Workers World, Vol. 22, No. 50
December 17: Willingly or not, consciously or unconsciously, President-elect Ronald Reagan has just presented all who are willing to struggle with a great opportunity to throw back the reactionary, right-wing forces. The contest over the appointment of General Alexander Haig to secretary of state promises to be of historic proportions.
Back when the liberal Ted Sorenson was named by President Carter to head the CIA, he was wildly applauded by the liberals as a man who would throw back the forces of the right. The right, however, organized. In the space of not more than two weeks, Carter caved in and withdrew Sorenson’s nomination. He then appointed a rightist militarist, Admiral Stansfield Turner, to accommodate the very forces he was supposed to fight.
The Reaganites remember this object lesson only too well. They say that Reagan has “dug his heels in” and will fight if the liberals really mean to oppose the Haig nomination.
There’s absolutely no question that a considerable number of the more politically developed among the workers, the oppressed, and the middle class are already very apprehensive of the Haig appointment. It should be added that a large section of the left element in the lower echelons of these who participated in Republican and Democratic politics regard Haig as a would-be “man on horseback.”
In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that former Nixon speech writers William Safire and Patrick Buchanan wrote columns admonishing Haig not to run against Reagan in the then forthcoming presidential primaries. Their motivation was very clear. It was premature. The dimensions of the right-wing sweep were still much too speculative early last spring.
Safire’s article in the New York Times was entitled “Man on Horseback.” Buchanan sent virtually the same message, only in more charitable phraseology. He implored Haig to “Say it isn’t so.”
Now most of the far-right forces believe the time is right for Haig to step into the position where he can be the principal foreign policy architect and dominate foreign and military affairs. Indeed, Haig as Secretary of State clearly poses the danger of war.
There are only two forces under the present conditions of the political struggle in the U.S. that are thought of as capable of launching a struggle to stop the Reagan-Haig far-right forces from plunging the country into deepening economic crisis and predatory military adventure abroad.
First is the possibility of a revival of the liberal-capitalist element in government with its hordes of elected officials, in big business, in the media conglomerates, and in the bourgeois academic community. Is a revival of bourgeois liberalism possible at this time? And is there really any chance that even those who hold commanding positions in the Senate, in the huge capitalist newspaper and television industry, and in the other capitalist institutions will put up a genuine fight?
There is absolutely no question that much of what passes for the capitalist establishment is both fearful and dissatisfied with the Reagan electoral victory, and even more so with the appointment of Haig. But fighting back is another question.
Yet, the authentic voices of this decrepit and receding liberalism have initially raised doubt about the propriety of the Haig appointment.
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times today questioned the appointment, weighed the pluses and the minuses, balanced them, and tilted slightly to the negative. But they did it in such a way as to make an easy transition to approval tomorrow.
Bourgeois liberalism in the imperialist epoch hedges its bets carefully, looking right and left, and never forgetting for a moment that a real resurgence among the workers and the oppressed against capitalist reaction may prove a greater threat to them than something like the Haig nomination.
Nevertheless, the contradictory character of the capitalist monopolies, their strong internal antagonisms, and the fear of military dictatorship may impel them to willy-nilly find themselves in an unplanned contest to jettison the Haig nomination. The next few weeks will surely tell. The international situation becomes more intense as the economic impasse in which the capitalist monopolies find themselves makes it necessary to move from economic problems to military solutions.
It would be a lot easier for the liberal bourgeoisie to take on a second Watergate had they really finished the first one. At least, that’s what they all must be thinking about.
Haig was the chief of staff during the Nixon administration’s last phase. They cannot now claim that they were unaware of the fact that to a large extent he was a substitute president. He ran the White House, he made all the central decisions. Yet Carl Bernstein himself gave Haig a clean bill of health in his book “The Final Days” (of the Nixon White House).
Last night on the ABC telecast “Nightline,” Bernstein tried to give the opposite impression. But it’s a little late now to make an issue of Haig’s “order from the commander-in-chief” to Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus, telling them to fire the special Watergate prosecutor.
Of course, the liberals didn’t fight it then because they were only too glad, and perhaps surprised, that Haig, in his capacity as chief of staff and as a representative of the military forces, did not follow up the “disobedience” of the order from the commander-in-chief by surrounding key government buildings with military units, as was thought might happen at the time. Indeed, they were thankful there was not a military coup. [Workers World of Nov. 16, 1973, wrote of the danger of a military coup. And Jack Anderson’s syndicated column of Nov. 15, 1973, gave excerpts from a coup memorandum made in the Nixon White House.]
Indeed, the clean bill of health was part compensation to Haig for dropping the matter. He was further compensated for not following up on the Richardson-Ruckelshaus “disobedience.” Both the Ford and Carter administrations appointed him to the illustrious post of Supreme Commander of NATO. Since then the liberal bourgeoisie has issued hardly one significant word of criticism of Haig, let alone brought up the past.
Nevertheless, a struggle is still possible, precisely because the bourgeois establishment is torn by a hundred-and-one contradictions and fears growing out of the state of the decaying economy and the ever more rapid moves in the direction of war.
Token opposition to Haig’s nomination by the bourgeois liberal establishment in alliance with some of the more moderate elements of the right may take an unpredictable turn of events, if closely held secrets become public. More importantly, opposition to Haig may be joined by opposition to the rest of the cabinet appointees, who are notorious for their super-big business, racist, and anti-working class agenda.
It is precisely here that the second force, the only real progressive force capable of consistently fighting neo-fascist reaction and militarism, can enter the arena.
The Watergate struggle was strictly confined within the narrow limits of the capitalist establishment itself, without any participation of the masses. But the ravages of the intractable economic crisis – with its galloping inflation, swelling unemployment, plant shutdowns, and severe cuts in all the vital services necessary to the working class and oppressed – together with the danger of war, can turn a token opposition effort of the type of a Watergate investigation into a truly mass, widespread, and profoundly significant class struggle of the whole working class and the oppressed masses. That would not only sweep away Haig but be the beginning of a turn in the tide, a resurgence that could throw back the forces of neo-fascist political reaction and military adventurism.
Last updated: 11 May 2026