"Haig was eventually confirmed after hearings he described as an "ordeal," during which he received no encouragement from Reagan or his staff.Several days earlier, on December 2, 1980, as Haig faced these initial challenges to the next step in his political career, four American Catholic missionary women in El Salvador, two of whom were Maryknoll sisters, were beaten, raped, and murdered by five Salvadoran national guardsmen ordered to surveil them.