Alexander M. Haig. Jr.

It is appropriate, I think, to pause and reflect when another person's death finally brackets a part of one's own life. I briefly worked for Alexander Haig back in 1979-80, just before he became Secretary of State. I was a junior aide only, and he did not invite me, fresh out of graduate school as I was at the time, to go with him to Washington, as he did my friend and mentor Harvey Sicherman, six years my senior. I did not press the matter. Indeed, I neither asked nor even hinted, perhaps because I felt myself less than entitled: I was not a Republican, after all, and had not voted for Ronald Reagan in November 1980.

Nor did I have any other claim on his loyalty. I was never in the Army, or on Haig's staff when he was Supreme Allied Commander of U.S. forces in Europe (SACEUR), bivouacked in Brussels. And certainly I did not know him when he was Richard Nixon's White House chief-of-staff in the early 1970s--I was a just an undergraduate college student at the time. All I knew of the Haig family came some years before that, with my occasional encounter with a younger Alex and his sister Barbara at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia. Their father and mother I never met at the time.

I saw Al Haig fairly regularly only in 1979-80, during the time between his retirement from the Army and his appointment as Secretary of State by President Reagan. During those 18 or so months he was president of United Technologies and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, where I was working at the time. This was also a time when he had triple-bypass surgery, and I remember being deeply impressed by the difference between how he looked and acted before the operation and after. Before, Haig had almost preternaturally sparkling steel blue eyes, and he looked right at you with them. Afterwards, the twinkle was dulled, and I never saw it fully return, though he did otherwise recover his energy and most of the spring in his step before very long.

I did not do a great deal for him in those days; I was, as I have said, just a junior aide. I helped him write an essay for a magazine called Strategic Review. (Actually, I wrote it; he read it, approved it, made a few minor changes.) I did up a few research memoranda he asked for on various topics. Most of all, and most memorable of all for me, I helped coach him through his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the matter of the SALT II Treaty.

As it happened, I had been seconded from Philadelphia to Washington at the time (for a second time; I'd gone before in 1977 for a little while) to help Senator Henry Jackson and, with him, Senator John Tower to interrogate that draft treaty. It was the habit, directed by Senators Jackson and Tower, and implemented by their staffers Richard Perle and Bud MacFarlane, to help prepare friendly witnesses for their testimonies when they came to town. I was instructed to help Haig.

He needed my help, too, through no fault of his own. He had nearly been blown up by terrorists on his way back from Brussels. He had arrived stateside only about 48 hours before his testimony, and had not had time to actually read the treaty carefully, let alone fully study it. It was a complicated business, too. I will say this: Haig was a very quick study, a superb gamesman with the Senators (not least a young fellow named Joe Biden.....), and generally a lot of fun to hang around with. I sat behind him in the Senate Caucus room during his testimony, passed him notes in tight spots a few times, and just generally hung around, trying to be helpful if needed. During a break, and this is something I could not forget even if I tried, John Stennis came up to me and complimented my "slick wrist action" in passing those notes. And he actually winked at me. So much for the gentleman from Mississippi; that's the first and last conversation we ever had.

All through the testimony and after Haig was ever gracious, appreciative and altogether personable. At the age of 28, I guess you could say I found the whole deal very entertaining, and even a bit gratifying.

For a certain part of this period Haig was testing out his own bid for President, which never got too far, but which touched off what I thought then and still think of now as some pretty hilarious episodes. Some of these episodes intersected with my time with Haig in Washington; others took place in Philly. I may sit down and relate these onto paper at some point or other, just for the record, and to get them off my chest in the sheer fun of story-telling. But for now, I will note only one in brief, in passing, so to speak.

One afternoon I was designated as a driver to take Haig and a man named, I think, Dixie Walker (not the old Brooklyn Dodger baseball player and not the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, but a third person) from the offices of the Foreign Policy Research Institute near Penn in West Philly out to the Philadelphia International Airport. Mr. Walker was an associate of Adolph Coors, and Haig was clearly trying to raise some money for his campaign from Coors. I put the two of them in the back seat of the only car I owned at the time, a 1952 Cadillac -- a Fleetwood, so thankfully a 4-door -- which I had owned for about a year. It takes about a half hour, maybe a little less depending on traffic, to drive from 36th and Market Streets out to the airport, and during that time driving Haig and Walker were talking politics and campaigns and money. They got on pretty well, it seemed to me. Their assumption, or their choice of a proper assumption for purposes of that discussion (not at all the same thing, of course), was that "when Reagan faltered", that was the exact language they both used, Haig would be "well positioned to make his move."

I said nothing, of course. I just drove.

When we got to the airport, I drove out -- you could in those days -- to the private area where the Lear jets were waiting. One was fueled up, waiting to take the two of them to Houston for a fundraiser. Walker was sitting behind me on the left side of the back seat; Haig on the right. I remember this because when I shut off the Caddy's engine and got out, I opened the door for Walker. I was too slow to get around the back to open the right rear door for Haig. He opened it himself, got out, and slammed the door closed a little too hard, sending the window glass off its track and down inside the body of the door with a loud clunk. Thank God, it did not break.

Haig seemed alarmed, however. "I'm sorry, Adam," he said.

"Oh never mind, sir," I answered, "It does that sometimes; no big deal." I got their luggage out of the trunk, shook Haig's hand and said, "Have a good trip, sir."

In fact, the window had never done that before, and has never done it again since. I still have the car.

I saw Haig from time to time in the years that followed his short stint as Secretary of State. He was always friendly and cordial to me. The last time I saw him was already some time ago, in the fall of 2002, I think it was. It was at the annual dinner of The National Interest magazine, which I was editing at the time. Haig was to my right at the table, and to his right his old boss Henry Kissinger. The other two or three people at our table I do not recall. We talked about this and that, though given the layout of the table I mostly listened to the crosstalk. But I remember toward the end of the evening Haig turned and asked me, "Hey, Adam, you still have that old Cadillac?" And I answered, "Yep, and it runs just fine, and the rear-right window is fine, too, even though you once tried to break it." "Yes indeed," he answered, "and I tried and failed to get some money out of that guy in Colorado, too"--all accompanied by a friendly chuckle.

And that is how I remember Al Haig -- quick with a smile, easy with an assuring hand on the shoulder. Rest in peace, sir.