Workers World, Vol. 23, No. 2
There is only one overriding issue in the confirmation hearing of General Alexander Haig.
Everybody in Congress knows that the real issue confronting the Democratic minority in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is that General Haig is a dangerously unbridled militarist. Everybody who is anybody at all in the Washington establishment knows this fully well.
There is only one serious problem. It is how to say this loud and clear so that the whole country can hear it. There are innumerable channels for the Democratic minority to make its position clear, to speak out and let the mass of the people know what a perilous path this would-be “man on horseback” may embark upon.
Instead of that, the Senate minority is taking the long, tortuous, ambiguous way around which can only cause confusion and demoralize those progressive forces relying on the Senate minority to lead the fight against Haig’s confirmation.
Take the ranking minority leader, Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), who is in charge of the minority fight on the confirmation. Instead of preparing a clear and unambiguous indictment of the well-established, universally known facts about Haig, mainly that he is a dangerous militarist seeking the top civilian post in the Cabinet and that his policies could lead to a nuclear holocaust, Pell decided to first write a letter to National Security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, of all people, asking for information and documents concerning Haig in the files of the National Security Council.
What for? What documents are necessary? Who needs it? What purpose will it serve?
All that are necessary are Haig’s own stated positions over the years which are in the public record and have filled the pages of the capitalist press. Seeking mass and comprehensive documentation supposedly calculated to bring out more data on Watergate can only confuse the issue and is wholly unnecessary. Going through this route is like trying to find the Potomac River or the Brooklyn Bridge by way of Alaska.
Naturally Brzezinski, an admirer of Haig and political ally of his in the first place, took ten long days to answer the letter, virtually denying the documentation, and then went on TV to endorse Haig as qualified for the post.
Even before Senator Pell sent out his letter, he tried to buttress himself on the committee by appointing a skillful counsel, Terry Lenzer, who was assistant counsel during the Watergate investigation.
Lenzer, after vacillating and wasting more time, turned down the appointment. His grounds, incredibly, were that he couldn’t get bipartisan support to conduct the Watergate type of investigation he apparently had in mind. Clearly Lenzer doesn’t know which side is up, and misunderstands completely the new relationship of forces not only in Congress but more importantly in the factional situation in the ruling capitalist establishment.
The Watergate investigation was made by a coalition of liberals and right-wingers in the capitalist establishment who united to topple the narrower faction supporting the Nixon administration. The liberal capitalist element was at the time joined by significant elements of the Right. This time around, significant elements of the liberal capitalist class, who have not been ousted from power altogether, have been swept into the current of the Right in the massive assault to turn the capitalist government in a more thoroughly reactionary and militarist direction.
This is what has to be seen clearly in the Haig confirmation hearings. But it is even more important to let the people, the overwhelming majority of whom are opposed to these regressive policies, know what these new government caretakers are up to.
Can the Democratic minority stop Haig? Of course they can, if only they would.
In the first place, it is not necessary for any member of the Senate to have any more information about Haig’s past, about wiretappings, coverups, dirty tricks, the Nixon pardon, or more about his role in carrying out Nixon’s orders for the merciless bombing of Vietnam and Kampuchea. The Constitution clearly states that the president can only get a confirmation for the secretary of state or any other cabinet office with the consent and advice of the Senate.
No senator has to give any reason whatever for voting against Haig. Their right to reject him is absolute and unconditional. All they need is to tell the people that they are against him because of his policies, because he is a warmonger, and that a man in his position can set the government on the road to war.
Every senator has the right to filibuster in order to arouse the mass of people to the anger of war. Even a very small contingent of senators could rally the mass of the people if they would only speak out loud and clear, for the people are opposed to destructive wars, especially the threat of nuclear war.
Look what happened during the early days of the Carter administration and see how the reverse reactionary position triumphed so easily. President Carter originally appointed Ted Sorensen, a well-known Kennedy liberal, to head the CIA.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, which was charged with conducting the hearing, at that time had only a few extreme right-wingers while the majority were for confirmation. The few extreme rightists threatened to liberal-bait and vowed a floor fight to rally the rightists in the country.
What happened thereafter? Without even opening up a fight, Carter caved in, although he had a majority in the Senate Intelligence Committee as well as the Senate as a whole. Thereafter, as is well known, Carter appointed a militarist, Admiral Stansfield Turner, which satisfied the extreme right.
This shows that with the mere threat of a struggle the rabid reactionaries could overcome the majority, even though they knew popular sentiment in the country greatly favored a progressive struggle.
Why then is it not possible for the Senate minority, which can claim more than 40 members, to fight the Haig confirmation? It is precisely because there is no intent to seriously contest this confirmation. Many of these senators are running for cover and indeed are pledging cooperation to their erstwhile opponents who are intent on dragging the country into further deepening economic chaos and war.
Notice what happened just yesterday at the confirmation hearing for Caspar Weinberger for defense secretary. He said that he favored “the use of nuclear weapons” in war (New York Times, front page, January 7, 1981).
Instead of holding up the hearings on the confirmation and drawing the attention of the people to the dangerous position which this would-be secretary of defense holds on such a life-and-death question, he was just let go scot free.
This is a curtain-raiser as to what will happen unless those in the progressive movement who are very well aware of the danger let themselves be heard and not run for the closet. If they really want to rally the people, the Senate minority can make an easy impact by merely insisting that the TV networks cover the hearing fully during the day as well as in the evening so as to give full exposure to the minority view of Haig.
The mass of the people – the working class, the oppressed, the students, and people of every walk of life – must be made aware that there is only one single clear-cut issue – the issue of war. And Haig is an arsonist seeking to light the flames!
The Senate hearings should not be cluttered up with legalistic niceties and parliamentary amenities from which the people can learn nothing. What should come through clear as a bell is that Haig represents a most dangerous trend in the direction of war.
That is all any senator really needs to know in order to fight and hold the floor until the masses are aroused and organized in a struggle to set back this first and most important step on the road to an imperialist holocaust.
Last updated: 11 May 2026