Alexander Meigs Haig Jr.

Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr. (1924– ), U.S. general and secretary of state (1981–82). Deputy to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council in 1969, he was named President Nixon's White House chief of staff during the Watergate affair. Later (1974–79) he was supreme commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Europe. He was appointed secretary of state by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and resigned in 1982. In 1988 he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination.