Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair
A LIFE OF SERVICE
Former Secretary of State and Four Star General Alexander M. Haig passed away recently. For those who have spent any time either living through his times with him, or studying him, his life of service to his country was one of incredible importance.
It was not at all important that he could wear four stars on his shoulders. Nor was it important that he was the nation’s number one diplomat for a number of years during his days as Secretary of State.
Secretary Haig was one of those people who was superb as an “assistant to” while always enjoying the respect of those he served, to the point of being able to ascend to the important jobs from his previous work as a gopher.
Haig served in Vietnam. His tactical abilities and his leadership strengths brought him to the attention of Henry Kissinger who, at the time, was helping Richard Nixon develop an exit strategy for that conflict.
Eventually, Haig moved to the Nixon White House and worked under Kissinger. His performance was so outstanding that he quickly became a confidant for both men, men who did not suffer fools gladly. When Kissinger advanced to the position of Secretary of State, Haig was the obvious replacement.
Nixon was so impressed by Haig that he jumped him over hundreds of military men who were ahead of him in the line for promotion and moved him straight from a two-star general to a four-star general. For those history buffs, take a look at how often something like that happens in our military!
When President Nixon became more deeply embroiled in the Watergate Affair, he became more recluse and less effective. The fellow who carried the ball for our nation during this crisis was not the vice president but General Haig. Nixon had lost his closest advisors, Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman. When he was morose and rambled on it was General Haig who sat in the other chair, cocktail in hand, and let the president rail against his enemies. Accordingly, when important matters needed to be handled, deftly and diplomatically, it was Haig who handled them for Nixon.
General Haig held the government together while President Nixon imploded. He did not do so constitutionally but, luckily for us, he did so patriotically.
When the crisis peaked, there was only one man who had Nixon’s ear and it was Alexander Haig. He carefully, and sensitively, convinced a president with an outsized ego to do the unimaginable, resign. He did so in order that the country could move forward. I don’t think there was any other person who could have brought this conclusion.
When Gerald R. Ford, an amiable but not a crafty or especially intelligent individual ascended to the presidency, he too kept counsel with Alexander Haig.
Gerald Ford lost his presidency arguably over the decision to pardon Richard Nixon so the nation could move away from the ugliness of the Watergate affair and let the former president have some sort of reasonable exile.
While that decision turned out to be Ford’s most important, and he later won numerous plaudits for having been so wise and bold, historians suggest, and I believe, it was Alexander Haig who carefully led him to it.
So when Caroline Kennedy presented Ford with an award at the Kennedy School of government, or when Senator Kennedy lauded Ford for his historically important decision, or when historians began writing of how important, and correct, the Ford decision on pardon was for our country, I imagine Alexander Haig sitting in a leather chair in his office comfortable in the knowledge that he was the behind-the-scenes player in all of this history.
As you know, Haig was made Secretary of State and served in that capacity for Ronald Reagan. In the time between his stints at the executive level he returned to the military and commanded our troops in Europe and in NATO.
On the day Reagan was shot and Vice President Bush was on an airplane it was General Haig who went before the cameras, with words he later came to regret, to insure the nation that someone was “in charge” at The White House. While his choice of words would haunt him, his purpose in speaking was dead on right. The nation needed to know that this was an isolated incident and that someone with Haig’s stature was at the helm until the vice president could return.
I mourn the passing of a great American, Alexander M. Haig. And I wonder how many other “subordinates” in the political arena could claim to have been so successful as a subordinate, and then so impressive as a player, that they could have worked through three administrations and had such a quiet, behind the scenes impact on American history.
This man impressed Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, men not easily impressed. He worked for them and then with them.
Former Secretary of State and Secretary of Labor George Shultz commented “no matter how you slice him, Haig comes up red, white and blue.”
The taps that are playing now for General Haig should be drowned out by the applause from Americans saying “thank you."
