' Keene said. ''But not only was he conservative, he was a conservative who got along with everybody. He was a right-winger who wasn't offensive about it.''
