Word: haig
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...When Haig took over the State Department, vowing to be Reagan's "vicar," he apparently assumed that he must do all the important things himself. His unwillingness to delegate chores to others became a serious flaw in his performance as a manager. The best example may be Haig's insistence on assuming a staggering shuttle diplomacy chore: trying to arrange a negotiated settlement after the Falkland Islands takeover by Argentina. He made six flights between Washington, London and Buenos Aires, covering 32,965 miles. Haig really cannot be blamed for the fact that the effort failed. Still...
Looking back at Haig's record at State, Stanley Hoffmann, professor of government at Harvard, concludes that Haig was indeed mainly a creation of Kissinger. "He was Kissinger minus the grand design," contends Hoffmann. "Haig's policies were defined largely by what he learned from Kissinger." Hoffmann thumbnails the key similarities as follows. On U.S.-Soviet relations: "Be tough. But keep negotiating." On Western Europe: "The best way to deal with the Europeans is not to brutalize them." On Central America: "When faced with even the most minute challenge, hit hard." On the Middle East: "A generally...
Hoffmann cites the Administration's recent willingness to enter into arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union as Haig's major accomplishment, but warns that "the battle is still going on for Reagan's soul." Hoffmann is not yet certain that Haig "has converted the President to arms control and convinced him that the U.S. must keep talking to the Soviets...
...Clearly, Haig tried in too acrimonious a manner to give U.S. foreign policy a cohesiveness that it sorely needs and, in failing to do so, only dramatized the internal conflicts of the Administration. Yet Haig also faced a problem that has not yet been solved. It is that no one is clearly in charge. The Defense and State Departments have sharply contrasting perspectives on world affairs. Rarely, if ever, has there been an Administration headed by a President and a White House inner circle that is less equipped to reconcile those differences. The result is a gaping vacuum...
...been receiving a more acceptable set of terms from the U.S. through Saudi Arabia (see Arafat interview). TIME has learned that both Faisal Alhegelan, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, the son of the new Deputy Prime Minister, had been meeting with Alexander Haig prior to the Secretary of State's resignation, and with William Clark, the National Security Adviser to President Reagan. In separate sessions with the Saudis, Haig and Clark outlined the same U.S. position, but Clark appeared to the Arab leaders to be much more sympathetic to their general views, which...