Marilyn Quayle Talks About The Press, Pet Projects And Growing Old With The Vice President -- The Second Lady

Jan 4, 1990

Glenn Plaskin

Merit, as her prom queen sister Nancy nicknamed her, was the family bookworm, a brainy girl inculcated with the Indianapolis values of her wealthy, conservative, God-fearing physician parents. After breezing through Purdue in political science, she was pursuing a career in law, and her mind was made up: She wanted a name for herself, not a husband, not children. And then she fell in love with a fraternity jock named Dan.

Eight months pregnant and determined not to miss her bar exam, Dan's ponytailed bride coolly instructed her obstetrician to induce an early birth. He did, little Tucker came into the world and Merit took the bar sitting, a friend remembers, ``on a little rubber doughnut.''

A few years later, she gave up her lawyer dreams when her smoothie made his first bid for Congress. Merit decided then why she had been put on this earth. ``You shake the hands,'' she told him. ``I'll do the rest.''

And for 13 years, that's what Marilyn Quayle has been doing. She remains his ardent defender, quick to unleash her fury on those, and there are many, who believe the vice president of the United States to be trivial. Extremely wary of the press, she seldom grants interviews, and those she gives are usually brief and no-nonsense. The 40-year-old second lady recently sat for a chat (before the pre-Christmas stir about a misspelled word in a Christmas card the Quayles sent out) in the vice presidential mansion at the U.S. Naval Observatory.

How have your children adjusted to vice presidential life?

They've been calling senators and congressmen by their first names for years, so it wasn't as much of an adjustment as it might have been. Dan's job, to them, is like any father moving up in his career. They don't think it's that big a deal and I don't want them to. They're normal, happy kids. I want them to stay that way.

With the avalanche of negative publicity that you started with, is it true one of your sons was so hurt he left notes on your pillow?

Yes, Benjamin and his little friends would write rebuttals to every attack. Those kids and their families know Dan, and (the attacks) were shocking, so they closed in ranks around our kids and wouldn't let anything touch them.

But did your children ever come to you and ask why the press was attacking?

(Long pause) We were very open with the kids . . . and they never saw us get upset, so why should they be upset?

But they were - and how could you not have been upset with the entire world zoning in on your husband's weaknesses?

(Laughter) Yes, but you see, I knew what the truth was and that makes a big difference. I had real faith that the American people would see through the attacks . . . which they did.

So if your husband wasn't a straight-A student, journalists spring into their attack mode?

Does it matter that the CEO of any major corporation wasn't (a straight-A student) either? Or that Peter Jennings wasn't? Once you've proven yourself, things you did when you were 19 shouldn't make any difference at all. It's your work performance that counts.

Perhaps one problem is the vice president's misstatements.

Things come out wrong. So what? Everybody makes mistakes. Most people don't have those sentences cut and spliced and flashing over and over and over again on TV.

You're saying TV journalists flash his mistakes relentlessly to make the point that somehow he's just not competent?

Sure. Sure. It would be a pretty sorry world if people weren't allowed to slip up and be human. You don't want anyone who is rotely perfect running the country.

Is Garry Trudeau (who writes ``Doonesbury'') popular in your house?

Not very. The family much prefers ``Marvin.''

But what do you think of Trudeau's attitude toward the vice president?

Not funny. Mean and vicious.

Your husband wasn't the only one to get the knife. How did you feel when your hairdo and inaugural hat were criticized?

Oh, I loved it. My mail quadruples whenever there is an attack on my appearance. I get tons of letters saying, ``We love you like you are; don't change.''

Is it true you had terrible problems finding an identity for yourself in Washington?

I wouldn't say terrible problems. I was re-evaluating how I could best utilize my time. I realized that everything I did had the potential of being on the front page of a newspaper, and I certainly didn't want to make any mistakes.

As second ladies, Lady Bird Johnson chose gardening as her pet project, Joan Mondale American art. You were somewhat more adventurous.

I just evolved. I decided to spend the bulk of my time with preparedness and mitigation for natural disasters - hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanos, in addition to some gray areas, like oil spills. I'm interested in educating our children about what to do in a disaster; getting big business involved in disaster prevention; educating government agencies to have early warning systems, and encouraging research-sharing internationally.

In a recent profile, a friend said of you: ``Winning is the name of the game for her.'' True?

That was an unnamed source. (Bitterly) That's the one thing I've learned this year. If somebody says something ugly, they never allow their name to be used.

