Former top US diplomat Alexander Haig dies at
85
Former US secretary of state
Alexander Haig has died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore.
He was 85.
A hospital spokesman did not offer an official cause of
death.
The former top US diplomat had been admitted to the hospital
January 28.
Mr Haig served as secretary of state under president Ronald Reagan
after being a top adviser to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald
Ford.
He was the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe from
December 1974 to June 1979.
He mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1988, losing to the eventual nominee and then
president George Bush.
Mr Haig's many achievements were forever overshadowed by five
controversial words he said the day president Reagan was shot and
hospitalized in 1981, when he said: "I am in control
here."
He later said he was referring to the person temporarily in charge
of the executive branch.
But he was widely mocked in the following months for seeming to
overstep his authority.
--938Live