We remember Alexander Haig (1924-2010) and how he tried to deal with Castro

We remember former Secretary of State Alexander Haig who was born on this in 1924 and died in 2010.   He lived a very consequential life in the military and later in government.

At one point in early 1981 the National Security Council even tried to arrange a meeting with Fidel Castro through the good offices of the columnist Jack Anderson. 
Naturally when Mr. Haig got word of this, he was upset at seeing such a maneuver undermine his military efforts to put ”fear into the hearts of the Cubans.” 
Though he was reluctant to ease the pressure at so early a date, Mr. Haig felt it necessary to follow up on a suggestion from the Mexican President to mediate between Havana and Washington. 
It is hard to see what Mr. Haig hoped to gain by this, since ”there could be no talk about normalization, no relief of the pressure, no conversations on any subject except the return to Havana of the Cuban criminals (in the United States) and the termination of Cuba’s interventionism.” 
Indeed, he may well have gone ahead because of the President’s desire to see if Cuba would receive the some 4,000 criminals who had left Cuba along with 120,000 other refugees in the 1980 Mariel boatlift who were now in American prisons. 
Deciding to test the waters, as he puts it, he met in November 1981 in Mexico City with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, the vice premier and the man who, after Fidel Castro, is the most authoritative spokesman of Cuban foreign policy. 
The conversations were amiable. The Cuban denied that Havana was sending arms to El Salvador but did not want a confrontation with the United States.
Mr. Haig did not appear eager for another meeting, but, at the President’s request, he dispatched Gen. Vernon Walters to meet with Mr. Castro and Mr. Rodriguez in March 1982. 
At this meeting, Mr. Castro said that the return of the Cuban criminals was ”a solvable problem”; nor did he deny Cuban involvement in Central America. 
Although the President continued to press for a solution to the criminal question, Mr. Haig recommended that Mr. Castro be given an ultimatum to receive the criminals or ”we would simply load them aboard an expendable ship, sail it into a Cuban anchorage under escort of the U.S. Navy and inform Castro that we had returned his citizens to him.” 
At this point, Mr. Haig’s report over possible negotiations with Havana breaks off.