Word: caveat
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Above everything else," writes Alexander Haig, "a servant of the President owes his chief the truth." In his forthcoming book, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy, to be published this month by Macmillan, the former Secretary of State serves up the truth, at least as he sees it, with the bark off. He describes an Executive Branch marked by guerrilla warfare and backbiting, and portrays himself as an "outsider" up against "an Administration of chums...
This week, in its second and final excerpt from Caveat, TIME presents Haig's account of how the Administration handled a potentially cataclysmic trouble spot, Poland. In the debate within the Administration over Central America, Haig advocated the toughest policies to counter Soviet interventionism. But on Poland, his position in the intramural debate was reversed: he was the principal advocate of American caution and restraint. Where Haig viewed Poland as part of the Soviet sphere, some of his chief rivals-Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese, now the embattled Attorney General-designate; William Clark, who initially served Haig as Deputy Secretary...
Haig sees it quite differently. His memoir is not just a defense of his record as Secretary of State, but a blistering counterattack against those former colleagues he blames for bringing him down and for thwarting his policies. Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy, to be published shortly (Macmillan; 384 pages; $17.95), takes its title from the Latin for "warning." The word underscores Haig's argument that the experience of the past three years offers a cautionary lesson in how not to conduct American foreign policy...
...following pages, TIME presents the first of two excerpts from Caveat, carrying Haig from his initial meetings with Reagan and his early adoption of a tough stance toward the Soviet Union, particularly for its mischief by proxy in Central America, through his controversial conduct on the day President Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt. The principal villains of the piece are Edwin Meese, the longtime Reagan aide who has served as Counsellor to the President and is now Reagan's nominee for Attorney General; James Baker and Michael Deaver, who together manage the White House staff and channel advice...
...Speaking Frankly has a senior Cabinet member published such an attack on a sitting Administration. Haig gives little aid and comfort to Democrats on substance. His view of the world is a hard-liner's, his disagreement with the Administration largely concerns tactics and the policy-making process. But Caveat will certainly add fuel to the campaign debate over foreign policy...