Richard Nixon in Episode 232 General Alexander Haig , A Player on the World Stage , ( A Special Series part A )

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This is the first episode in a four episode special series looking back at the life of General Alexander Haig.  Haig served several Presidents, working most closely with Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. He has been a major player throughout the time periods we have been covering throughout the entire storyline of our podcast. He has been such a large player throughout the run of our series and  we thought here at what will be his last major appearance in our timeline that now was a time to look back at Al Haig, so that you could get a full picture of this man who played such a major role in four major historic moments in our nation's history: The Vietnam War, Watergate, the Nixon Pardon by Ford, and The Reagan State Department. 

To say Alexander Haig was a major player in all of these events would be a major understatement. All three of these Presidents relied on Haig for advice an understanding of the World. Over the final months of the Vietnam War, Haig helped guide the President to the conclusion, as we shall see in this special series, and it is alleged he may have also later helped guide Richard Nixon out of the Presidency.  Haig's role in the Nixon years, especially, is not without controversy, some of which I was unaware of when I started this podcast several years ago. 

In this episode we will look back at several historic moments from the life of Alexander Haig.  We start first at the moment that most likely ended his political life when he stepped up to the cameras and insisted he was incharge of the government after the assassination attempt on President Reagan.  We will hear from the man himself, from an interview he gave while attempting to run for President in his own right in 1988. We will hear of his role in the pardon of Richard Nixon from Gerald Ford, and we will hear of his successes as Secretary of State including his role in trying to prevent the Falklands War. 

But it is his role at the end of Vietnam, and at the end of the Nixon Administration itself that has engendered the most controversy, including accusations that at some point he may have been involved in a spy ring against the President from the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and also that he may have been a secret source for the Washington Post's journalistic team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, while also managing the Nixon White House as its Chief of Staff.  We will examine it all here in this first of four episodes on General Alexander Haig.