Word: haig
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...real story in The Final Days--the one that no one seems to have noticed or care much about--is that Alexander Haig, the general Nixon brought into the White House after Haldeman and Erlichman "resigned," and Fred Buzhardt, one of Nixon's lawyers, (two men nobody ever voted for), actually ran the White House for about six months in 1974. They--along with lawyer James St. Clair, speechwriter Pat Buchanan, and press hack Ron Ziegler--were the men who became the "palace guard" and executed the Nixon defense, such as it was. They were also responsible, Woodward and Bernstein...
Nixon's story thus becomes their story, and their story is Woodward and Bernstein's story. It seems clear that all of them talked--except St. Clair, who, as a result, comes across as a pain in the neck and only a second-rate hot-shot. Haig, who now denies everything, was the real motive force: he was the chief of staff and so controlled the flow of paper and visitors, he was a crucial link to Kissinger, he was the only person who seemed to know what everyone else was supposed to be doing when the crunch came...
...also was contemptuous of William Rogers, who then held the job. He considered Rogers weak and inept and actually went out of his way to humiliate the Secretary. Kissinger finally threatened to quit if he could not have Rogers' post; Nixon yielded. But when Nixon sent Haig to tell Rogers he must step down, the deeply hurt Secretary replied: "Tell the President to f___ himself." He later cooled off and dutifully resigned...
With Kissinger running foreign relations, it was Haig who tried to hold domestic policies together whenever proposals requiring decisions came up from the various departments. By then Nixon was totally preoccupied with Watergate. Haig is portrayed as performing heroically, maintaining brutal hours and an outward front of confidence about Nixon's surviving in office. Privately, he startled one White House aide by confiding: "He's as guilty as hell." Haig's personal opinion of Nixon was that he was "an inherently weak man who lacked guts." But to Haig, the good of the nation required that...
...Haig, Buzhardt and St. Clair, now united in the inescapable conclusion that Nixon must quit, set in motion a delicate maneuver to get the President to reach the decision on his own. Certain that he would rebel if pressured to resign, they persuaded him that the tape's contents must be made public. They knew there would be a tremendous outcry when Americans realized that Nixon had been lying to them all along. The strategy, of course, worked. The reaction was swift and overwhelmingly angry-and it told Richard Nixon what his advisers could not, dared not tell...