Hard work is the Marilyn Quayle motto - first with a law practice of your own, raising three children, diving into reams of legislative proposals as adviser to Sen. Quayle, and now your semi-official role as the administration's disaster troubleshooter. Why do you not consider yourself a feminist?

I agree that women are equal to men, deserve equal pay and can do everything men can. But I also think that you don't have to give up your essential femininity to want all of those things. There are real differences between men and women. That's biology.

You say men and women are equal, yet you have been the caretaker in this marriage, enabling your husband's career to flourish while you sacrificed your own. Do you ever wish you hadn't?

(Pause) At this point in time, not . . . no . . . if it weren't for what we did, going to Congress, going to the Senate, I'd still be a small-time lawyer in Huntington, Ind. I obviously gave up a legal career, but the other opportunities I've had just totally made up for that. And I don't look at the bad side of things anyway. I make the best out of whatever happens. And I teach my children to do the same thing.

With adolescent children, do you worry about the temptations of drugs, alcohol and sex?

We set the guidelines for our children when they were very young, kept reinforcing them, and now the principles to live by have to be deeply inside them. They have to make their own decisions. If they come to me for advice, I give it freely. (Laughter)

Nowadays, 15-year-olds are learning about how to manipulate condoms. When you were 15, were they telling you about that?

(Uproarious laughter) In an ideal world, it would not be necessary. Our children started sex education in the fifth grade and I went in and screened everything they were going to watch. I think the first thing any sex education program should say is: There is no such thing as safe sex for 15-year-olds.

Why not?

Forgetting disease, sex is not safe emotionally. Safe sex for anyone under 20 is impossible because you're not able to deal with the psychological consequences of sexual encounters. It doesn't help anyone's self-image or ability to deal with life.

Yet you surely realize that sex among teen-agers is commonplace.

It's rampant. And that's why we should start changing our word usage about supposed ``safe sex.'' But if they're going to go ahead, schools can tell children how to protect themselves from disease, but parents should keep pounding home that the best protection is abstinence.

But if a teen-age girl gets pregnant, or in the worst-case scenario is raped or suffers incest, where do you stand on abortion?

(Long, long pause) I think that anyone who is raped should report it absolutely immediately, and every step should be taken to ensure that a pregnancy has not occurred. Something like the French morning-after pill, if proven effective, would be very appropriate and would lessen the psychological trauma of a rape victim.

But what about a regular career woman who doesn't want to have a child, who isn't married, but gets pregnant anyway?

I'm not going to talk about the abortion issue. I think we ought to turn the entire discussion to personal responsibility.

So you're not pro-choice?

We should all be responsible for our actions and understand that you have a real choice before the act. That's where the choice is, before you do it, rather than after. Absolutely. We're not stupid animals.

Are you saying a couple needs to be married to have sex, even at age 20?

I think ideally that's something we should all strive for, but I'm not naive. I realize the hormones are raging. I teach my children that free and easy personal relationships are very destabilizing for society as a whole.

What of your relationship with the vice president?

I love continuity and the beauty of a long-term relationship, and I can't think of anything more exciting than growing old with Dan Quayle. Each year, it's more fun. It is.

What do you like about the vice president?

I didn't marry the vice president. He's terrifically humorous, very bright, and we complement one another. He's the big-picture person, and I fill in.

When you married him, you'd known him only 10 weeks. I've known some of my shoes longer. (Laughter) If your daughter came home and said she was going to marry after knowing someone 10 weeks, what would you tell her?

Depends on how old she was. I was 23.

But you were a law student.

Right, and I had not planned on getting married. Period. I wasn't going to have kids. I was going to practice law and make a name for myself. But you don't plan life. Dan had everything that complemented me - commitment to family, a willingness to work things out, an understanding that things don't come easily. You work for everything you get.

What do you say to the people who report that you boss your husband around, giving the vice president little physical cues, telling him when to put on a lid on it?

I loved it when they said all of that. Do you know how much I traveled with my husband before the election? Two weeks. After that, I had my own plane and was never with him. How could I have been this omnipresent force?

Yet wives do order their husbands around occasionally, no?

Of course, you discuss things. That's what makes a good marriage. I seek advice from Dan all the time on what I'm doing.

So you're not the power behind the throne?

(Laughter) Of course not. I think it's rather humorous. And I also think it's actually very insulting.