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Mixes All-Americanism, Humor : Globe-Trotting in Asia, Quayle a ‘Happy Camper’

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Times Staff Writer

Richard M. Nixon’s foreign travels as vice president are remembered mostly for his “kitchen debate” with Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev on the comparative merits of communism and capitalism.

When George Bush was vice president, he was the official funeral-goer, traveling overseas regularly to attend the last rites of such foreign dignitaries as Soviet leaders Leonid I. Brezhnev and Konstantin U. Chernenko.

Now, Dan Quayle is putting his personal imprint on the institution of vice presidential globe-trotting during a four-nation, 27,000-mile swing through Asia.

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Quayle, it appears, will be exporting the eternal values of American boyhood: cheery optimism, a dislike for routine and detail and a consuming passion for sports.

On the very first stop of his trip across the Pacific, a two-hour refueling at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, Quayle donned a sleeveless black T-shirt and pale yellow gym shorts for a 3 a.m. game of basketball. The vice president, 42, demonstrated an ability to make a jump shot from the foul line. A few hours later, at another refueling stop, in American Samoa, Quayle looked out at an airport crowd of about 2,000 schoolchildren and uttered his most memorable line of the trip so far:

“You all look like happy campers. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been and happy campers you will always be.”

To his own considerable delight, Quayle then declared it a school holiday in American Samoa. The Samoan children cheered.

Since then, during five days in Australia and a day in Indonesia, Quayle has met with a series of foreign leaders and been guest of honor at two black-tie dinners. He has jogged, played tennis and golf and gone scuba diving and pub crawling.

He has made no weighty foreign policy pronouncements. On the other hand, he has made no major errors, at least nothing so lasting or damaging as, for example, Bush’s 1981 vice presidential visit to Manila, when he told Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos that “we love your adherence to democratic principles.” Political opponents of Marcos were infuriated.

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So far, Quayle’s only gaffes have been inconsequential. He has trouble with names and places. Arriving in Australia at the end of his tiring journey across the Pacific, he referred to Pago Pago as “Pogo Pogo.”

Before becoming vice president, Quayle had been to Asia only once: As a member of the House of Representatives, in the late 1970s, he took part in a parliamentary exchange program with Japan.

This is his second trip abroad as vice president. The first was a three-day visit to Venezuela and El Salvador in February.

Quayle seems to chafe at the lack of spontaneity in an organized vice presidential trip abroad and to yearn for free time to enjoy himself as a private citizen would.

Typically, on Sunday, the final day of his five-day visit to Australia, Quayle and his wife, Marilyn, spent most of the day scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef--then delayed their departure for Indonesia so that they could get in a last quick round of tennis.

Officials at the luxury resort hotel where Quayle and his party were staying, the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, were so annoyed at the Quayles’ change in plans that they tried to add on an extra night’s room charge--$200 a person--for late checkout. This would have cost the U.S. government an extra $3,000 just for the 15 Secret Service agents in the party.

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Quayle spokesman David Beckwith reported later that after protests from Quayle’s staff, the hotel agreed to drop the extra fees.

This spontaneity and Quayle’s photogeneity and youthful good cheer often win him friends. In Sydney last Friday, to the astonishment of Australian security officials, Quayle said in the middle of the afternoon that he wanted to visit a pub. After quick consultation, Sydney officials took him to a pub called the Lord Nelson, where, beer in hand, Quayle made the rounds.

“Tell your friends you met me,” he said to Ann Larsen, 25, an IBM administrator who was sitting at a table with a girlfriend. “They won’t believe you. They’ll say you’ve been down at the Lord Nelson too long.”

“He’s much younger than I expected,” Larsen told reporters later. “ . . . He’s so cute.”

In press conferences, Quayle has demonstrated a tendency to deflect questions with genial humor in a way that is reminiscent of former President Ronald Reagan.

In Canberra, Australia, a New Zealand reporter asked Quayle why he was not visiting her country while he was in the South Pacific. The United States is bitterly opposed to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policies, but Quayle avoided the foreign policy dispute.

“We are going to Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Alaska, Washington, D.C.,” he told the reporter. “I came from Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Hawaii, American Samoa, Australia. It is a good trip. I’m having fun. And I intend to have more fun.” The Australian audience laughed.

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Indeed, on his foreign travels, Quayle has demonstrated some other Reaganesque qualities, as if he, more than President Bush, were the true heir to Reagan’s political style. Like the former President, Quayle conveys a sense of wealth and optimism. And, as was the case with Reagan, Quayle’s reputation for simplicity and lack of intellect can sometimes be as much an asset as a liability. Because Quayle is so genial and self-deprecating, audiences seem to make allowances for his slips of the tongue and non sequiturs.

Also like the former President, Quayle has a strong-willed wife. During the past week, Marilyn Quayle has exhibited a disdain, bordering on abhorrence, for the press coverage she attracts and the public duties she is asked to perform as the vice president’s wife.

She avoided speaking to or even looking at the 10 reporters on Air Force 2 for the first three days of the trip. Finally, one day she walked to the press section of the plane and said, “My husband said I had to come back, that you had been complaining.” Then, after talking with the reporters for less than five minutes, she turned around and walked off. “I’ve done my duty,” she said.

At an elementary school in Melbourne, Mrs. Quayle told a group of Australian children: “In my original job, I’m a lawyer. But since my husband became vice president, I have a lot of duties to perform for him. So I’m not sure I can practice law, although I’d like to.”

One student asked Mrs. Quayle whether she had ever thought she would be the wife of the vice president.

“No,” she replied. “That was not on my agenda.”

QUAYLE SEES SIHANOUK--Cambodian resistance leader says Khmer Rouge must play role in a new regime. Page 7

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