Quayle Concedes Resume Erred on Investigative Job

Sen. Dan Quayle conceded today that a portion of his resume indicating that he spent two years as the chief consumer investigator for the Indiana attorney general’s office is “inaccurate.”

Quayle said that he does not know how the error occurred but that his staff was responsible for putting together his resume.

Quayle’s official Senate biography states that from 1970 to 1971, he was the “chief investigator” for the consumer protection division of the Indiana attorney general’s office.

But the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported today that Quayle actually held that position only 2 1/2 months.

No ‘Exact Time Frame’

“If it (the biography) indicated that, that is inaccurate. I didn’t hold that job for two years,” Quayle told reporters aboard his campaign plane.

He acknowledged that he held the job for “several months” but said he did not have “an exact time frame.”

The paper said he was an entry-level research assistant for most of his time in the office.

Earlier, however, Quayle press secretary David Prosperi called the newspaper report “a cheap shot” and said: “He held the office. He worked his way up to that position and that’s that.”

“The important point is that he held the job. He didn’t make it up,” Prosperi said.

‘Just Helped Set It Up’

The Plain Dealer said that the consumer protection division didn’t even exist in 1970 and that Quayle had already gone to work in the governor’s office when it was officially opened.

“He just helped set it up,” said Robert E. Lybrook, a Martinsville, Ind., lawyer who became the chief investigator when the division officially opened for business in September, 1971.

“He wasn’t chief of anything when he went over there,” added M. Stanton Evans, a former editor at the Indianapolis News who arranged Quayle’s job interview with then-Atty. Gen. Theodore L. Sendak.