Talk:Alexander Haig/Archive 1

Archive 1

Rename

Page move: 13,000 (Alexander Haig) v. 1580 (Alexander M. Haig, Jr.) on google. --Jiang 09:35, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Proof that Haig was wrong about succession

Cut from article:

However, audio tapes made that day in the White House by National Security Advisor Richard Allen, and released in 2001, suggest that Haig was indeed under the erroneous impression that the U.S. Constitution placed him after the Vice President of the United States in the Presidential Line of Succession.

Does this audio tape contain anything more than the quote which is already in the article? Where can we read a transcript? --Uncle Ed 00:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I heard an interview with former Secretary of State Albright. As a foreign-born person she is ineligible to become president. Even so, she seemed to make the same mistake as Haig, saying that if it weren't for her impediment she'd have been #3 in succession. Don't Cabinet Secretaries ever read the Constitution? -Will Beback 01:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I just read the CBS article which mention's Allen's tape resurfacing after twenty years. I saw nothing in the article to support the POV that Haig was indeed under the erroneous impression that the U.S. Constitution placed him after the Vice President of the United States.

It's just the opposite:

• "“I wasn’t talking about transition,” Haig says now. “I was talking about the executive branch, who is running the government. That was the question asked. It was not, ‘who is in line should the President die?’” [1]

But several of my friends have repeated the "Haig thought he was next in line" story, so I would still like a source if you know if one. --Uncle Ed 01:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Who runs the government? Who is in charge of the executive branch? Conventional wisdom would say the President. In a practical sense the Chief of Staff is directly "in charge" of the White House, but he may not have been there either. In the military, or at least in the Navy, they have a concept of "senior officer present". It could have been Haig's view that he was "in charge" of the White House as senior constitutional officer of the executive branch. In any case, a better quote would help indicate what Haig meant. -Will Beback 03:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

That's my take, but I could be biased due to my military background. I was taught in the military that if no one seems to be in charge, somebody ought to "take charge", to prevent confusion and chaos. If the "really truly senior" man shows up, then you salute and hand it over to him.

In this case, I *think* there was a dispute between Caspar Weinberger and Al Haig, behind the scenes, over who was "situationally in charge". This was complicated by an apparently wimpy or nervous announcement by Larry Speakes - inadvertently giving the impression of a ship with no one at the helm. So Haig rushed up the steps to assure the press corps, the American people, and most importantly the USSR that there was "a man at the helm".

But we need a source for this. My own analysis is of no help, right? --Uncle Ed 13:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a help. I bet that someone else has made the same analysis, The trick is finding that source. -Will Beback 19:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Another cut:

Critics also note that it is not so much his apparent misunderstanding of the constitution that is the problem, rather it is how he said it. Noticeably flustered when entering the press conference, the words "I'm in control here" echoed as pompous and militaristic.

Now it's an "apparent" misunderstanding? And who says he was flustered? I thought it was press secretary Larry Speakes who was flustered. Let's read the CBS article again, shall we?

And let's get a source for the "pompous and militaristic" part. Thinking back, it sounded like that to me, too. --Uncle Ed 19:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that Everyone thinks Haig was talking about the Succession if Reagan died. But there was NO question about that- Bush would take office. But Bush was out of town and the actual point of contention was: "Who is in charge HERE"- meaning in charge of the Executive Branch in Washington (in other words, The White House). Haig was right in that, whether that was the actual question asked or not. He certainly didn't keep his cool, and perhaps didn't phrase it the best way, but he was right in what he said, although probably not how he said it. CFLeon (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Each President decides his own unofficial succession. The Constitution defines the official succession to take place when the President resigns or dies in office. Reagan was NOT dead nor resigned, and until and unless he had died in office, G.H.W. Bush could not become President.

When Reagan underwent surgery he signed letters making G.H.W. Bush President temporarily and only while Reagan was incapacitated, per the Constitution. When Reagan was recovered, Bush returned to the Vice Presidency. Had Reagan died during surgery, Bush would have been sworn in.

