The Accession of Shultz

Cabinet government is once again alive and well in Ronald Reagan’s Washington, I am happy to report, thanks to the evacuation of loner A1 Haig from the Department of State, and the accession of team-player George Shultz. Foreign policy by consensus will be in vogue, with a new triumvirate, William Clark, George Shultz, and Cap Weinberger (in that order), Californians all, structuring the options for Ronald Reagan. Will our foreign-policy apparatus, so long in the thrall of the Eastern Establishment, finally get some fresh Western air? The chances, mavens here say, are fifty-fifty.

In Washington, when you are out, you are really out. One wanders through the corridors of Washington power like a beggar, searching for someone to hand out one kind word about Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. Everything that could be reported or deduced about Why Haig Quit has already been deduced, and deduced accurately, the three salient points being: 1) it had been brewing for a long while, longer in fact than anyone has hitherto reported; 2) it was due to a mosaic of causes, not a single bêtise-, and 3) Haig’s shortcomings were as much a matter of form as of substance.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Cabinet government is once again alive and well in Ronald Reagan’s Washington, I am happy to report, thanks to the evacuation of loner A1 Haig from the Department of State, and the accession of team-player George Shultz. Foreign policy by consensus will be in vogue, with a new triumvirate, William Clark, George Shultz, and Cap Weinberger (in that order), Californians all, structuring the options for Ronald Reagan. Will our foreign-policy apparatus, so long in the thrall of the Eastern Establishment, finally get some fresh Western air? The chances, mavens here say, are fifty-fifty.

In Washington, when you are out, you are really out. One wanders through the corridors of Washington power like a beggar, searching for someone to hand out one kind word about Alexander Meigs Haig Jr. Everything that could be reported or deduced about Why Haig Quit has already been deduced, and deduced accurately, the three salient points being: 1) it had been brewing for a long while, longer in fact than anyone has hitherto reported; 2) it was due to a mosaic of causes, not a single bêtise-, and 3) Haig’s shortcomings were as much a matter of form as of substance.