Word: haig
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...worries that Reagan's simplistic East-West world view would never translate into a coherent foreign policy. Compounding the problem were conflicting statements from Washington on sensitive nuclear policy issues. Hawkishly, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger announced that the U.S. would build a neutron warhead; Secretary of State Alexander Haig immediately noted that no decision had been made to deploy it. Reagan mused aloud to a group of newspaper editors at the White House about a possibility that Western allies dread: a limited nuclear war fought on European territory. Said he: "I could see where you could have the exchange...
Under pressure from the Europeans, and largely at Haig's urging, the Administration agreed in May to resume INF talks by the end of the year. But Reagan's men had trouble deciding on a bargaining strategy. Weinberger and his Pentagon colleagues tended to favor the zero option. They maintained that it would be the best way to please the Europeans and put the Soviets in a bind. Haig, however, argued that the zero option would both raise false hopes in Europe and hinder serious arms-limitation negotiations with Moscow...
...grave doubts about the administration's economic program even as he was publicly advocating it--hurts both Stockman and the President a great deal. And they came at a particularly inopportune time for this suddenly floundering presidency. There has been vicious infighting between Secretary of State Alexander Haig and National Security Advisor Richard Allen. Haig and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger Jr. '38 can't agree on whether or not NATO plans include a nuclear "warning shot" at the Soviet Union. And the president himself appears to be ignorant about major issues when confront sans note cards at press conferences...
...Reagan of losing touch with reality. Like many survivors of Nixon's Washington, Safire was concerned about a tendency, new to Reagan but not to Presidents in general, to blame the press when in trouble. Reagan is remarkably free of sustained vendettas, yet his one-liner about the Haig flap was uncomfortably reminiscent of the bad old days: "Whoever wrote that report not only was blowing smoke, they were doing a disservice to this country...
...problem of the press has been very much on the President's mind of late. At Haig's urging, Reagan even telephoned Columnist Jack Anderson from Camp David to persuade him to withdraw a report that the Secretary of State had "one foot on a banana peel." At times Reagan denied there was dissension in his Administration ("Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as an unnamed source"). But of course it was Haig himself, and not a reporter, who said Haig had been subjected to nine months of "guerrilla warfare" from inside the White House...