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THURSDAY, 28 MARCH 2002
Death Threat From Dan Quayle
Threat was real, says Lange
Former Prime Minister David Lange says he never felt intimidated
by an
alleged death threat from former
US vice-president Dan Quayle because he couldn't take seriously
a man "who
can't spell tomato".
Mr Lange told One News in an interview broadcast last night that
Mr Quayle
had told the Australian Cabinet during
a visit in 1989 "that I would have to be liquidated" because of
New
Zealand's anti-nuclear stance.
The US Embassy denies the threat was ever made.
However, Mr Lange today told The Post that Mr Quayle and
American Navy
officials had made threats on his life.
He said Mr Quayle's threat had been passed on by an Australian
Cabinet
Minister, who he declined to name.
"I'm not making this up . . . It's very hard for people to
realise the
atmosphere and the emotion of the time. You
had a lot of very aggrieved people associated with defence in
the United
States."
Mr Lange didn't mention the threat to any other Cabinet
Ministers but did
pass it on to the Security Intelligence
Service, who investigated and reported that Mr Quayle wasn't to
be taken
seriously.
"He wasn't taken seriously by his own folk, that was the
tragedy," Mr Lange
said. "I didn't feel at risk from the US
Navy because they didn't come here anyway, and I certainly
wouldn't be at
risk from a chap who couldn't spell
tomato."
Mr Quayle - George Bush senior's vice-president from 1989 to
1993 - was
regarded as a figure of fun for his
repeated verbal gaffes.
In 1992, he corrected a child who had spelled "potato" on a
blackboard
during a spelling bee - making the boy add
an "e" at the end of the word. The incorrect word was not
"tomato" as Mr
Lange recalls.
A US Embassy spokeswoman said it hated to challenge the memory
of a former
prime minister but the suggestion
that Vice-President Quayle would threaten to kill Mr Lange was
"preposterous".
Neither the Australian Embassy nor Prime Minister Helen Clark's
office had
any comment.
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