Confirmed, Al Haig is deceasedwise...

Ah but Al was an original, pathetically ambitious and as devious as a Renaissance Cardinal, only the army could contain and channel a spirit like that, in any other line of work he'd a blown himself sky high from the git-go.
In fact looking back, Al fell to pieces as soon as he put on civies.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that the Former Secretary of State's achievements fall into four categories:

1.) He successfully managed the unprecedented transition from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford without any unpleasantness. There were about a hundred different ways that situation could have gone wrong and Al managed to avoid them all. No less a Solon than Tip O' Neill paid tribute to Haig's subtle political skills.
2.) It is likely that Al Haig spoke the worst political english since the imperial high noon of Warren Gameliel Harding,  "caveat" as a verb for example.  The mind truly boggles what marvels he would have inflicted on the Washington lexicon if he had become President.
3.) For all his political acumen, he stumbled badly when Reagan was shot and he suddenly proclaimed all was well, "The Constitution" authorized him to act until the Vice President returned to DC. The relevant law was the 1947 Presidential Succession Act that left the Secretary of State nowhere near the action by statute. In one fell swoop he did the near impossible took a near Presidential assassination and exacerbated the situation tenfold by making the US Public nervous about the legitimacy of the presidential succession with his immortal cry "I'm in charge here!"
Truly it was the civies that did him in, if he'd stayed in full dragoon regalia he'd a never have indulged such undignified behavior.
4.) No one wants to admit it, but Al Haig was the first real practitioner of Bush Hatred in public life, he all but called Forty One a wimp to his face during the GOP Presidential debates in 1988. The Former NATO CinC exuded an air of a man who'd happily forego the US Presidency if he could just smack George Bush Sr in the nose with a role of quarters.
Sheer bipartisan prophesy on his part sez Humble Elias.