Talk:Alexander Haig

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Nixon - Kissinger - Haig phone calls[edit]

The article contains the following passage:

On December 9, 1970, U.S. President Richard Nixon telephoned his national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger, to discuss the ongoing bombing of Cambodia. This sideshow to the war in Vietnam, begun in 1965 under the Johnson administration, had already seen 475,515 tons of ordnance dropped on Cambodia, which had been a neutral kingdom until nine months before the phone call, when pro-U.S. General Lon Nol seized power. The first intense series of bombings, the Menu campaign on Vietnamese targets in Cambodia's border areas - which American commanders labeled Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack - had concluded in May, 1970 shortly after the coup.[citation needed]
Nixon was facing growing congressional opposition to his Indochina policy. A joint U.S.-South Vietnam ground invasion of Cambodia in May and June of 1970 had failed to root out Vietnamese Communists, and Nixon now wanted to covertly escalate the air attacks, which were aimed at destroying the mobile headquarters of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (vc/nva) in the Cambodian jungle. After telling Kissinger that the U.S. Air Force was being unimaginative, Nixon demanded more bombing, deeper into the country: "They have got to go in there and I mean really go in ... I want everything that can fly to go in there and crack the hell out of them. There is no limitation on mileage and there is no limitation on budget. Is that clear?"[citation needed]
Kissinger knew that this order ignored Nixon's promise to Congress that U.S. planes would remain within thirty kilometres of the Vietnamese border, his own assurances to the public that bombing would not take place within a kilometre of any village, and military assessments stating that air strikes were like poking a beehive with a stick. He responded hesitantly: "The problem is, Mr. President, the Air Force is designed to fight an air battle against the Soviet Union. They are not designed for this war ... in fact, they are not designed for any war we are likely to have to fight."[citation needed]
Five minutes after his conversation with Nixon ended, Kissinger called General Alexander Haig to relay the new orders from the president: "He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn't want to hear anything. It's an order, it's to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?" The response from Haig, barely audible on tape, sounds like laughter.[citation needed]

This may all be accurate or inaccurate - what is for certain is that it is unsourced. Furthermore, most (and that means over 90%) deals with Nixon and Kissinger and not with Haig. Sure, some background information is needed to understand Haig's action but a) this is way too much, b) it remains unclear what Haig actually did in this context apart from receiving Kissinger'S phone call and giving a barely audible, laughter-like response.

This seems like a case of undue weight. This allegation is supported by the previous version which unenclopedically highlighting certain items by boldening and/or repeating them.

If no source or rationale is given within the next few days, I will delete the entire passage quoted above. Str1977 (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since the passage was added only in February by an IP with a red-linked talk page and only one other, clearly vandalistic edit under his belt, I will speed things ups and delete it now (also in the light of BLP). The passage is retained on the talk page for all to see. Str1977 (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, State Department janitor: where do you get off on censoring American massacres around the world? Is 2-3 million in Laos, Cambodia or Viet Nam not enough? Or would that likely offend the sensitivity of virgin American eyes idolizing a criminal like Haig? Mind you, the average American today hasn't heard the name of the criminal. Or maybe you need to see it in an All-American history textbook? Moron, open your eyes. If you think censoring this ridiculous site helps people keep shopping like dimwits while over 1,000 bases around the world effectively dominate other nations then you're beyond help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.194.105.30 (talk) 01:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Death details in lead[edit]

The vast majority of Wikipedia biographies about octogenarians who died of natural causes do not mention the cause of death in the lead. Jim Michael (talk) 04:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

World War II Victory Medal[edit]

Will someone who knows how the American military defined war time service please explain how Haig qualified for the World War II Victory Medal if he didn't graduate from West Point until 1947? Did transfering to West Point from a civilian college in 1945 and being a cadet from the fall of 1945 through the spring of 1947 count as war time service?

