Letter from Washington

So intense was the spotlight on the drama of the Reagan budget during the past few weeks that U.S. foreign policy and its protagonists were eclipsed. With the House vote taken, foreign policy is again on stage and with it the fortunes of Alexander Meigs Haig which, happily, have taken a turn for the better due in no small part to an un-abject, mental Canossa on Haig’s part.

To Washington’s inner circles it had always been more or less understood that Haig functions as Number Two, not Number One. When someone told him, or Haig otherwise discovered, that he was still Number Two (Reagan being Number One) this seemed to be all that Al needed. It was like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers. The trance lifted. Haig went to the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Rome, didn’t get out ahead of the President on foreign policy, couldn’t say often enough, “It is the President’s view that ” or “President Reagan believes that ”

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So intense was the spotlight on the drama of the Reagan budget during the past few weeks that U.S. foreign policy and its protagonists were eclipsed. With the House vote taken, foreign policy is again on stage and with it the fortunes of Alexander Meigs Haig which, happily, have taken a turn for the better due in no small part to an un-abject, mental Canossa on Haig’s part.

To Washington’s inner circles it had always been more or less understood that Haig functions as Number Two, not Number One. When someone told him, or Haig otherwise discovered, that he was still Number Two (Reagan being Number One) this seemed to be all that Al needed. It was like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers. The trance lifted. Haig went to the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Rome, didn’t get out ahead of the President on foreign policy, couldn’t say often enough, “It is the President’s view that ” or “President Reagan believes that ”