Why Is This Man Running?

Monday, Jan. 18, 1988 By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
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Haig's intensity and quicksilver mood shifts fueled a silly rumor that circulated when he was an angry and embattled Secretary of State. Haig, it was whispered, became mentally unstable after his 1980 double-bypass operation. Haig still pins the story on his old nemesis Richard Allen, Reagan's first National Security Adviser, who, Haig claims, kept a report on the psychological effects of bypass surgery in his White House office. Haig, laughing mirthlessly, says Allen even showed it to Nixon, who rang Haig for an explanation.

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! If nothing else, the 1988 campaign gives Haig a chance to vindicate himself: he is not crazy, he is in control, and he feels he was right in his losing battle against his small-minded colleagues in the Reagan White House. Critics who accuse him of merely trying to boost future lecture fees are missing the point. Haig means it when he asserts that he would be a good President, tough and clear-minded on issues ranging from the deficit to arms control. His ideas are, in fact, sophisticated and sensible. Haig knows his chances are dim. He blames the system and the Republican Party "apparatchik" for locking him out. But he believes in himself, and has nothing to lose and much satisfaction to gain by selling that belief to the public.

There is an unmistakable I-told-you-so relish to his voice as he belittles Reagan's foreign policy mistakes. His contempt for George Bush is genuine. Haig's most important effect on the 1988 campaign may come from his search- and-destroy missions against Bush during the debates. Even if Haig's barbs don't cost Bush the nomination, they will serve as ammunition for a Democratic challenger in the fall.

Raised in a middle-class Catholic family in a Philadelphia suburb, Haig was energetic and determined even as a boy, with his sights set on being a soldier. His older sister Regina recalls young Alec at age four, in a little cap, blowing his toy bugle until his lips were raw and swollen. His father, a lawyer, died when Alec was ten, and his mother raised three children alone, aided financially by a prosperous uncle. Haig had his heart set on West Point, but had to apply twice and use his uncle's political connections to get in. Haig was not a model cadet. He amassed some 158 hours of punishment in his first two years for, among other things, "gross public displays of affection" (kissing). Haig roguishly explains, "I had a lot of fun." He graduated 214th in his class of 310 in 1947. His yearbook tweaks him for "strong convictions and even stronger ambitions."

He met his wife Patricia in occupied Japan, where he was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division. He played football and drove a Kaiser; she was very pretty, conventtrained and a general's daughter. They were married under crossed swords in 1950, then Haig went off to the Korean front as an aide-de- camp to General Edward Almond.