Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in order to serve as White House Chief of Staff for President Richard Nixon during the depths of the Watergate crisis, was abruptly installed as SACEUR after Watergate's denouement. Haig arrived in 1974. Some scattered notes about his time at SHAPE are recorded by Colodny and Shachtman's book "The Forty Years War". A creature of habit, Haig took the same route to SHAPE every day – a pattern of behavior that did not go unnoticed by terrorist groups. On June 25, 1979, Haig was the apparent target of an assassination attempt in Mons, Belgium. A land mine blew up under
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, as he had successfully directed the Allied landings in Normandy and subsequent march into Germany during World War II, amid many inter-Allied controversies over the proper conduct of the campaign on the Western Front. On December 19, 1950, the North Atlantic Council announced the appointment of General Eisenhower as the first SACEUR. British Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery moved over from the predecessor Western Union Defence Organization (WUDO) to become the first Deputy SACEUR, who would serve until 1958. Volume 3 of Nigel Hamilton's "Life of Montgomery of Alamein" gives a good account of Montgomery's