We may never know exactly what Reagan's plan was. Certainly he wasn't expecting to be shot, or more correctly pushed into the ricochet of the bullet as it slid on the bulletproof armor of the car. Discovery Channel proved that the bullet that struck Reagan had hit the car and slid along the length of it and only hit Reagan when his SS team pushed him into the car. The gap of the open door was enough to let the bullet hit him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.81.76 (talk) 08:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's not quote the Huffington Post's opinion about Haig as some sort of heartbeat of the nation. A left wing website's opinion of Haig is not surprising, and needs some independent justification for being encyclopedia-worthy.97.83.104.146 (talk) 21:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The interesting thing about Alexander Haig's words during the crisis are that they were realistically correct on both counts: People who have never been in the military don't understand what a "take charge" attitude means, more specifically, what it means to mission accomplishment (the Soviets knew, that's why he stated it as he did), and Haig may have known what the administration’s actual pecking order was — had the Soviets moved to take advantage of the situation, as in, who was actually going to be providing instruction, regardless of what the constitution said. Soviets probably knew that, too, more so than your average American or credulous reporter. SK 02:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seankinn (talk • contribs)

Now that the man is dead, every news outlet is releasing his full quote: "As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course." Not simply, "I am in control here." Clearly Haig was taking charge of the White House (not the Executive Branch of-, or the Government as a whole), and not launching a coup attempt. He defers to the VP. Maybe now, all this can go away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.49.126 (talk) 18:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Long before he was dead, and in the days immediately after he said he was in control, he got a lot of criticism in the press. The actual comments were fresh in people's minds. His comment is the one thing I remember most about him, and the criticism he got from it. The criticism might be unjustified, but it began hours after Haig's famous comment. It is an important item for his biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.172.149 (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

CNN Wolf Blitzer Iraq interview

This article needs a Views and Controversies section. Haig is beginning to speak out. And it significant. He has spoken out against the "neocon cabal" inclluding "Cheney" that has hijacked "his party." That needs to go into the Cheney article also. It will be interesting to see it he says anything about Iran. Maybe he already has. I notice the article is silent about his greenlighting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. All the more reason for creating a V&C section. Regards.OldRoy 00:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Haig Greenlights 1982 Sharon Invasion of Lebanon

I have found some NYT archive material on the topic

" As Mr. Haig tells it, he had repeatedly warned Israel against any military moves in Lebanon. It was at President Sadat's funeral in Egypt in October 1981 that Mr. Begin first told him Israel had begun planning a move into Lebanon that would not draw Syria into the conflict. To this, Mr. Haig replied, If you move, you move alone. Unless there is a major, internationally recognized provocation, the United States will not support such an action. Mr. Begin maintained that the idea was to push the P.L.O. only back from the border so that its guns with a 40-kilometer range could not shell Israeli territory. The formulation that Mr. Haig gave Mr. Begin was to be repeated time and again by both him and President Reagan over the weeks to come.

Despite these warnings, Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982 and pushed well beyond the 40-kilometer zone to the outskirts of Beirut, and in so doing destroyed the P.L.O. military organization and Syrian air power while inflicting signal defeats on Syrian ground forces. By this action, Israel provided an opportunity for American diplomacy to restore the Lebanese state while ridding that unhappy land of two foreign armies - the Syrian peacekeeping force and the military arm of the P.L.O. The two Soviet proxies would have been dealt a humiliating blow. This at least is the scenario the Secretary of State sketches out in this memoir.

But there is another version that puts in doubt Mr. Haig's story. It involves two crucial meetings in Washington, one between him and the director of Israeli military intelligence, Gen. Yehoshua Saguy, and another between him and the Israeli defense minister, Gen. Ariel Sharon. In his memoir Mr. Haig says little about the Saguy meeting, although he does suggest that General Saguy told him Israel was prepared to attack the P.L.O. in Lebanon . . . (and) would advance from the Israeli border to the southern suburbs of Beirut.

