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If Haig's subtlety is in doubt, some other aspects of his character emphatically are not. His intensity is obvious.
Even in a town of workaholics, he puts in exceptionally long hours, starting normally at 6:30 a.m. His wife Patricia, 52, has a hard time recalling their vacations.
They have been few and far between. On weekends, Haig does get to see Son Alexander Patrick, 28, an attorney, and Daughter Barbara, 24, who works for a law firm; both live in Washington. Another son, Brian, 27, graduated from West Point in 1975 and is now stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado.
Such relaxation as Haig gets is hyperactive. He tries to play six or seven sets of tennis on Sunday, and rides an Exercycle while watching the morning TV news before going to his office. He blames his heart trouble on the endless succession of 17-hour days he worked as deputy to Henry Kissinger. A two-pack-a-day smoker then, he quit for a while after his operation, but has resumed smoking under the pressure of his new job at State.
To cut down his consumption, he keeps a pack of Merits in a desk drawer, so that he has to make an extra effort to get them.
Perhaps the most marked of all Haig's characteristics is a self-assurance that even some admiring European allies say borders on arrogance, and a stern determination. These traits figure in almost every story told about him by family and friends, from childhood on.
The middle of three children of a lawyer, Haig grew up in Bala-Cynwyd, a suburb of Philadelphia. The neighborhood was respectably middle class, predominantly Catholic. Boys of the area formed secret gangs and Haig was the leader of one called the Musketeers. A good boxer himself, he kept out of fights by negotiating agreements under which rival gangs would stay off Bryn Mawr Avenue, the Musketeers' turf. That testimony comes from his younger brother Frank, a Jesuit priest who is chairman of the physics and computer science department at Loyola College in Baltimore. One Christmas Eve Al, then nine, offered to prove to five-year-old Frank that there was no Santa Claus; he led his brother on a reconnaissance mission to watch their parents placing presents under the tree.
No one knows what first gave Haig the idea of a military career. Says his sister Regina: "It began when he was four years old. He just one day said he wanted to be a soldier. He had a bugle and he kept it with him all the time, marching around and tooting it; he took it to bed with him the way other kids take a stuffed animal." Haig's mother tried to talk the boy into becoming a lawyer, but, says Regina, "Al never batted an eyelid. He was constant about that one thing: he was going to West Point." Haig's principal at Lower Merion High School told the boy "you'll never make it" because his marks were not good enough. Said Haig: "You're wrong. I'm going to make it."
A wealthy uncle, John