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Reagan was prepared to accept Haig's resignation on the spot, but did not get a chance. Apparently, Haig overnight once more had second thoughts. During his 20-min. meeting with the President, the Secretary ran through the same list of complaints he had presented to
Clark the night before and handed Reagan a four-or five-page letter spelling them out. He told Reagan that he had also drafted and had in hand a letter of resignation. To the President's surprise, however, he added, "but I don't want to resign." Haig said he would prefer to make a last try at working things out. Reagan, briefly taken aback, replied that in that case he did not want to see the letter of resignation but is would review the Secretary's protests.
An old friend of Haig's, who talked with the Secretary by phone Thursday night, says that as late as 11 p.m. Haig still had not made up his mind whether to go through with the resignation. Overnight Thursday, however, Reagan evidently did come to a hard-and-fast decision: this time he would give Haig no chance to back out. Shortly after he met with Baker, Clark and Deaver midmorning Friday, Reagan had drafted and signed an acceptance of Haig's letter of resignation, which he had still not seen.
Said Reagan to the advisers: "You know, I just don't want to get into any more of these things about who's right and who's wrong." He told his aides that he would call Haig into the Oval Office after the National Security Council lunch to accept his resignation. At 10:10 a.m., Clark and Reagan began placing calls to Shultz, who was attending a Bechtel meeting in London, formally asking him to take Haig's job.
The NSC lunch, which began at 12:10 Friday, was an odd affair. Of the dozen or so people attending, only Reagan, Baker, Clark and Deaver knew that Haig was finished. Says one of those four: "We had to sit through that lunch knowing what was about to happen, and knowing that Haig didn't even know." Haig's demeanor, however, struck most of those attending as exceptionally quiet and peaceful, possibly because he had made up his mind to go through with his resignation.
In fact, he had no choice. After the NSC lunch broke up at about 1:15, Reagan, as planned, summoned Haig into the Oval Office. Immediately, the President handed the Secretary of State his signed acceptance of Haig's resignation—which still had not been formally offered. The two men talked, apparently without heat, for about 20 min. Nothing remained except to break the news.
The White House intended to make its statement at 2:30, but held off for a bit more than half an hour so that it could give advance notice to congressional leaders and to former Presidents. Reagan managed to call Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, but Gerald Ford was aboard an airplane and could not be reached. When Reagan strode into the White House press room, newsmen had been told only that he would make "an important statement" and had been given no hint of what it would be about.