Alexander Haig, who served as President Richard Nixon’s chief of staff as the Watergate scandal was undoing the administration, died Saturday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Haig, 85, also served as secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan. He famously — and wrongly — declared himself temporarily in charge when Reagan was shot in 1981.

However, his tenure in the Reagan administration was marked by infighting as Haig sought to expand his reach over the administration’s conduct of foreign policy. Haig resigned as secretary of State in 1982, after less than two years in the post.

He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988.