President Nixon Sought Independent View of Alexander Haig

Haig was Key Advisor of Nixon, in Particular when Henry Kissinger was Absent

Collection of Nixon-Haig Telephone Calls Assembled for the First Time

In his final year of life, Alexander Haig took an interest in the Nixon tapes. He encouraged students and historians to study these materials in their proper context in order to more fully understand the administration of the thirty-seventh president. In fact, at the time of his death nixontapes.org was in the process of providing General Haig with a complete set of the conversations in which he was a participant.

The first portion of this collection is available below, including all of the telephone conversations captured by Nixon's various taping systems. Below you can find the complete collection of the telephone conversations Haig made or received that were captured by the recording system in the Oval Office, the Executive Office Building, the Lincoln Sitting Room, and at Camp David. Most of the conversations are between President Nixon and Alexander Haig, but there were also other participants, too.

Highlights from the telephone conversations include Haig telling President Nixon about the publication of the Pentagon Papers, numerous conversations related to ongoing Vietnam negotiations, and the General's participation in the advance trip to China in early 1972. The conversations also document Haig's far-ranging role as the president's contact for foreign affairs issues when Henry Kissinger was away. As the number two official at the National Security Council, Haig functioned as a liaison between the president and Kissinger when Kissinger was on secret trips to Beijing and Moscow to arrange summit meetings, and during Kissinger's negotiating sessions in Paris with the North Vietnamese.

For a key to participants' names, click here (136k).