Alexander Haig

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Reagan when we discussed my role. Seldom has a man made an unwiser public display of pedantry. The dictionary defines the word to mean "administrative deputy." Possibly the only other American to use the word in this sense and have it get into print was Paul Nitze, who employed it to describe the relationship of the Secretary of State to the President in testimony before the late Senator Henry Jackson's subcommittee on Government reorganization more than two decades ago. I stole it from Nitze (who later became our chief negotiator for the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces talks).

The word caused the press to chortle and the White House staff to choke. In some minds it seemed to evoke the picture of a harmless ecclesiastical gentleman on a bicycle, in others that of an antipope. Very soon I lost my affection for it. With the dazzling speed that only words possess, it entered the vocabulary of the press and played its part in creating first the impression, and finally the uncomfortable reality, of a struggle for primacy between the President's close aides and myself.

My "Grab For Power"

For years, members of Reagan's staff had been communicating with their chiefs friends and enemies through the press, rewarding the one and punishing the other. They had often communicated with each other in the same way. It seemed natural to them, now that they were in the White House, to communicate thus with other officials, and even with foreign governments.

At first, I did not realize that the media had let themselves be converted into White House bulletin boards. When I would deliver a sensitive memorandum for the President's eyes only in the early afternoon, and then hear quotations from it on the evening news, I would react with surprise and call up the White House to express my shock. How naive I must have seemed.

Since my meeting with Reagan on Jan. 6, we at State had been working with Defense, the NSC staff and CIA to produce a mutually agreeable version of NSDD1 , the National Security Decision Directive establishing the structure of foreign policy. State was awarded the chairmanship and Defense the vice chairmanship of all the interagency groups dealing with foreign policy. This arrangement was accepted without demur by Secretary of Defense Weinberger and by William Casey, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and especially by Allen.

So it was with confidence, even camaraderie, that we four met at the White House after the Inauguration to deliver the agreed-upon document to the President, although we did not seek to see the President. A certain festivity was in the air and a certain solemnity too. We were living through the first hours of a new era, and if the heart of the Government is anywhere, it is in the White House. At the end of an Administration, it has an air of shabbiness, poignant to those who remember the paint when it was new and the furniture before it was battered. No one, I imagine, has left the place more threadbare than President Carter.

The draft directive was received by Meese in his office. Also present were Baker and Deaver. Meese seemed very much at ease, very sure of his authority. Baker and Deaver, favorites of Mrs. Reagan's, seemed to be lesser players, hanging back a bit. Allen was there, and so was Casey.

Also present was Weinberger. He is a capable man,