The Education of a Standby

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The subjects made up an extraordinarily eclectic curriculum, and the teachers may well have been the most high-powered bunch ever assembled on or off a campus. For example:

Basic Budget Economics. Professor: Richard Darman, about to become head of the Office of Management and Budget.

Advanced Foreign Policy. Professors: Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State; and Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

How to Look Good on TV. Professor: Steve Studdert, an imagemaker for George Bush.

Problems of the Modern Vice Presidency. Professors: former Vice Presidents Richard Nixon and Walter Mondale.

Plus a course in the politics of southern Africa (professor: Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker), a tutorial on neoconservative thought (professor: Irving Kristol of the American Enterprise Institute), and a briefing on the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) by Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. And all for just one pupil: Vice President J. Danforth Quayle.

From Election Day to the start of Inauguration week, Quayle virtually hid out in his transition office opposite the White House. He gave no speeches or interviews, made no television appearances. Instead he devoted most of his time to cramming on subjects he will need to know a bit about if he is to give cogent advice to President Bush -- or take over If Something Happens. At least three times on most weekdays, including several sessions over lunch, Quayle tried to absorb the expertise communicated by the most knowledgeable tutors his staff could round up.

That such crash courses should be necessary spotlights Quayle's greatest difficulty. In his own words, delivered during an NBC television interview last week, he is still "a huge question mark" in the public's mind. That is putting it mildly: to many people the campaign image of an intellectual lightweight stubbornly lingers. In a Yankelovich Clancy Shulman poll taken for TIME before the Inauguration, half of those questioned had no particular impression of Quayle, and 30% viewed him unfavorably. Asked if Quayle is qualified to assume the presidency, 52% said no and only 30% said yes -- a poorer ratio than the negative vote he drew in August (44% no, 33% yes), when Bush had just selected him as running mate.

As the Inauguration neared, Quayle evidently felt more confident. At the start of last week, he agreed to a round of TV, newspaper and magazine interviews. He was assigned by Bush to get his first taste of diplomacy on a visit to Venezuela and two to four other Latin American nations only a couple of weeks after being sworn in. Though Quayle played the traditional role of Just Barely Visible Man through most of the Inaugural ceremonies, he delivered what some advisers called his own Inaugural Address at the concluding gala Saturday night. Quayle said he had come to appreciate Winston Churchill's classic line that "nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." He ridiculed the "self-importance" of the "Washington | Establishment" -- rather odd for the Vice President of an Administration dominated by such Establishment types as Bush and most members of the Cabinet.

As Vice President, Quayle asserts, his model will be -- surprise! -- Bush. Quayle will receive the same intelligence briefings as the President and sit in on Cabinet meetings, so he will be fully informed on policy. But, following Bush's wishes, Quayle will keep his mouth shut except when talking one on one with the President, whom he will serve as a general adviser on the whole range of policy issues. Like his predecessor, Quayle already has a standing once-a- week lunch date with his boss; they will eat together every Thursday. Quayle will also have some responsibility for space exploration and regulatory reform issues.

Quayle found especially valuable the tutoring of Democrat Mondale. Among other things, Mondale urged Quayle to avoid getting bogged down as head of dozens of presidential task forces and commissions. In Mondale's view, such assignments almost inevitably turn into trivial pursuits. It is no accident that most of Quayle's tutors were right of center. His instincts are deeply conservative, and though he insists he will not act as a "spear carrier" for the right, one conservative activist views him as a potential provider of "political intelligence" about what is going on in the Administration. Bush aides, however, see Quayle as an envoy to, rather than from, the right, "another set of eyes and ears" for the President. Says one: "If Dan Quayle can act as an address for the right wing of the party and make them feel included, that's all for the best. At the very least, maybe they won't be bothering the President as much as they might otherwise."

That will still leave Quayle with the problem of overcoming his bad public image. His strategy: to make himself increasingly useful to Bush; build on that relationship to win the respect of other Administration leaders and then members of Congress; and trust their confidence eventually to be reflected in the news media and among the public. If he can make that strategy succeed, the rewards can be great. Five of the past ten Vice Presidents have eventually moved into the Oval Office, and two more have been nominated by their parties for the White House. So the whole nation has a stake in whether the Vice President can gradually make the phrase President Quayle something other than a trigger for laughter -- or dismay.

With reporting by Dan Goodgame/Washington