Harry Whittington was peppered with bird pellets by Dick Cheney on Saturday during a quail hunt at a ranch in Texas. He was taken to hospital and put in intensive care.

President Bush and White House staff were informed that night. But it was not until 18 hours after the shooting that the news emerged and then only because a reporter got a tip-off from Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner. Yesterday, Mr Cheney was battling media claims of a cover-up, while the status of police inquiries remained unclear.

The local sheriff’s office in Kennedy County was saying as little as possible. “We have no information to release,” Sandra Guzman, the sheriff’s assistant, said. When did they know about the incident — and what did they know? “I can’t say, an investigation is going on,” Ms Guzman said. Are you investigating to see if a crime was committed? “I’m not sure,” she replied and then hung up.

A spokesman for the Texas Rangers said: “The Secret Service are handling everything. When I call up and ask for information, people get weird with me.”

The White House press corps were turning their fire on Scott McClellan, the President’s spokesman. They were incredulous that the media had not been told sooner. He was accused of “totally ducking and weaving”, and “being a jerk”.

Mr McClellan, who is usually treated with more respect, pleaded with reporters not to yell at him, and implored them to “calm down”.

The way that information is disseminated by the Vice-President’s office is already controversial, given the prosecution of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his former chief of staff, for alleged leaks about a CIA operative. Yesterday Mr Cheney and his staff were being attacked for revealing too little, not too much.

Mrs Armstrong said yesterday that everyone at the ranch had been so “focused” on getting medical treatment for Mr Whittington that it was not until Sunday that she reported the incident to The Caller-Times, a newspaper based 60 miles away in Corpus Christi. Larger Texas newspapers in Dallas, Houston and Austin were not informed.

According to her eye-witness account, Mr Cheney and Pam Willeford, the US Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, were approached from behind by Mr Whittington just as the Vice-President was turning to shoot. “Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good,” she said.

As for Mr Whittington, he was yesterday said to be recovering from wounds to his face and neck that resembled chicken pox. Mr McClennan said that the Vice-President had visited him and “was pleased to see that he was doing fine and in good spirits. I know the President is, as well.”

Mr Bush knows Mr Whittington from his days as Texas Governor. In 1999 he put him in charge of a commission regulating funerals. Eliza May, who had headed the commission, was then suing the state, saying she had been dismissed because she investigated a funeral-home chain owned by a friend of Mr Bush. The suit was settled two years later. Mr Whittington donated $1,000 to Mr Bush’s first presidential campaign and $2,000 to his re-election.

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