Alexander Haig

Few American public figures have had such tempestuous careers. Alexander M. Haig Jr. has spent much of his life in war zones—bureaucratic and geopolitical, as well as the kind for which he prepared in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point: Viet Nam, where he served as a battalion and brigade commander; as the indispensable aide-de-camp to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger; as White House Chief of Staff during the climax of Watergate; and, after Richard Nixon's presidency fell, as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, with the rank of four-star general. But it was during his tenure as Ronald Reagan's Secretary...