General Haig had become such a figure of fun--by saying, "I'm in charge here"

when President Reagan was shot--that one can forget, until one listens to him, just how deeply experienced he is in public affairs (going back to his service on the staffs of General MacArthur and General Almond in Korea, and including both front-line duty and high-level Pentagon duty in the Vietnam War). His unpacking of the questions that should be asked before "a single drop of American blood is shed" is masterly, as is his explication of how lines of authority should run in an Administration: it doesn't matter who speaks on foreign-policy matters--it is more usually the Secretary of State or the National Security Advisor, but in the Kennedy Administration it was the ubiquitous Bobby--but it matters greatly that somebody "is designated by the President, and perceived by his colleagues and peers to be the man designated by the President, to handle and centralize foreign policy.... Either works, where a hybrid or neither is chaos."