Alexander Haig, Former Secretary of State Under Reagan, Dies at 85

Sad news to start your Saturday: Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan and former Chief of Staff under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, passed away. After serving in both the Korean and Vietnam war, he switched his military medals in for a job in politics, and is most infamous for standing by Reagan’s hospital door after the President was shot by John Hinckley, Jr. in 1981 and announcing “As of now, I am in control here.”

At the time, the media took that line to be a power grab on Haig’s part, but since Vice President George Bush Jr. was unavailable at the time power did actually fall to the Secretary of State, though not by the technicality of the Constitution which would require Bush to have actually resigned for Haig to be “in charge.”

Haig passed away at 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning from an undisclosed illness at Johns Hopkins, surrounded by his family.

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