Alexander Haig was special. He hung out with Caspar Weinberger and he made a name for himself solely for his remarks after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan….when he said without thinking……”I am in control here at the White House…..until the Vice-President returns.”
Alexander Haig died at 85 best known most as the short term Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan. Actually, General Al Haig was NATO Supreme Commander (1974–79)….and in fact was the target of an assassination attempt himself by the notorious Red Army Faction in 1979.
A well known tail about Alexander Haig came, when on election night of 1980 – as Ronald Reagan took office…it was said that he called Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and said: “You are going to stay out of the Iranian game right, because if you don’t, you SOB – I have all your launch codes since I was Supreme Commander of NATO and we will blown up every missle you have – in the silos!” Whether this is an urban myth or true…..the Iranians immediately released all of our 52 Embassy personnel – that they had been holding for 444 Days!
Al Haig served the Reagan Administration for just over two years yet was probably the best known cabinet member in the Reagan White House. Al always had a way to make a name for himself. He had also served in every prior Republican Administration since Nixon – Many times as National Security Advisor. Al Haig was indeed the most colorful personality that may have occupied the White House, as staff, over his employment in six administrations. To his very last day..Al Haig was still engaged in his “Think-Tank” activities and making occasional appearances on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
Good-by good soldier…..your life was filled with energy, excitement and an ability to make an impact on your surroundings. We are very proud of you and we will miss your electric remarks and insight. Rest well, with our love.
Uh, that’s 444 days, amigo…
*52 Hostages….444 days….standing here corrected….sir!
“A well known tail about Alexander Haig came, when on election night of 1980 – as Ronald Reagan took office…it was said that he called Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and said: “You are going to stay out of the Iranian game right, because if you don’t, you SOB – I have all your launch codes since I was Supreme Commander of NATO and we will blown up every missle you have – in the silos!” Whether this is an urban myth or true…..the Iranians immediately released all of our 52 Embassy personnel – that they had been holding for 444 Days!”
And others called it TREASON;
“Suspicions about a deal between the Reagan campaign and Iran over the hostages have circulated since the day of President Reagan’s inaugural, when Iran agreed to release the 52 American hostages exactly five minutes after Mr. Reagan took the oath of office. Later, as it became known that arms started to flow to Iran via Israel only a few days after the inauguration, suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded. Five years later, when the Iran-contra affair revealed what seemed to be a similar swap of hostages for arms delivered through Israel, questions were revived about the 1980 election. In a nice, ironic twist, the phrase `October surprise,’ which Vice Presidential candidate George Bush had coined to warn of possible political manipulation of the hostages by Jimmy Carter, began to be applied to the suspected secret activities of the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign… In a Madrid hotel in late July 1980, an important Iranian cleric, Mehdi Karrubi, who is now the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, allegedly met with Mr. Casey [Reagan’s campaign manager and later his Director of the CIA] and a U.S. intelligence officer who was operating outside authority. The same group met again several weeks later…. From Oct. 15 to Oct. 20, events came to a head in a series of meetings in several hotels in Paris, involving members of the Reagan-Bush campaign and high-level Iranian and Israeli representatives. Accounts of these meetings and the exact number of participants vary considerably among the more than 15 sources who claim direct or indirect knowledge of some aspect of them. There is, however, widespread agreement on three points: William Casey was a key participant: the Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on Nov. 4; in return, Israel would serve as a conduit for arms and spare parts to Iran. At least five of the sources who say they were in Paris in connection with these meetings insist that George Bush was present for at least one meeting. Three of the sources say that they saw him there… Immediately after the Paris meetings, things began to happen. On Oct. 21, Iran publicly shifted its position in the negotiations with the Carter Administration, disclaiming any further interest in receiving military equipment…. Between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, Israel sent a planeload of F-4 fighter aircraft tires to Iran in contravention of the U.S. boycott and without informing Washington. Cyrus Hashemi, using his own contacts began privately organizing military shipments to Iran. On Oct. 22, the hostages were suddenly dispersed to different locations. And a series of delaying tactics in late October by the Iranian Parliament stymied all attempts by the Carter Administration to act on the hostage question until only hours before Election Day… On Jan. 15, Iran did an about-face, offering a series of startling concessions that reignited the talks and resulted in a final agreement in the last few hours of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. The hostages were released on Jan. 21, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. Almost immediately thereafter, according to Israeli and American former officials, arms began to flow to Iran in substantial quantities… Moshe Arens, the Israeli Ambassador to Washington in 1982, told The Boston Globe in October 1982 that Israeli’s arms shipments to Iran at this time were coordinated with the U.S. Government `at almost the highest of levels.’ … The allegations of these individuals have many disturbing implications for the U.S. political system. One is the tampering with foreign policy for partisan benefit. That has, of course, happened before and it may well happen again, but it assumes special poignancy in this case since it would have involved tampering with the lives and freedom of 52 Americans. Another implication is that leaders of the U.S. exposed themselves to the possibility of blackmail by Iran or Israel. Third, the events suggest that the arms-for-hostage deal that in the twilight of the Reagan Presidency became known as the Iran-contra affair, instead of being an aberration, was in fact the re-emergence of a policy that began even before the Reagan-Bush Administration took office.”
Gary Sick – The Election Story of the Decade
New York Times, 15 April 1991