His uncle, Owen Wister, authored the 1902 novel The Virginian, which popularized the genre of Western fiction, and later became both a successful film and television series.
Unable to find employment as an engineer during the Great Depression, he worked nights as an electric lineman on the Pennsylvania Railroad[2] running between Chicago and the Eastern Seaboard.
Haines served nearly three years in Britain, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel on the staff of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces Europe, where he worked on the Ultra Project.
His filmography credits are Alibi Ike (1935), Man of Iron (1935), Black Legion (1937), Slim (1937), Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937), Submarine D-1 (1937), The Texans (1938), Beyond Glory (1948), Command Decision (1948), The Racket (1951), One Minute to Zero (1952), The Eternal Sea (1955), The Wings of Eagles (1957), and Torpedo Run (1958).
While in Europe, Haines began writing a stage play, Command Decision, based on his 8th Air Force experiences, but was unable to sell it.
They differ from most of the prior war-themed works from that period, which stressed the experiences of average citizens forced to go to war, in that Command Decision explores the pressures of leadership, political in-fighting, moral conflicts, and psychological effects rather than glamorizing combat, and frankly admitting the high losses in men and materiel that characterized air combat.
It also takes a "warts and all" approach to the conduct of some U.S. military leaders, depicting occasional propaganda misrepresentations, personal ambitions, opportunism, and information clampdowns in the name of security.