Editing Alexander Haig (section)

===Initial challenges===
On 11 December 1980, president-elect Reagan was prepared to publicly announce nearly all of his candidates for the most important cabinet-level posts. Singularly absent from the list of top nominees was his choice for Secretary of State, presumed by many at the time to be Alexander Haig. Haig's prospects for [[Advice and consent#United States|Senate confirmation]] were clouded when Senate Democrats questioned his role in the Watergate scandal. In Haig's defense, North Carolina [[Jesse Helms|Senator Jesse Helms]] claimed to have phoned former president Nixon personally to inquire whether any material on [[Nixon White House tapes|Nixon's unreleased White House tapes]] could embarrass Haig. According to Helms, Nixon replied, "Not a thing."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1891&dat=19801211&id=iqQfAAAAIBAJ&pg=6295,1424477 |title=Reagan selects half of Cabinet-level staff |date=December 11, 1980 |newspaper=Gadsden Times |agency=Associated Press}}</ref> Haig was eventually confirmed after hearings he described as an "ordeal," during which he received no encouragement from Reagan or his staff.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/22/books/the-turbulent-tenure-of-alexander-haig.html |title=The Turbulent Tenure of Alexander Haig |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 22, 1984 |first=James |last=Chace}}</ref>

Several days earlier, on 2 December 1980, as Haig faced these initial challenges to the next step in his political career, four U.S. Catholic missionary women in [[El Salvador]], two of whom were [[Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic|Maryknoll sisters]], [[1980 murders of U.S. missionaries in El Salvador|were beaten, raped and murdered]] by five [[National Guard (El Salvador)|Salvadoran national guardsmen]] ordered to follow them. Their bodies were exhumed from a [[Chalatenango Department|remote]] shallow grave two days later in the presence of then-U.S. ambassador to El Salvador [[Robert White (ambassador)|Robert E. White]]. Despite this diplomatically awkward atrocity, the [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Carter administration]] soon approved $5.9 million in lethal military assistance to El Salvador's oppressive right-wing government.<ref>{{cite book |last=LeoGrande |first=William | author-link= William M. LeoGrande |title=Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |year=1998 |isbn= 0807898805 |url=https://archive.org/details/ourownbackyardun0000will |page=70}}</ref> The incoming Reagan administration expanded that aid to $25 million less than six weeks later.{{sfn|LeoGrande|1998|p=89}}

In justifying the arms shipments, the new administration claimed that the Salvadoran government of [[José Napoleón Duarte]] had taken "positive steps" to investigate the murder of four American nuns, but this was disputed by U.S. Ambassador Robert E. White, who said that he could find no evidence the junta was "conducting a serious investigation." White was dismissed from the Foreign Service by Haig because of his complaints. White later asserted that the Reagan administration was determined to ignore and even conceal the complicity of the Salvadoran government and army in the murders.<ref>Bonner, Raymond (November 9, 2014). "Bringing El Salvador Nun Killers to Justice". The Daily Beast. Retrieved January 16, 2018.</ref>

[[File:Prime Minister Menachin Begin of Israel is welcomed by Secretary of State Alexander Haig.jpg|thumb|Haig welcoming Israeli prime minister [[Menachem Begin]] at [[Andrews Air Force Base]], 1982]]
Throughout the [[1980 US presidential election#Campaign|1980 U.S. presidential campaign]], Reagan and his foreign policy advisers faulted the [[Carter administration#Human rights|Carter administration's perceived over-emphasis]] on the human rights abuses committed by authoritarian governments allied to the U.S., labeling it a [[Dictatorships and Double Standards|"double standard"]] when compared with Carter's treatment of [[Eastern Bloc|communist-bloc]] governments. Haig, who described himself as the "[[vicar]]" of U.S. foreign policy,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.economist.com/node/15577297 |newspaper=The Economist |title=Alexander Haig |date=February 25, 2010}}</ref> believed the human rights violations of a U.S. ally such as El Salvador should be given less attention than the ally's successes against enemies of the U.S., and thus found himself diminishing the murders of the nuns before the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]] in March 1981:

{{blockquote|text=I'd like to suggest to you that some of the investigations would lead one to believe that perhaps the vehicle the nuns were riding in may have tried to run through a roadblock, or may have accidentally been perceived to have been doing so, and there may have been an exchange of fire, and then perhaps those who inflicted the casualties sought to cover it up. |sign=Alexander Haig |source=[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19810319&id=u0QcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ll0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7056,1081511 ''Alexander Haig''], House Foreign Affairs committee testimony, quoted by UPI, 19 March 1981<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19810319&id=u0QcAAAAIBAJ&pg=7056,1081511 |title=Church Women Ran Roadblock, Haig Theorizes |newspaper=Pittsburgh Press |date=19 March 1981 |publisher=[[United Press International|UPI]]|access-date=8 December 2013 }}</ref>}}

The outcry that immediately followed Haig's insinuation prompted him to emphatically withdraw his speculative suggestions the very next day before the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Senate Foreign Relations Committee]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Michaels |first1=Leonard |last2=Ricks |first2=Christopher |title=The State of the Language |url=https://archive.org/details/stateoflanguage00rick |url-access=registration |edition=2nd |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year=1990 |page=[https://archive.org/details/stateoflanguage00rick/page/261 261] |isbn=0520059069}}</ref> Similar public relations miscalculations, by Haig and others, continued to plague the Reagan administration's attempts to build popular support at home for its [[Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration#Latin America|Central American policies]].