In Vice President Dick Cheney’s later years, former detractors sometimes expressed puzzlement about his political trajectory. The onetime designated villain of the Iraq War had somehow mutated into a hero of the anti-Trump constitutional resistance. Had he changed? Or had they misjudged him?

People do change. Perspectives can shift. But oftentimes the secret to later-life decisions is encoded in early experiences.

Richard Bruce Cheney arrived in Washington in 1968 as a 27-year-old congressional intern. Within seven years, he rose to become White House chief of staff.

That spectacular ascent owed much to Cheney’s talents and work ethic. It owed more to the catastrophes and traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. As more senior staff resigned in disgrace or faced indictment, the way lay open for a younger man untainted by previous failures and scandals. Early in the Nixon administration, Cheney formed a close bond with Donald Rumsfeld, another thrusting young man a few years his senior. The president who succeeded Nixon, Gerald Ford, named Rumsfeld his first chief of staff. Rumsfeld selected Cheney as his deputy. In November 1975, Rumsfeld moved to head the Department of Defense. Cheney succeeded him in the White House job.

Cheney’s boyhood coincided with America’s rise to global preeminence. At age 34, he found himself near the top of the U.S. government at a time of humiliation and defeat. The new Ford administration set to work restoring the government’s credibility at home and America’s position in the world.

After Ford’s electoral loss in 1976, Cheney ran for Congress from his native Wyoming. He won his seat and rose rapidly in the House leadership.