Alexander Haig, Top Adviser to Three Presidents, Dies at Age 85

Former secretary of state and presidential adviser Alexander Haig has died. He was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Friday. 

Haig, who was a four-star general, served as a top adviser to three presidents. He was appointed by President Richard Nixon as White House chief of staff in 1973.

Haig helped Nixon prepare his impeachment defense and handled many of the day-to-day decisions normally made by the chief executive. It has been said he played a key role in persuading Nixon to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal. He served under President Gerald Ford and suggested to him that he should pardon his predecessor for any crimes committed while in office. That pardon is widely believed to have cost him the presidency in 1976. He stayed with the Ford administration for six weeks after Nixon's resignation. He then returned to the military as a commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces in Europe and supreme allied commander of NATO forces.

In 1979, he briefly explored a run for the White House, but decided he did not have enough support. He then took a job in the private sector, as president of United Technologies. He later served as secretary of state under the Reagan administration and declared himself the "vicar of American foreign policy."

He is survived by Patricia, his wife of 60 years; his children Alexander, Brian and Barbara; eight grandchildren; and his brother, the Rev. Francis R. Haig.