In a book published recently in Israel, Ze'ev Schiff, defense and military editor of Haaretz, and Ehud Yaari, an Israeli commentator on Arab affairs, maintain that Mr. Begin and General Sharon believed prior to General Saguy's trip to Washington that Mr. Haig understood Israel's concerns - he had shown some sympathy when the Israel air force had destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in the summer of 1981 and had argued against strong, punitive measures because our strategic interests would not be served by policies that humiliated and weakened Israel. General Saguy was therefore dispatched to tell Mr. Haig that Israel would no longer tolerate attacks by the P.L.O.; he even brought with him maps showing arrows where the Israelis were planning to strike - well beyond the 40-kilometer line in southern Lebanon. Also present at this meeting, according to the Israeli book, were General Walters and Morris Draper, the deputy to Philip Habib, who was negotiating for the United States in the Middle East.

In this account, while General Saguy spoke in broad terms, Mr. Haig did not speak out against such an Israeli plan; neither did he approve it. His silence was thus interpreted by the Israelis as acquiescence. So alarmed was Mr. Draper at this encounter that he told General Saguy on the way out that he mustn't interpret Mr. Haig's silence as giving Israel the go-ahead. To which the general responded that he had heard what the Secretary said and if he had wanted to say something more, he would have said it.

Meanwhile, the Administration was increasingly divided over its policy toward Israel. Mr. Haig writes that the foreign policy bureaucracy, overwhelmingly Arabist in its approach to the Middle East and in its sympathies, saw the crisis as an opportunity to open direct negotiations between the United States and the PLO. In this atmosphere General Sharon came to Washington in May 1982 and, Mr. Haig says, shocked a roomful of State Department bureaucrats by sketching out two possible military campaigns: one that would pacify southern Lebanon, and a second that would rewrite the political map of Beirut in favor of the Christian Phalange. Mr. Haig maintains that he challenged these plans in front of his staff and, later, privately told General Sharon that unless there was an internationally recognized provocation and unless Israeli retaliation was proportionate to any such provocation, an attack by Israel into Lebanon would have a devastating effect in the United States. Not long afterward, the provocation the Israelis had been waiting for materialized: In London, Arab terrorists shot the Israeli ambassador, the Israelis retaliated against P.L.O. headquarters in Beirut and the invasion was on. Here again, there is conflicting testimony on what happened during the meeting between Mr. Haig and General Sharon. According to the Schiff-Yaari testimony, General Sharon strongly suggested that the Israelis would not confine their attack to southern Lebanon but would push up to Beirut. We cannot live under the threat of Palestinian terrorism from Beirut. We have a dilemma and we don't see any other way but to enter and clean it up. Mr. Haig did not reply. Nor did he define what constituted a substantial violation of a cease-fire. Since Mr. Haig did not threaten Israel with any strong American action should Israel go into Lebanon, General Sharon apparently concluded that Washington would not oppose an Israeli invasion, especially if it was a light one - though he had warned Mr. Haig of the strong likelihood that Israel would push on to Beirut. In this sense, he interpreted Mr. Haig's response as a green light to invade Lebanon.

Concerned that Mr. Haig's words might not convey the official views of the Israeli Government, General Sharon and Mr. Begin sought further clarification from Washington. In a subsequent communication, Mr. Haig said he had indeed informed the President of General Sharon's remarks and urged restraint on the Israelis. But the letter contained no forthright warning, Messrs. Schiff and Yaari report. After the receipt of such a mild response, General Sharon convinced Mr. Begin that nothing serious stood in the way of Israeli actions.

What is the explanation for Mr. Haig's behavior? If he did not mean to give the green light to the Israeli invasion - which he may have believed would not reach as far as Beirut but which should not have surprised him when it did - then he must have been either disingenuous or inept.

