Back Home Again in Indiana : Press Plays the Heavy as Capra Movie Comes to Life

Picture the happiest, proudest, flag-wavingest little town that a Frank Capra could have imagined, all decked out in a blanket of red, white and blue for the triumphal return of the hometown hero.

People are gathered by the thousands in front of the county courthouse--just across the tracks from the newspaper and within spitting distance of the Army recruiting center--which is covered with a huge American flag. The band strikes up a patriotic tune and soon the throng gets to hear the vice president of the United States sing the praises of the local boy who made good.

Something Wrong

But something is about to go wrong in the second reel--the hometown hero seems perturbed with some guests that have come along with him and the guests are snapping back. The crowd is quick to defend one of its own and turns angry.

There are shouts, hisses, jeers. “Get out of town,” one man shouts. People glare at the interlopers, making the thumbs-down sign and worse.

That was the scene Friday in Huntington, population 16,000, on the day Sen. Dan Quayle brought Vice President George Bush home to meet the folks.

Old-Fashioned Rally

The plan was for Bush and Quayle, the just-nominated Republican candidates for President and vice president, to launch their campaign with an old-fashioned patriotic rally in the northeast Indiana community where Quayle spent much of his youth and where he once ran the local family-owned newspaper.

But although the rally went well, the image that is likely to linger from the campaign send-off will be of a loud and ugly standoff between the senator and his local admirers on one hand and the news media on the other.

After the speeches, Quayle stepped over to the crush of reporters traveling with him to answer their questions about a growing controversy involving his military record. Published reports have suggested that the 41-year-old lawmaker may have used family clout in 1969 to secure a spot in the Indiana National Guard and possibly avoid combat in Vietnam.

Cheering Section

Campaign officials piped the press conference over the public address system at the rally, which turned the crowd into a built-in cheering section for Quayle every time he took exception to the accusatory tone of the questions.

“I can assure you I never asked anybody to break any rules and I would never ask anybody to break any rules,” Quayle insisted to the approving roar of his fans.

Time and again, the crowd booed the questioners. Reporters, some suspecting that the campaign had orchestrated the confrontation to make them appear as impolite heavies before the partisan hometown crowd, shouted more questions.

Denial Issued

A senior campaign official, speaking on condition that his name not be used, later denied that the situation had been stage-managed.

Proud of Quayle and his rise to national prominence, local residents clearly felt that the press was taking cheap shots at the lawmaker even before the rally began. Sprinkled among the sea of “Bush-Quayle” banners in the crowd were other signs with anti-press themes. “Quayle Country, Media Poachers Beware,” one read. “Save the Quayles From Media Bull,” read another.

“I don’t blame him for not going to Vietnam if he could serve somewhere else,” said Virginia Allen of nearby Muncie. “I’ve done everything for my kids that I could do and if the same situation had come, I’d do everything I could to get them out of it.”

Said David Summers, 37, like Quayle a National Guard veteran: “Dan Quayle is no less a patriot for his service. Dan Quayle is a good, clean, decent man, and I think it’s time the national media understand about this.”