The Truth About Watergate by Nick Bryant;

Author:Nick Bryant;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group

CHAPTER 23

THE ICEMAN COMETH

Haldeman’s greatest blunder that endangered Nixon’s presidency was recommending that Alexander Haig become Nixon’s new chief-of-staff, which Haig assumed on May 4, 1973. Interestingly, the day before Haig assumed the mantle of Nixon’s chief-of-staff, the crack investigative team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported on the illegal wiretaps that were initially perpetrated by Nixon’s minions during and after the Moorer-Radford affair.1 Haig had played an integral role in the wiretaps, but Woodward and Bernstein didn’t mention his complicity: Woodward and Haig shared a little secret that will be elucidated in the next chapter.

Haig was born into an affluent family who lived in a Philadelphia suburb.2 He was the second of three children.3 When Haig was ten years old, according to the Washington Post, cancer purloined the life of his father, an attorney, and the family was left in dire straits.4 Fortunately for Haig’s family, prosperous relatives prevented the family from vacating their large home and skidding into utter poverty during the Great Depression.5

Although Haig was a prankster and an inept high school student, his politically connected uncle enabled him to enroll in West Point near the conclusion of World War II.6 Haig proved to be an inept student at West Point, too, graduating in the bottom third of his class.7 A West Point superintendent commented on Haig’s military prospects: He was “the last man in his class anyone expected to become the first general.”8 But the West Point superintendent greatly underestimated Haig’s ruthless ambition.

After Haig’s graduation from West Point, he was stationed in Japan during America’s post-WW II occupation of the country.9 In Japan, he made a superlative career move by marrying a general’s daughter, and they had three children.10 Haig then found himself in the midst of the Korean War.11 The Washington Post reported that Haig claimed he was given the distinguished assignment of carrying General Douglas MacArthur’s sleeping bag ashore during an amphibious landing.12 The Philadelphia Inquirer, however, reported that Haig carried the bedroll of a considerably less distinguished general ashore.13

After Korea, Haig received a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University.14 Haig’s crypto-fascist master’s thesis endorsed a “new breed” of military officer who would displace “civilian interference” concerning military matters.15 He envisioned “soldier-scholars” thrusting the levers at the “pinnacle” of power.16 In Haig’s ideal world, his soldier-scholars would probably march Plato’s philosopher-kings before a firing squad.

Through sheer nepotism, via his wife’s father, Haig landed at the Pentagon, where his ruthless ambition compelled him to routinely work until midnight.17 Haig also had a shapeshifting, Machiavellian panache that enabled him to ingratiate himself among his superiors and demolish his rivals.18 Haig joyfully embarked to Vietnam, where he commanded a brigade and received a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross.19

In the summer of 1967, after distinguishing himself in Vietnam, Haig again landed at the Pentagon.20 Upon Haig’s reemergence at the Pentagon, he encountered the peacenik idealism that was blossoming throughout the country.21 Haig found the surge of doves at the Pentagon to be absolutely repellant, and he segued to a regimental commander at West Point.

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