Certainly, Mr. Haig was sympathetic to Israel's aims of clearing out the Soviet-backed P.L.O. and humiliating a Soviet client like Syria. He later overruled the recommendation of the National Security Council to have the United States vote in the United Nations to condemn Israel for its invasion. As things turned out - with the Syrian air force badly defeated and the P.L.O. military organization expelled from Beirut - Mr. Haig believed that active American diplomacy could have brought about a settlement that would have preserved the integrity of Lebanon and forced Israeli and Syrian withdrawal, as well as putting in place an international peacekeeping force. Since the President had asked Mr. Haig to stay on after his resignation on June 25,1982, until the new Secretary was confirmed, Mr. Haig continued to manage the Middle East crisis. Finally, the President apparently had enough of Mr. Haig's crisis management, and he telephoned his erstwhile vicar on July 5 at the resort hotel he was staying at while managing the crisis and told him he should relinquish all command immediately. The next day, the President announced that American troops would be committed to a peacekeeping force in Lebanon. "THE TURBULENT TENURE OF ALEXANDER HAIG1984 Regards OldRoy 01:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• from TIME "Alexander Haig Monday, Apr. 9, 1984

"Above everything else," writes Alexander Haig, "a servant of the President owes his chief the truth." In his forthcoming book, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy, to be published this month by Macmillan, the former Secretary of State serves up the truth, at least as he sees it, with the bark off. He describes an Executive Branch marked by guerrilla warfare and backbiting, and portrays himself as an "outsider" up against "an Administration of chums." ......

While Haig sees his failure to deliver a settlement in the Falklands crisis as his Waterloo, others have pointed to the Lebanon crisis of June 1982 as his undoing. A book published in Israel has claimed, on the basis of secret diplomatic cables and transcripts of meetings, that Haig gave a "green light" to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. A number of Administration officials, speaking in the nonattributive way that Haig so often rails against in Caveat, have confirmed that charge. Haig has denied it, and here he presents his own version of his unavailing efforts to restrain Israel. "[2]20 page excerpt. Maybe a few words. Critics say Haig greenlighted the invasion which Haig denies. Regards OldRoy 01:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Early life?

Great Article, but I'd lke to know more about his Early Life and his parents, where he grew up ect. Especially-- who were his parents? What did they do for a living? What was ghis childhood like? Any sugnificant childhood experiences or heroes that influenced him? 168.103.223.60 02:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

This is quite good; if anyone is currently working on it, they might consider nominating it for GA status. Carom 21:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

More on assessment and article's tone, content

I believe that the article on Alexander Haig, who was a central key figure in the Nixon era, NATO Supreme Commander, and eventually Secretary of State, needs to be fleshed out significantly, since the wikipedia version is fairly heavily sanitized (it seems to correspond to what Haig himself would like to be portrayed!), and it is lacking much important detail and background at key junctures, as several of the above posts on this page have also pointed out. I did do a fair amount of minor clean-up on the article two days ago, including fixing a typo in the java script, which was blocking the on-screen display of two of the article's written sections! But on the expansion, in length and depth, the first thing I did today is to add a new section on further reading, with three important titles, all of which change the perception of Haig as presented in the article, mostly for the negative. I have all three of those books myself. I do plan to add more references from at least two of them (not referencing the novel), in the near future. Others can help with this, of course!! More titles for the 'Further Reading' section would be very helpful! Cheers, FrankEldonDixon, May 16, 2008, 11:48, GMT+5, FrankEldonDixon (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I noticed some vandalism and worked to correct it. I may not have caught it all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.81.76 (talk) 08:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply to question in edit summary (why do you keep reverting my edits)

Pink Floyd lyrics are not a reliable source for the change you are making. Please read what a reliable source is and also read Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people. The edit you keep making is vandalism unless you can provide reliable sources that verify what you are adding. A new name 2008 (talk) 15:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Resignation

nothing in the article about his resignation? it's written litke somehow he stopped being the secretary of state in 1982, with no elaboration. it's ridiculous. 89.139.197.69 (talk) 10:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I was just about to add a section to the talk page on this. It needs elaboration. He seems to have been Secretary of State for an unusually short time - other short-termers, such as Lawrence Eagleburger and Edmund Muskie, were appointed in the final months of their President's administration, but in this case Reagan remained in office for years afterwards. It seems clear from the article that Haig's "I'm in charge" speech probably did not help his long-term career prospects, but there's no even a mention of him leaving office. Did he fall on his sword, was he pushed, and in either case is there a source to tell us why? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 15:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)