Alexander Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig Jr.was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, the second-highest ranking officer in the Army, and as Supreme Allied Commander Europe commanding all U.S. and NATO forces in Europe...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth2 December 1924
CountryUnited States of America
Alexander Haig quotes about
More often than not, Americans and Westerners overestimated the power and capability of the Soviet Union.
In Desert Storm, we had too many troops; in Afghanistan probably not enough for the major commitment we have made.
I probably carry more scar tissue on my derrière than any other candidate-that's political scar tissue.
Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.
I think the new generations in America, the America's youth, no longer care about Vietnam. They don't want to hear any more about it.
Then came the hostage crisis during which Carter did nothing to rattle the ayatollahs who hung tough until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, when they suddenly backed down.
You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration, of feudalism and tribalism.
If they analyze the situation as thoroughly as they should, Muslims will realize they are the first targets. What are the fundamentalists really after? Simply taking over Islam and then turning its back on modernity.
I'm the only American alive or dead who presided unhappily over the removal of a vice president and a president.
Prior to his takeover of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini was camping near Paris, giving daily news conferences to a fawning international press corps without a murmur of complaint to France from the United States about the disaster it was coddling in the incredibly naive liberal belief that this extremist cleric would be an improvement over the Shah.
As of now, I am in control here in the White House.
I wasn't happy with the outcome in Vietnam. Now, I've never said that, but, you know, I'm getting to an age where I think I'd better start saying it... And I don't mean that to sound that I'm being critical of somebody or blaming somebody.
It didn't take long for the world to realize that the Shah was an enlightened liberal next to the bloody reactionary regime that followed, and which executed more people in three months than the Shah had done in 30 years.
When the Shah found himself in trouble, we quite literally stabbed him in the back.