Alexander Haig remembered as soldier-statesman
 
By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan, Ap National
Security Writer - 1 hr 12 mins ago
 
WASHINGTON - Soldier and statesman, Alexander Haig never lived down his
televised response to the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald
Reagan. Haig died Saturday at age 85 having held high posts in three
Republican administrations and some of the U.S. military's top jobs.
 
Haig was a four-star Army general who served as a senior adviser to three
presidents and had presidential ambitions of his own. He died early in the
day at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of complications from an
infection, his family said. He was surrounded by his family, according to
two of his children, Alexander and Barbara.
 
Haig's long and decorated military service launched the Washington career
for which he is better known, including jobs in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan
administrations.
 
President Barack Obama praised Haig on Saturday as a public servant who
"exemplified our finest warrior-diplomat tradition of those who
dedicate their lives to public service."
 
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Haig "served his
country in many capacities for many years, earning honor on the
battlefield, the confidence of presidents and prime ministers, and the
thanks of a grateful nation."
 
Many Americans will remember the strong-willed Haig most vividly for what
he later called his "poor choice of words." Hours after Reagan
was shot, then-Secretary of State Haig went before the cameras intending,
he said later, to reassure Americans that the White House was functioning.
 
"As of now, I am in control here in the White House, pending the
return of the vice president," Haig said.
 
Some saw the comment as a power grab in the absence of Vice President
George H.W. Bush, who was out of town.
 
The ridicule that followed hastened Haig's departure from the last of an
extraordinarily varied string of top government jobs.
 
In his book, "Caveat," Haig later wrote that he had been
"optimistic if I had imagined I would be forgiven the imprecision out
of respect for the tragedy of the occasion."
 
Public figures looked beyond that episode in response to his death.
 
"I think of him as a patriot's patriot," said George P. Shultz,
who succeeded Haig as the country's top diplomat in 1982.
 
"No matter how you sliced him it came out red, white and blue. He was
always willing to serve."
 
Haig was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and numerous other honors
during his three decades in the Army, and - as vice chief of staff - helped
lead the transition to an all-volunteer military, recalled Army Chief of
Staff Gen. George Casey.
 
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, called the
staunchly Republican Haig a great public servant.
 
"Alexander Haig devoted his career to serving our country, both as a
soldier and as a diplomat," Albright said. "He was a great
American patriot and an inspiration to all who defend and cherish
freedom."
 
Born Dec. 2, 1924, in the Philadelphia suburb of Bala Cynwyd, Alexander
Meigs Haig spent his boyhood days dreaming about a career in the military.
With the help of an uncle who had congressional contacts, he secured an
appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1943.
 
After seeing combat in Korea and Vietnam, Haig - an Army colonel at the
time - was tapped by Henry Kissinger to be his military adviser on the
National Security Council under Nixon. Haig "soon became
indispensable," Kissinger said of his protege.
 
Nixon promoted Haig in 1972 from a two-star general to a four-star rank,
passing over 240 high-ranking officers with greater seniority.
 
The next year, as the Watergate scandal deepened, Nixon turned to Haig and
appointed him to succeed H.R. Haldeman as White House chief of staff. He
helped the president prepare his impeachment defense - and as Nixon was
preoccupied with Watergate, Haig handled many of the day-to-day decisions
normally made by the chief executive.
 
On Nixon's behalf, Haig also helped arrange the wiretaps of government
officials and reporters, as the president tried to plug the sources of news
leaks.
 
About a year after assuming his new post as Nixon's right-hand man, Haig
was said to have played a key role in persuading the president to resign.
He also suggested to Gerald Ford that he pardon his predecessor for any
crimes committed while in office - a pardon that is widely believed to have
cost Ford the presidency in 1976.
 
Years after serving as one of Nixon's closest aides, Haig would be dogged
by speculation that he was "Deep Throat" - the shadowy source who
helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the
Watergate story. Haig denied it, repeatedly, and the FBI's Mark Felt was
eventually revealed as the secret source.
 
Although the reporters made it a point not to comment on rumors about the
identity of Deep Throat, an exception was made for Haig, Woodward told AP
on Saturday. "Because he was so disturbed about it, about being
accused of being this insider who would provide information to reporters,
eventually I told people categorically that he was not Deep Throat because
it was not true, it was implausible, and he felt it was unfair for us not
to answer that question," Woodward said.
 
Following Nixon's resignation, Haig stayed with the new Ford administration
for about six weeks, but then returned to a military career as commander in
chief of U.S. forces in Europe and supreme allied commander of NATO forces
- a post he held for more than four years. He quit during the Carter
administration over the handling of the Iran hostage crisis.
 
Haig briefly explored a run for the presidency in 1979 but decided he
didn't have enough support and instead took a job as president of United
Technologies - his first job in the private sector since high school.
 
When Ronald Reagan became president, Haig came back to public service as
Reagan's secretary of state and declared himself the "vicar of
American foreign policy."
 
His 17-month tenure was marked by turf wars with other administration
officials - including Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and national
security adviser William Clark.
 
Two months into the new administration, Haig was portrayed as pounding a
table in frustration when the chairmanship of a crisis management team went
to Bush. Despite the clashes, Haig received high praise from professional
diplomats for trying to achieve a stable relationship with the Soviet
Union.
 
In his book, Haig said he had concluded during a 1982 trip to Europe with
the president that the "effort to write my character out of the script
was under way with a vengeance." He resigned days later.
 
Weinberger, interviewed in 2002 for the University of Virginia Miller
Center's oral history project on Reagan, said Haig had a strong personality
and found it difficult to adjust to civilian lines of authority after years
in the military, including as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
 
A good general, Haig as a civilian Cabinet official became convinced that
others in the Reagan White House were out to get him, Weinberger said.
 
"Someone said it was a great mistake to give anybody a position with
the title of 'supreme' in it," Weinberger said.
 
"He kept getting angrier and angrier. He threatened to resign several
times. Finally the president said, 'All right.'"
 
Describing himself as a "dark horse," Haig sought the Republican
presidential nomination for the 1988 elections. He told supporters about
his desire to "keep the Reagan revolution alive," but he also
railed against the administration's bulging federal deficit - calling it an
embarrassment to the GOP.
 
Haig dropped out of the race just days before the New Hampshire primary.
 
During his career in public service, Haig became known for some of his more
colorful or long-winded language. When asked by a judge to explain an 18
1/2-minute gap in one of the Nixon tapes, Haig responded: "Perhaps
some sinister force had come in."
 
And later, when he criticized Reagan's "fiscal flabbiness," Haig
asserted that the "ideological religiosity" of the
administration's economic policies were to blame for doubling the national
debt to $2 trillion in 1987.
 
Haig is survived by his wife of 60 years, Patricia; his children Alexander,
Brian and Barbara; eight grandchildren; and his brother, the Rev. Francis
R. Haig.
 
___
 
Associated Press writers Jennifer C. Kerr and David Melendy contributed to
this report.
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

--- D'Bridge 3.51