Haig tries to end doubt

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 8

Haig tries to end doubt

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The American Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig) has tried to end speculation that he might resign over a White House decision to put Vice-President George Bush in charge of a special crisis management team. “The obituary is wrong,” he said yesterday of press reports that his future in the Cabinet may be in doubt. He denied that he had threatened to resign. “I had discussions with the President and we are of one mind on this subject,” he said. President Ronald Reagan named Mr Bush this week to head a committee to handle foreign and domestic crises, only hours after Mr Haig had publicly expressed his unhappiness at the proposal. Mr Haig told a Senate committee yesterday that the focus should now be on the substance of foreign policy rather than on organisational questions. “With respect to the socalled crisis management situation, that form has been established and the time has now come to get on with substance, the formulation of American policy. “Enough said,” he repeat-, edly said in his appearance before the committee, duringwhich he seemed unusually subdued and spoke slowly and deliberately. He later joined a National

Security Council meeting at the White House, after which Mr Reagan expressed fears that the labour unrest in Poland might provoke repressive measures by the Soviet Union or the Polish authorities. But some officials continued to express doubts whether Mr Haig would remain in his job for long. One career diplomat at the State Department said: “The general consensus seems to be that it is very difficult to imagine that Haig can last, and people are already beginning to wonder who might be his successor. The man is clearly badly damaged.”