JUST ANOTHER BUREAUCRACY:

Alexander Haig obituary: US secretary of state who failed to avert the Falklands war, and the chief of staff who sustained Richard Nixon's presidency (Harold Jackson, 2/20/10, guardian.co.uk)

The pattern of Haig's life was set very early. Born and brought up in Bala Cynwyd, one of the classier suburbs of Philadelphia, he was the middle child of a prosperous lawyer. But the family's comfortable life was suddenly shattered when his father died of cancer at the age of 38. Haig was then 10 years old, and no more than average academically. He had gained a scholarship to a Roman Catholic preparatory school but did not do well. It was withdrawn after a couple of years and he transferred to a local high school. Though his mother was keen he should follow his father's calling, he was intent on a military career. Confirming his headmaster's view that "Al is definitely not West Point material", his initial application to the US military academy failed.

Then his uncle, who had been largely supporting Haig's mother and siblings, intervened with his considerable local influence and Haig scraped into the military college, situated to the north of New York, in 1944 as an acknowledged political appointee. Under the stress of war, the normal four-year course for officers had been cut to three. The topics removed from the curriculum included English, social sciences and history, in all of which Haig later proved notably deficient.

He graduated from West Point in 1947, finishing 214th out of 310. His classmates shrewdly assessed him as having "strong convictions and even stronger ambitions". Haig opted for the cavalry and, after a year's training, was posted to the American occupation forces in Japan.

Eighteen months into that posting he married Patricia Fox, the daughter of one of the top brass in Tokyo, General Alonzo Fox, and was then appointed the general's aide-de-camp. This brought the young lieutenant into the extraordinary military headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur, run more or less as an alternative court to Emperor Hirohito's.

The experience of MacArthur's imperious megalomania left an indelible impression on Haig. He commented later that "I was always interested in politics and started early in Japan, with a rather sophisticated view of how the military ran it." The outbreak of the Korean war also fixed his career-long belief that the Communist enemy was always at the door.

The initial North Korean assault in June 1950 was a disaster for US forces on the peninsula and brought home how ill-prepared MacArthur's command had become for its military role. Although Haig's unit was rushed to Korea and suffered heavy casualties, he did not go with it: instead, he was sent to accompany his father-in-law to Taiwan, on a liaison mission to Chiang Kai-shek.

When he was eventually assigned to the battle zone, it was as a military assistant on the headquarters staff of an old friend of his father-in-law's, General Edward Almond. MacArthur's selection of Almond as commander of US troops preparing to land in force behind the enemy's rear was later described as "an act of military nepotism".

Haig's role in the highly successful Inchon landings remained obscure, but the ensuing campaign led to the first of many controversial episodes in his military advance. During the battle for Seoul, Haig was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery during a crossing of the Han River. The official citation referred to his outstanding heroism.

However, the later official history of the crossing said there had been "no enemy resistance" and that the North Korean positions were "lightly manned". General Almond had recommended the decoration for his assistant and later awarded him two further Silver Stars for flying over enemy positions in a light aircraft.

Haig left Korea as a captain in 1951, suffering from hepatitis, and picked up his interrupted career. In 1953 he was appointed to the staff of West Point as a disciplinary officer, remembered for his obsession with spit and polish, and was then assigned to a tank battalion with the American forces in Europe. He gained a routine promotion to major and, redeployed to the European Command headquarters in Germany, had his first experience of diplomacy.

Congress had been grumbling about the cost of maintaining the US presence in Germany, and Haig took part in the 18-month negotiations to persuade the West Germans to shoulder more of the burden. This brought him another medal for "remarkable foresight, ingenuity, and mature judgment".

It also seemed to increase his taste for the administrative and political aspects of military life. In 1959 he enrolled on a military staff course and then went on to a further course at Georgetown University in Washington, where American diplomats traditionally trained.

The thesis for his Georgetown master's degree showed how his ambitions were developing. It spoke of the need for a new breed of military professional occupying a prominent seat among presidential advisers. It also gave an early glimpse of his infamously tormented prose, with incomprehensible references to "interpretive vagaries" and "a permeating nexus".

Armed with these new qualifications, Haig was assigned to a staff position at the Pentagon, where his father-in-law had become deputy to the assistant secretary for international affairs. Though Haig's own job was in military planning, his very presence at the defence department, allied to his family connections, pitched him into the tangled world of Washington's cold-war politics.