Alexander Haig, former US Secretary of State, dies in hospital aged 85

By Telegraph contributor in Washington Published: 3:07PM GMT twenty February 2010

Alexander Haig: He was Secretary of State during the Falklands War and the Israeli advance of Lebanon. Photo: REX FEATURES

Mr Haig was put in assign of US unfamiliar process in 1981 at a time when the Cold War entered a new, some-more dangerous proviso with conflicts in Central America and Afghanistan, and flourishing chief tragedy in Europe.

He was Secretary of State during the Falklands War and the Israeli advance of Lebanon.

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A hardliner who mostly clashed with the assuage invulnerability cabinet member Casper Weinberger, he unsuccessfully contested for the Republican assignment for boss in 1988.

Before going in to governing body he had been a soldier, fighting in Korea and Vietnam where he was decorated. He became Nato Supreme Commander for five years until 1979.

He never lived down his televised reply to the 1981 gangland slaying try on President Ronald Reagan.

Hours after the shooting, then-Secretary of State Haig went prior to the cameras intending, he pronounced later, to encourage Americans that the White House was functioning.

"As of now, I am in carry out here in the White House, tentative the lapse of the clamp president," Mr Haig said. He was at large mocked, with critics accusing him of surpassing his authority.

The Haig family pronounced he died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from complications compared with an infection.