Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who served Republican presidents and ran for the office himself, has died.
The Haig family says he died Saturday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from complications associated with an infection. He was 85.
The four-star general served as a top adviser to three presidents and had presidential ambitions of his own. President Richard Nixon appointed him White House chief of staff in 1973. In that role, Haig helped the president prepare his impeachment defense and handled many of the day-to-day decisions normally made by the chief executive.
Haig later served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan.
In the chaotic hours following the attempted assassination of Reagan in March 1981, Haig uttered what became his most famous statement.
"As of now, I am in control here, in the White House," Haig said.
The remark misrepresented the line of presidential succession and it made it easier for critics to portray Haig as a usurper of power.
In 2001, Haig defended his remark.
"Everybody in that room was very familiar with the fact that this was not a discussion about transition, but rather authority within the executive branch," he said.
Haig quit the Reagan Cabinet after a year-and-a-half -- disgusted, he said, with bureaucratic infighting.
"You can't have the State Department putting out one line and the Defense Department another line and the White House yet another line," he told Fox News in 2002.
In 1988, Haig campaigned for the GOP presidential nomination but was forced to drop out before the end of February.
He published two memoirs, profited in the private sector, and spent much of his later years fiercely defending his unique, storied, and intensely controversial role across four decades of public service.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/20/presidential-adviser-haig-dies/
