Alexander Haig: The Vicar Takes Charge

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Says Kissinger: "He was at first only a military assistant handling intelligence and Penta gon matters, but he made himself substantially indispensable." Haig worked closely with Nixon during Kis singer's many trips abroad. In May 1973 Nixon asked Haig to replace H.R. Haldeman, who had been forced to resign as White House Chief of Staff because of the Watergate scandal. Haig did not want the job; he feared that getting anywhere near Watergate would end his hopes of ever be coming Army Chief of Staff or even Chairman of the Joint Chiefs — as in fact it did. But he accepted the President's proposal out of a sense of duty.

For the next 14 months, Haig in effect held the White House together while Nixon battled to stave off impeachment.

Haig is widely credited with having persuaded Nixon in the end to resign. There are still charges that Haig defended Nixon altogether too zealously, but most of those who dealt with Haig then insist that he preserved his own integrity and balance. Says Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor, of the many legal battles between them: "Haig never raised his voice. He was never ugly, and I said some things that could have made him hit the ceiling. He believed in Nixon [but in the end] felt he had been lied to; it hurt him" Nixon recommended that Gerald Ford keep Haig on as White House Chief of Staff. Ford understandably wanted his own man. So in 1974 Ford appointed Haig as NATO commander. Europeans at first feared that a discarded political general was being dumped on them, but Haig won their respect. He increased the combat effectiveness of NATO troops, partly by scheduling more realistic maneuvers involving American soldiers flown in from the U.S., and did much effective diplomatic work. In particular, he is credited with behind-the-scenes negotiations that eventually brought Greece back into the alliance as a full member after it had severed relations because of a rift with Turkey.

By 1978 Haig was getting increasingly disenchanted with Carter Administration policies and in June 1979 he resigned. He came home to make speeches about the Soviet threat— and at least explore the idea of running for President. The self-confident Haig made no secret of his belief that he could handle the job. Concluding that he could not win enough support to the Republican nomination he dropped the idea and accepted Harry Gray's offer of the presidency of United Technologies Corp. His salary and bonus totalled $1 million. Haig had been at United Technologies not quite a year when President-elect Reagan called him to be Secretary of State.

At the department, Haig has set a driving pace. He does not suffer fools gladly: he has been known to annotate papers with comments like "This is a lot of nonsense!" But he has won the respect of subordinates, as he has in all previous jobs, by hearing them out. Says one: "He listens, and the worst thing you can do is not give him a piece of information that he needs, even if it runs contrary to his own views."

Morale certainly has been helped by Haig's quick start in organizing the department. For the top jobs he has picked mostly moderate conservatives, men with long operating experience but little reputation for broad conceptual thinking. Some of the key names: Walter Stoessel, a senior ambassador in the Foreign Ser vice, as