Alexander Haig: The Vicar Takes Charge

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H. Neeson, helped support the family after Haig's father died of cancer when Al was ten. Neeson first got Haig into the University of Notre Dame and, after a year there, obtained a congressional appointment to the Military Academy in 1944, when Haig was 19. Surprisingly, says Regina, Haig found the discipline hard to endure, but he adjusted to it so well that in a later tour of duty at the Point, he was in charge of reprimanding cadets for infractions. The only time he apparently broke the rules was during his second year; he went over the hill for a few minutes to say farewell to Brother Frank, who was about to enter a seminary.

Haig was a dutiful student who graduated a poor 214th in the 310-member class of 1947. But he did show occasional flashes of intellect. One of his instructors recalls giving a class in which Haig was a middling student and seemed bored. Then he was given an assignment to read various studies about the peaceful control of atomic energy, and prepare a five-minute talk. Most of the cadets droned through dull remarks, says the instructor, but "all of a sudden this Cadet Haig got up and gave an absolutely stunning speech. He understood all the material and he had a gift of presentation"—a gift that Haig was to polish later as a briefing officer for numerous high-ranking bosses.

At West Point, Haig failed to make the varsity football team but played intramural football as a quarterback who, old friends recall, tended to select plays in which he ran the ball himself. He continued to play football on a Pacific League team as a young infantry officer serving postwar occupation duty in Japan. Patricia Fox, daughter of a general who was a senior aide to General MacArthur, watched one game in which Haig pulled off a series of dazzling runs. She remarked to a friend: "He's like a Greek god." They met and married. Haig soon after was posted to MacArthur's staff.

From then on, Haig won the attention of a succession of powerful men. As a young staff major at the Pentagon in 1962, he was spotted by Fritz Kraemer, a former political analyst for the Army Chief of Staff and a legendary back-room strategist who gave an early boost to Kissinger's career. Haig also became friendly with Joseph Califano, then counsel to the Army and a rising power in Washington. First as a result of Califano's influence, and then on his own, Haig rose to a variety of important jobs; at one point he prepared briefings that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara presented to the President and the National Security Council. Once the major U.S. involvement in Viet Nam began, Haig decided to heed the old maxim that no Army officer can rise to the top without experience in combat command, which he lacked despite some brief battle experience in Korea. He went to Viet Nam in 1966 and the next year led a battalion to victory in the battle of Ap Gu, one of the major engagements in the biggest American offensive of the time. It was a classic Viet Nam operation; Haig's troops were helicoptered into an area thought to be infested with Viet Cong guerrillas, drew an enemy attack and held their ground in bloody hand-to-hand fighting, while Haig called in heavy artillery and air strikes.

Back from Viet Nam, Haig was again at West Point when he was recommended by Kraemer to Kissinger, then President Nixon's National Security Adviser.