Cheney to visit Salt Lake Friday, give speech

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney will meet with Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, and make a speech to the Council for National Policy on Friday in Salt Lake City.

Cheney will stop in Salt Lake after fund-raising events in California for the Republican National Committee in Nevada and Colorado for those states' Republican parties and in Wyoming for Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said.

The meeting with Klaus is separate from the speech to the CNP, Mitchell said. The Salt Lake City meetings will be closed to the press.

The Council for National Policy is a conservative group whose more than 600 "members are united in their belief in a free enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional western values," according to the organization's Web site.

The group's members "meet to share the best information available on national and world problems, know one another on a personal basis, and collaborate in achieving their shared goals."

An e-mail sent to the group was not returned.

The vice president was last in Utah in April to give a speech at Brigham Young University.