I'm not here to take sides on "great statesman vs. American war criminal" debate that some of you are into. All I'm asking for is an objective explanation on how he served in World War II. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.47.232 (talk) 09:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The basis for the decoration was not that one must serve during WWII itself but a larger window. From World War II Victory Medal (United States) - "is awarded to any member of the United States military, including members of the armed forces of the Government of the Philippine Islands, who served on active duty, or as a reservist, between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946." One would imagine that given his academy dates it would have counted as "active duty". Hopefully another editor can confirm. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am the one who added in the Victory Medal and American Campaign Medal. Being in West Point is being in the military. You take an oath and are a service member. For example, today all cadets are awarded the National Defense Service medal for their service in the War on Terror.

All cadets that were cadets as of Dec. 31, 1946 were awarded the World War II Victory medal. All cadets that were cadets by March 1946 were awarded the American Campaign Medal.

This site- [1] -shows the ribbons. They are the first two, the third row from the bottom.--Panzertank (talk) 21:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removing excess and irrelevant project headers[edit]

I don't see any reason for the Pennsylvania or Business Wikiproject tags to be on this article. He has no notable association with Pennsylvania beyond childhood and early education. In any event, it looks like a bot went rather crazy putting Pennsylvania tags on probably every article with the word Pennsylvania in it. As for Business, he spent a couple of years in private industry, accomplishing nothing of note. The tags just seem excessive and unnecessary, especially as the article already falls under a number of legitimate tags. I will go ahead and prune those two tags. Safiel (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is standard practise for a project banner for the state the subject grew up in to be on the talk page of his article. I believe that he fits the criteria for the Business project due to the high-ranking positions he held in a major company, even though they only employed him for a couple of years. Does anyone know whether he does fit the criteria for each of these projects? Jim Michael (talk) 03:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kissinger Wikiquote: dumb stupid animals[edit]

As per http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger :

  • In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in The Final Days, Ch. 14

Can this much repeated quote of Kissinger be attributed. I think this would be worthy of comment on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.24.129.25 (talk) 23:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is unsubstantiated, and Henry Kissinger has denied ever saying it, here.
The only evidence that Kissinger ever said anything like that was a claim by Woodward & Bernstein in their book, The Final Days, that another of Kissinger's political foes, Alexander Haig, had told someone unnamed, that Kissinger had said it. That's triple hearsay, made even weaker by the fact that one of the "Chinese whisperers" is anonymous, and weaker yet by the fact that the other three (Haig, Woodward & Bernstein) all hated Kissinger. The quote has been substantiated by no one of known identity who claimed to have heard it.
As Kirkus Reviews noted about the whole book, "none of it is substantiated in any assessable way."
What's more, Woodward's trustworthiness is doubtful, since he was caught fabricating an elaborate fictional deathbed confession by Wm Casey for a later book, Veil.
In fact, the Kissinger quote is not even really plausible, on its face. Kissinger served with great distinction in the U.S. Army during WWII, and was awarded the Bronze Star. He has always been very respectful of other servicemen and their sacrifices. For him to have said such a thing would have been wildly out of character. In fact, the awkward phrasing doesn't even sound like Kissinger, whose English prose is consistently measured and careful, despite his heavy accent, even when he speaks extemporaneously. NCdave (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander Haig funeral citation[edit]

I don't have an account and don't plan to do a lot of editing on Wikipedia, but I posted the details of Alexander Haig's funeral because I was there, as a paid singer in the Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There is nothing on their website (bnsic.org) about the service. Surprisingly, I haven't found much media coverage of the funeral at all, but here is a notice:

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/content/community/2010/02/25/Haigfuneral0226.html captured 3/8/2010 at 4:15pm EST.

As far as who gave the eulogies, I guess you have to take my word for it or find independent confirmation someplace else. I have a program from the service, but it isn't published anywhere. I don't plan to pursue this any further.

21:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)RB

Historic quote[edit]

I saw Alexander Haig in a documentary saying "President Johnson came and said 'the American people must never believe anything else than a lone gunman shot Kennedy'." I did not make a note what the docu was, as I was not anticipating to pass it on. If anybody knows that docu and can insert it in the article, maybe this is worth doing? Please note, Haig was not quoted as having said that, he said it on camera. 144.136.176.157 (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Murderer" in article lead[edit]

Regardless of one's opinion of Haig, I'm not sure "murderer" in the first sentence of the article meets the idea of neutral POV. Also, not sure that a link to some Pink Floyd lyrics constitutes sufficient sourcing for such a claim, so I deleted both. 74.33.84.52 (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That edit with the Pink Floyd link has showed up repeatedly. Nuke on sight. Meters (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Falklands war 1982[edit]

It has just emerged that Haig wanted to warn Argentina just before the retaking of South Georgia, to give the appearance of being an honest broker between both sides! (newly released British files Telegraph, 28 Dec 2012). Bad advisors or what?86.42.197.104 (talk) 14:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Song references[edit]

Haig is mentioned – rather unflatteringly – in a number of popular songs (Pink Floyd, Dead Kennedys, Fifteen).

What is the best way to cite such references?

I placed the following citation in the article (under "References in popular culture"), for example, and it was removed due to "unreliable sourcing":

Haig accused of "crimes of violence against humanity" in the 1996 song "Landmine" by the punk rock band [[Fifteen_(band)|Fifteen]].<ref>{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GxikunxScg|title=Fifteen - Land Mine on YouTube|accessdate=November 8, 2013 | work=YouTube | date=September 22, 2011}}</ref>

Would Last.fm be a better choice? It includes not only videos such as the one cited above, but also links to stream and/or purchase the original work, and links to lyrics. Granted, this is all less than ideal, but I don't know of any other way to cite the song lyrics other than to simply say, "go listen to the song" or "read the liner notes" - those are pretty much the most direct sources possible. Thoughts?

Example song references:

I think the best way to mention this is not to at all. It is really not that big a deal. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't disagree more vehemently. As a librarian/historian/researcher, I know this kind of information is extremely useful for understanding an individual's cultural context, which is essential for historians, biographers, filmmakers, and more. So can anyone answer the question of how to reliably cite a song? Ebellempire (talk) 22:21, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The opinion of some random punk rocker might be worth a clause somewhere in a 1000-page biography. In a brief encyclopedia article (rarely used by serious historians and researchers), it's severely undue weight. Fat&Happy (talk) 23:57, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, this would be classic WP:UNDUE. Dbrodbeck (talk) 04:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

pop culture section[edit]

How much of this is notable at all? He was parodied in a couple of places and mentioned in a video game. Is this not just a big case of WP:UNDUE? Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unless and until clear guidance is formulated and enforced, articles like this are always going to be plagued with a list of appearances in Family Guy and Dino Yacht Club (cough). Problem is that the pop culture sections bring in a lot of pageviews - TVTropes grew huge on this kind of thing - and ultimately you're going to butt up against Wikipedia's strategic goals, in which case it was nice knowing you, don't let the door hit you on the way out. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 23:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Minor edit war[edit]

Can someone besides me please revert ‎Renfield1031, who has started a trivial edit war to include unsourced commentary in this article? I asked him for sources, but he continues to revert with no edit summaries or discussion.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Resignation[edit]

"Haig, who repeatedly had difficulty with various members of the Reagan administration during his year-and-a-half in office, decided to resign his post on June 25, 1982.[36] President Reagan accepted his resignation on July 5.". The underlined sentence is wrong.

washingtonpost.com 26 June 1982: Alexander M. Haig Jr., charging that U.S. foreign policy no longer reflects "consistency, clarity and steadiness of purpose," abruptly resigned yesterday as secretary of state. President Reagan immediately chose former treasury secretary George P. Shultz to replace him.

Phillip G. Henderson (Managing The Presidency: The Eisenhower Legacy--from Kennedy To Reagan, May 2019) writes (chapter The Quest for Control: Haif versus the White House Staff):

Ten days later [on June 24], Haif met with the president again. [...] In his account of tghe meeting, Haig reveals that he told the President that if matters could nbot be strasightened out, "then surely you would be better served by another Secretary of State".

The next day, Reagan gave Haig a letter saying that he accepted Haig's resignation. --Neun-x (talk) 06:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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