How to Stretch Household Budget

Marilyn Quayle, wife of Vice President Dan Quayle, knows something about the corridors of power. The House Appropriations Committee last week voted to add $200,000 for the care of the government mansion occupied by the Quayles--ostensibly because of the personal lobbying by Mrs. Quayle. The genesis of the story is tied to Mrs. Quayle’s decision to convert storage space into a bath and bedrooms for her three children. Her efforts to secure the necessary funds, however, were directed not at Budget Director Richard G. Darman but rather at Aubrey (Tex) Gunnels, 71, staff director of an appropriations subcommittee, who was personally invited to the mansion to review her plans, the Congressional Quarterly reported. Although denying that Mrs. Quayle had made a formal request for the money, Denise Balzano, Mrs. Quayle’s chief of staff, said: “It looks like (Gunnels) has been helpful.”

--”In a sense, the story of the British monarchy is a glorious 1,000-year-long soap opera, a ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Dallas’ put together . . . with even more money than Joan Collins.” That’s Michele Brown’s opinion and as curator of the Royal Britain exhibition in London, she should be heard. But judging by a Gallup survey, most Britons are being turned off by the long-running soap opera. Eight out of 10 people, for instance, do not know that George III was the last British monarch to rule over America. Forty percent of men versus 28% of women knew that Charles I was the only monarch beheaded, while 71% of women versus 55% of men correctly named Prince William, eldest son of Prince Charles, as first in line to the throne after his father. The survey of 971 people was intended to help evaluate the exhibition’s worth as a purveyor of information. Brown said: “I think it’s riveting to know that it was George II who died on the lavatory back in 1760.”

--For Billy Graham, it was a different time, and, seemingly, a different place. The globe-trotting evangelist took Budapest, Hungary, by storm, as a crowd of 90,000 believers and the curious packed an open-air stadium to hear his sermon. Graham, 70, making his first visit to Hungary in 12 years, offered veiled praise for the political reforms currently under way in the Soviet Bloc country. “Here in Hungary, you are beginning a new life,” he said. “Things are changing.” But he warned: “If you go on with your alcoholism and breakup of the family and the suicide rate, you could soon bring this country to an end.” Hungary leads the world in suicides and has one of the highest rates of divorce and alcohol abuse.