Quayle Disclosures Put Campaign in Turmoil : Bush Camp Apparently Surprised by Indications Running Mate Had Used Influence to Avoid Draft

Vice President George Bush’s campaign was thrown into turmoil Thursday by disclosures that his running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, apparently used his powerful family’s influence to gain entry into the National Guard during the Vietnam War at a time when he could have been drafted.

The controversy, which appeared to catch the Bush camp by surprise, put their campaign on the defensive at a moment when it had hoped to be starting its fall offensive against the Democrats, and it threatened to become--at the least--a costly distraction.

Even if the controversy dies down, it could undermine Bush’s plan to use Quayle, a hawk on national security issues who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to attack Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis on defense policy. At the same time, it threatens Republican efforts to retain the support of conservative Democrats, who were crucial to President Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984.

“Liberal and upper-middle-class voters will understand what Quayle did, because most of them did similar things during Vietnam,” Los Angeles Times political analyst William Schneider said, “but working class voters won’t understand because they didn’t.”

Bush Lauds Quayle

Bush, in his speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination Thursday night, declared: “I’m proud to have Dan Quayle at my side.” Earlier, in introducing his chosen running mate at a fund-raising luncheon, Bush said: “I don’t think I could have selected anybody who will do more to help the ticket.”

Among Bush’s senior advisers, however, the disclosure about Quayle stirred something close to consternation. They met late into the night after Bush’s nomination Wednesday, reviewing videotapes of Quayle’s public statements on the issue, “sorting out” the facts, as one senior aide put it, and plotting tactics for handling the problem.

“It’s a matter of damage control,” a senior Bush staff member said.

“We’re trying to get through this week,” he said. “I think that, outside of New Orleans, we can get away with it.” But he conceded that, if Quayle is found not to have been candid, or if other negative information comes to light, “I think it could develop into a serious problem.”

Although Bush campaign officials sought to dismiss the Guard allegations as unsubstantiated, Quayle himself acknowledged that “calls were made” on his behalf. And, in Indiana Thursday, Maj. Gen. Wendell C. Phillippi (ret.), who was also the managing editor of the Indianapolis News, owned by Quayle’s grandfather, was quoted as saying that he contacted his “multitude” of friends in the National Guard on behalf of Quayle.

The most immediate damage from the controversy, one Bush adviser said, was that “it steps on tonight’s speech”--the acceptance speech Bush hoped would give his campaign the kind of boost Dukakis got with his acceptance address last month in Atlanta.

Republican political consultant Eddie Mahe described the Quayle imbroglio as “a lose-lose situation” because it hurts the ticket while the issue remains alive and is hard to escape from without inflicting even more damage.

Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois, the House minority leader and permanent chairman of the Republican National Convention, said the controversy could seriously damage the Republican ticket if the questions about Quayle’s military service are not quickly resolved.

‘Some Festering Thing’

“That’s the axiom of politics,” Michel said. “Don’t let some festering thing balloon into something that isn’t warranted.”

So great was the concern that, before Quayle’s nomination Thursday night, some Bush campaign officials wondered whether he could remain on the ticket. “I can’t say it’s not in the backs of peoples’ minds,” a senior Bush campaign official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It is in the back of mine.”

The possibility of Quayle’s leaving the ticket was dismissed by Sheila Tate, the vice president’s spokeswoman, and campaign Chairman James A. Baker III said: “There was never any serious discussion or consideration of dropping him from the ticket.”

“If there is no second shoe,” political consultant Mahe said, “I guess I’d end up saying, ‘Ride it out,’ because making a change on the ticket would cause damage that would never end.”

Cites Guard Use in Vietnam

Late Thursday, as part of its effort to deal with the controversy, the Bush campaign made public a set of figures, attributed to the Pentagon’s National Guard Bureau, demonstrating the extensive enlistment in the Guard and the deployment of some guardsmen in Vietnam.

“When Dan Quayle joined the Army National Guard, Guard units were being called up and sent to Vietnam,” the campaign said. “There was no reason to believe that the policy of the (Lyndon B.) Johnson Administration to use the National Guard in Vietnam--started less than a year before Quayle joined--would not be increased. On the contrary, the policy to mobilize the Guard and use them in Vietnam was being exercised and was a viable option--particularly at the time when Dan Quayle signed up.”

And, in his acceptance speech Thursday night, Quayle declared: “As a young man, I served six years in the National Guard. And, like the millions of Americans who served in the Guard and who serve today--I am proud of that.”

Nevertheless, questions have been raised about Quayle’s motive for joining the Indiana-based military unit at a time when other men his age were being drafted and sent into combat. He said Wednesday that he had sought entry into the Guard so that he could attend law school.

The controversy has also raised questions about the how the campaign conducted its search for Bush’s running mate, whether the potentially damaging information had been fully disclosed by Quayle, whether it had been adequately assessed and, if it had, why the campaign decided to risk controversy by including Quayle on the ticket.

Sorting Out Details

The campaign strategists’ meetings focused on sorting out the details of Quayle’s enlistment, campaign sources said. They said that Robert Kimmitt, the former Navy officer and Washington lawyer who conducted the background checks of potential candidates, was restudying all the material submitted by Quayle when his name was first included on the running mate list.

Capt. Cathi A. Kiger, state public affairs officer for the Indiana National Guard, said an aide to Quayle obtained a copy of the senator’s military record from Guard headquarters in Indianapolis on Thursday. The record was then delivered to the Bush headquarters in New Orleans.

Capt. Kiger said Quayle enlisted in the Guard on May 19, 1969. He completed basic training at Ft. Bragg, N. C., and then underwent training as a welder at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

When he returned to Indiana, Quayle was assigned to the public information department and worked as a military journalist at Stout Field in Indianapolis--devoting one weekend a month and two weeks every summer to his military service. His duties eventually involved writing press releases about Guard activities. He was discharged on May 18, 1975.

When asked about the mood of the campaign as it sought to deal with the controversy, one official said: “I think it’s holding its breath to see whether it can be put behind us. I think it can. It may take a few days. The key is to gather all the information and lay it out.”

“There is a desire and a need to get a handle on this so we’re not being picked to pieces on something that was very difficult to anticipate,” the official said. “People are working on that to put together a strategy.”

Denies Lying to Bush

Former White House political adviser Edward J. Rollins said that, if Quayle misled the vice presidential search team, Bush would be justified in removing him from the ticket. Quayle, asked by reporters whether he had lied to the Bush campaign during the vice presidential selection process, replied, “No.”

One of Bush’s four sons, Marvin, showed unshakeable confidence that his father would keep the Indiana senator as his running mate.

“Dump somebody? Never happen,” he said to a reporter.

Among the convention delegates, there were mixed reactions to the reports about Quayle.

“If there was some influence exerted, then I think they ought to drop him from the ticket . . . . It certainly has detracted from the main thrust of the enthusiasm here,” said Rep. Joe Skeen of New Mexico.

If “there is clear evidence that the process may have been manipulated to give some kind of special preference, then I think it’s a problem . . . that needs to be resolved,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a Navy fighter pilot who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi.

But Gordon Pederson of Wall, S. D., a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said: “I was in three wars and a riot and see nothing wrong.”

Staff writers Douglas Jehl in Indianapolis and Frank Clifford, Cathleen Decker, Richard E. Meyer, Patt Morrison, Bob Secter and Robert Shogan in New Orleans contributed to this story.