Baltimore, MD – Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig has died.
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Haig’s long and decorated military service launched the Washington career in which he served Republican presidents and ran for the office himself. He served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and was a four-star general who served as a top adviser to three presidents.
President Barack Obama said Saturday Haig exemplified the nation’s “finest warrior-diplomat tradition” of those serve the public. The president said Haig had a “remarkable and decorated” career.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is adding praise of her own. She said Haig earned honor on the battlefield and won the confidence of presidents and prime ministers. Clinton said Haig also earned “the thanks of a grateful nation.”
The Haig family said he died Saturday morning at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from complications associated with an infection.
He was 85.
Meanwhile The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Haig had a ‘special feeling’ for Israel.
Former US secretary of state Alexander Haig “always had a special feeling for Israel,” Haig’s spokesman during his 1988 campaign for the Republican nomination for the presidency, Daniel Mariaschin, told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
“I always had the impression that he considered himself a friend of Israel and understood its geo-security predicament as we moved through the years,” said Mariaschin, now executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International.
Haig had close relationships with a number of well-known Israeli political and military figures including Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin, Mariaschin said.
In 1998, Haig testified in an affidavit as part of Sharon’s libel suit against Haaretz and its columnist Uzi Benziman.
Benziman had written that in 1982, then-defense minister Sharon had deceived prime minister Menachem Begin, who had only approved a plan to send IDF troops 40 km. north of the Lebanese border.
Haig testified that Begin told him in October 1981 that the army had started plans for an incursion into Lebanon and that the troops would reach the approaches to Beirut, much more than 40 km. from Israel.
Haig once referred to Israel as “America’s largest aircraft carrier which never could be sunk.”
But according to historian Yehuda Avner, who served on the staffs of many prime ministers, Haig could also be annoyed by Israeli policies.
Avner wrote in a Post column that following the surprise annexation of the Golan Heights (actually the extension of Israeli law and administration to the area) in 1981, Haig, serving assecretary of state under president Ronald Reagan, proposed temporarily suspending the strategic cooperation agreement between the countries, a suggestion Reagan accepted.
Later in his life, Haig evolved into a firm believer in Israel as a powerful deterrent to terrorism. In 2001, he told the Post that it might not be a bad thing for Israel to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
“If the Israelis do launch a preemptive strike [on Iran], it may be saving the world a lot of trouble,” he said.
“He was truly a man apart,” said Mariaschin. “A great military leader and a major public servant. There are few people today who can say that they have served their country as soldiers and in civilian life. He was a prime example of an American who was able to do both in his career, and his death is a great loss.”
And to think who’s running the show now as it relates to the US Israel relationship. When you think of the likes of Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and others who don’t give a didley about Israel, just gives Mr Haig’s death all the more sad. I’ve said it many a time that one day we will look back and say that George W. Bush and many in his administration were the the best friends Israel ever had.
This man has a tremendous merit in saving Jewish lives in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
May he get a good reward in the next world.
I’m sure General Haig makes a lot of people jealous of his significant and gigantic life achievements in his exciting careers. He lived a full and a very accomplished life. He graduated West Point, lead soldiers in Vietnam, rose to 4 stars, taught at military academies, advised presidents, traveled the world, was a very influential diplomat and crafted foreign policy decisions that shaped world’s history forever. Very few men have opportunities to do all that.
In a world of quick-changing media, too many VIN readers do not know the significance of this man.
During the Yom Kippur War, when the U.S. government led by Kissinger, wanted the Israelis to suffer a little (ie. Jewish boys dying) Haig went behind the backs of Nixon and Kissinger and gathered the latest anti-tank weapons, shipping them to Israel. Those weapons allowed the Israeli army to stop the Egyptian tanks, saving countless Jewish lives. The story is that he even went so far as to even arrange for the plane to bring these weapons over. His motivation may have been that he was a strong anti-Communist; or his motivation may have been that he liked Jews, as he spent time in Israel after his career had ended. Whichever it was, this non-Jew saved Jewish lives.
Of course, back in the day, for what he was and what he stood for, the New York Times tried to make him look like a buffoon. What a great man he was; not a tzadik, but certainly a great man.
BDE to General Alexander Haig, friend of Am Yisrael. As did his namesake, Alexander The Great, this General Alexander was a military man helped Israel during his life as an influential American Statesman. I met him thirty years ago at a conference and he was a warm authentic person. May HKBH bless him with a share in Olam HaBah as a rightous man.
As befitting his namesake, Alexander the Great, General Alexander Haig was a great friend of Am Yisrael. May HKBH bless General Haig with a share in Olam Habah as a Rightous Man of the Nations.
to number six yes gwb was against settlement but never did he show it with deeds or pressure in anyway he never wanted to meet arafat y s he did go behind nixons back when he was the nato commander he emptied europe of the most modern weapons and trained the idf in its use true that nixon rearmed idf against the advice of that jewish sob kissinger also give credit to the meshumud brown then sec of defense who also was of greay help in arming israel
I always had a good feeling about Haig…always felt that he was a friend of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people…may he RIP and receive reward in the next world!
Al Haig was a righteous gentile.