Contrary to what has been widely reported and thought, the late
Alexander Haig made precisely the right move in asserting his
authority after the attempted assassination against President
Reagan on March 30, 1981, according to a former national security
official.
The four-star army general who served as secretary of state under
President Reagan and as a chief of staff to President Nixon died
at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore last Saturday. Although
Haig was widely viewed as being overly acerbic and often
confrontational with other White House officials, the historical
record is in need of clarification where the assassination
attempt is concerned, Paul Kengor, a Reagan biographer, has
learned.
Various obituaries claim that Haig had attempted to gain control
of the presidency and disregarded the proper constitutional chain
of command. But William Clark, a close Reagan advisor, says that
Haig actually acted properly and helped to restore order at a
very tense moment.
Clark had served as Haig’s deputy in the U.S. State Department
before moving over to the National Security Council (NSC). Unlike
many in the White House, Clark had a congenial relationship with
Reagan’s first secretary of state.
Kengor, a political science professor with Grove City College, is
the author of a recent biographer on Clark entitled: “The Judge:
William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand.” Clark was a close
confident to Reagan reaching back to the former president’s time
as governor of California. Kengor followed up with him shortly
after Haig’s death and discussed the assassination attempt.
“Clark said Haig was exactly right and acted the right way in a
moment of confusion,” Kengor said. “The vice-president was in the
air at the time and Haig was the ranking cabinet member who
indeed was in charge and it was important for him to establish
stability at this time. You also have to remember that this was
the height of the Cold War and Haig was rightly concerned about
how hostile powers might react.”
This assessment from Clark stands in stark contrast to how The
New York Times described Haig’s response in an
obituary that includes a fair amount of editorial commentary.
“Mr. Haig was a rare American breed: a political general. His
bids for the presidency quickly came undone. But his ambition to
be president was thinly veiled, and that was his undoing. He
knew, Reagan’s aide Lyn Nofziger once said, that “the third
paragraph of his obit” would detail his conduct in the hours
after President Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.
That day, Secretary of State Haig wrongly declared himself the
acting president. `The helm is right here,’ he told members of
the Reagan cabinet in the White House Situation Room, `and that
means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the
vice president gets here.’ His words were taped by Richard V.
Allen, then the national security adviser.
His colleagues knew better…”
Kengor has a very
detailed piece about Clark’s relationship with Haig for The
American Spectator that includes key facts at odds with what
The New York Times and others have reported.
It is also worth noting that Haig was secretary of state
during the apex of the Reagan military buildup. Anyone serving in
this slot at the time would find that Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger was more strongly positioned in relation to
administration priorities. There is a long history of
tension between the State Department and the Pentagon that was
exacerbated during Haig’s tenure. In reality, he was somewhat of
a dove who favored diplomatic efforts that became more ascendent
during Reagan’s second term.
Just as history finally caught up with Reagan’s achievements,
thanks to Clark there is now an opening to properly credit a
courageous, patriotic figure who was more adept at advancing
diplomacy in foreign circles than he was in securing his own
interests.
