WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alexander Haig, a former  US Army general who became White House chief of staff during  the Watergate scandal and secretary of state during the Reagan  administration, died on Saturday at the age of 85.

Haig sought the US presidency, but his bid for the  Republican nomination ended in failure in 1988, a campaign  noted for his acerbic taunting of other candidates including  Vice-President George HW Bush, the eventual winner.

A spokesman for Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore said  Haig died early yesterday from a staph infection acquired  prior to his arrival at the hospital.

Symbolically, the closest Haig came to being president was  when he proclaimed to the news media that “I’m in control here”  after President Ronald Reagan was shot in an assassination  attempt in 1981.

Critics called that statement, which seemed to incorrectly  state the line of presidential succession, pompous and  militaristic and used it against him later on the campaign  trail.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, praised Haig yesterday as a “great American” who served the United States  with distinction. “General Haig exemplified our finest  warrior-diplomat tradition of those who dedicate their lives to  public service,” Obama said in a statement.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with his family,” he added.

Haig secured a place in American history by holding the  presidency together in 1974 during the months leading up to  Richard Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal.

Telling friends that “when your president asks, you do it,”  he had reluctantly resigned as Army vice chief of staff in May  1973 to take over the top White House staff job at a time when  Nixon’s administration seemed to be drifting out of control.