Alexander Haig: The Vicar Takes Charge

(10 of 11)

Under Secretary for Political Affairs; Myer Rashish, a free-trade economist, as Under Secretary for Economic Affairs; former Senator James Buckley, a staunch conservative, as Under Secretary for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. Several of Haig's appointees are old colleagues. Lawrence Eagleburger, Chester Crocker, John H. Holdridge and Robert Hormats, slated to be important Assistant Secretaries, all worked with Haig on Kissinger's staff. Right-wingers in Congress have held up some of the appointments even though Haig's aides are all at work as if they had Senate approval. Meanwhile, Reagan last week formally nominated Eagleburger, Rashish, Crocker and Hormats.

The big exception to the level of expertise on Haig's staff is William P. Clark, a former California judge, whom Reagan himself chose as Deputy Secretary of State, the Department's No. 2 post. Clark, who showed an abysmal ignorance of foreign affairs at his confirmation was proposed for State by Californians on the White House staff to keep an eye on Haig, whom they did not know. Ironically, the selection has turned out Haig's advantage. Clark has become admirer of the Secretary and something of a Haig envoy to the White House.

Not that Haig has needed much help in the bureaucratic wars; he has been doing just fine on his own. An eight-page, double-spaced order signed by Reagan last week gives the State Department authority to set up interagency groups to coordinate foreign policy planning and operations by the many departments with overseas interests; disputes are referred to a senior interdepartmental group headed by Clark. The most important impact of arrangement is that it insulates Haig's department from the tendency of the National Security Council staff to become a kind of rival State Department, as it did under Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

National Security Adviser Richard Allen retains the power to review policy options for the President, and many in Washington think he will eventually make his voice heard. But Allen so far is honoring a pledge to make himself publicly invisible. What is more, he has been so slow to organize his own staff that he could not at this point rival Haig for power if he tried. In any case, Reagan has often vowed to make the Secretary of State pre-eminent in foreign policy, and he obviously retains his confidence in the man he picked for the job.

How good a Secretary of State will Haig turn out to be? Says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who worked with Haig as Kissinger's top Soviet specialist: "My guess is that he will do pretty well. He won't see problems in isolation. He may connect them more than a lot of people's taste would warrant." Rejecting the view that Haig is an unimaginative technocrat, Sonnenfeldt says "he has a broad and creative vision and a special talent for recognizing the connection between issues." Other observers, such as former White House staffers and senior State Department officials, note that even though Haig is not a grand strategist in the Kissinger manner, he compensates for that lack with his organizational skills, his realism and his sensitivity to other people.

Haig understandably is in an optimistic mood. For all his somber view of Soviet power, he believes that the historical tide is running against Marxism. He cites the poor performance of