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Alexander Meigs Haig

Also Known As Alexander Haig, Haig

Former United States Secretary of State

Education

  • Lower Merion High School - Ardmore, Pennsylvania
  • Graduated - 1942
  • M.B.A - Columbia Business School
  • M.A. in international relations - Georgetown University

Overview

Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. was United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Prior to and in between these cabinet-level positions, he was a general in the United States Army, serving first as the vice chief of staff of the Army and then as Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In 1973, Haig became the youngest four-star general in the U.S. Army's history.

Born in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, Haig served in the Korean War after graduating from the United States Military Academy. In the Korean War, he served as an aide to General Alonzo Patrick Fox and General Edward Almond. After the war, he served as an aide to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. During the Vietnam War, Haig commanded a battalion and later a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. For his service, Haig was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star with oak leaf cluster and the Purple Heart.

In 1969 Haig became an assistant to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. He became vice chief of staff of the Army, the second-highest-ranking position in the Army, in 1972. After the 1973 resignation of H. R. Haldeman, Haig became President Nixon's chief of staff. Serving in the wake of the Watergate scandal, he became especially influential in the final months of Nixon's tenure; he played a role in persuading Nixon to resign in August 1974. Haig continued to serve as chief of staff for the first month of President Ford's tenure. From 1974 to 1979, Haig served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, commanding all NATO forces in Europe. He retired from the army in 1979 and pursued a career in business.

After Reagan won the 1980 United States presidential election, he nominated Haig to be his secretary of state. After the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, Haig said "I am in control here, in the White House", allegedly suggesting (erroneously since the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, when the Speaker of the House of Representatives was designated the second in the line of succession after the vice president) that he served as acting U.S. president in Reagan's and Bush's absence, later iterating that he meant that he was functionally in control of the government. During the Falklands War, Haig sought to broker peace between the United Kingdom and Argentina. He resigned from Reagan's cabinet in July 1982. After leaving office, he unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination in the 1988 Republican Party presidential primaries. He also served as the head of a consulting firm and hosted the television program World Business Review.

Haig was the second of three career military officers to become secretary of state (George C. Marshall and Colin Powell were the others). His speeches in this role in particular led to the coining of the neologism "Haigspeak," described in a dictionary of neologisms as "Language characterized by pompous obscurity resulting from redundancy, the semantically strained use of words, and verbosity," leading Ambassador Nicko Henderson to offer a prize for the best rendering of the Gettysburg Address in Haigspeak.

Early Life

Haig was born December 2, 1924 in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, the middle of three children of Alexander Meigs Haig, a Republican lawyer of Scottish descent, and his wife, Regina Anne (née Murphy). When Haig was 9, his father, aged 41, died of cancer. His Irish American mother raised her children in the Catholic faith. Haig initially attended Saint Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on scholarship; when it was withdrawn due to poor academic performance, he transferred to Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1942.

Initially unable to secure his desired appointment to the United States Military Academy (with one teacher opining that "Al is definitely not West Point material"), Haig studied at the University of Notre Dame (where he reportedly earned a "string of A's" in an "intellectual awakening") for two years before securing a congressional appointment to the academy in 1944 at the behest of his uncle, who served as the Philadelphia municipal government's director of public works. 

Enrolled in an accelerated wartime curriculum that deemphasized the humanities and social sciences, Haig graduated in the bottom third of his class (ranked 214 of 310) in 1947. Although a West Point superintendent characterized Haig as "the last man in his class anyone expected to become the first general", other classmates acknowledged his "strong convictions and even stronger ambitions". Haig later earned an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School in 1955 and an M.A. in international relations from Georgetown University in 1961. His thesis for the latter degree examined the role of military officers in making national policy.

Career

  • United States - Former Secretary of State

Reference

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