The visit here last week of Colombia's president, Andres Pastrana, went off without a hitch, scheduled appointments on Capitol Hill were kept and a good time was had by all.

Things were much different a couple of weeks ago, however, when Navy Secretary John H. Dalton toured Latin America, including the Galapagos Islands. Dalton, his wife and a half-dozen officials were to go first to Colombia -- it's on the way -- for four days to meet with Pastrana, the defense minister, the commander of the navy and other military officials. The Colombians were excited because this was to be the first visit of a Navy secretary in recent memory, maybe ever.

A week before the visit, word came down that it would only be two days. But Dalton would leave Friday morning, Sept. 11, after going to Wake Forest to see Navy's opening football game. Then word came down Wednesday night before the planned trip that the whole visit was scrubbed. Dalton would fly over Colombia to Ecuador before going out to the Galapagos.

This left Ambassador Curtis W. Kamman personally apologizing to Pastrana and the other officials. People on both sides were upset at having spent weeks putting the trip together for nothing. Some folks mumbled that the Colombia trip was just cover to justify taking a Navy plane that costs $3,000 an hour to operate on a trip to the Galapagos.

Absolutely not so, said Capt. Craig Quigley, Navy spokesman. Ecuador was always part of the trip, as was the Galapagos. The archipelago about an hour off the coast "is considered by the Ecuadorian government to be a unique ecological treasure and something they like to showcase to visitors," Quigley said. When Dalton was in Ecuador in 1997, he promised the head of Ecuador's navy that he would come back and be their guest.

As for Colombia, Quigley said that was scrapped because "the U.S. government didn't think it was appropriate to send such a high-level official to Colombia at this time." But Dalton saw top officials in Ecuador and even had a last-minute meeting arranged with President Jamil Mahuad.

And as for the Galapagos, the group was only there for one evening and a morning of deep-sea fishing -- "no great success," Quigley said -- before taking off for Panama and Venezuela for meetings with military and civilian leaders in those countries.

In any event, there don't seem to be hard feelings. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen is going down that way in December. Dalton probably won't be there, since he's leaving office then. And the Senate by voice vote Friday confirmed former undersecretary Richard Danzig as the next secretary. A Painful Hurdle for U.S.-Japanese Relations

Speaking of military matters, there are now three, yes, three sets of people looking into how it was that a four-foot-high security barricade at the Pentagon popped up suddenly and slammed into the bottom of a limo carrying Japan's defense minister, Fukushiro Nukaga.

Nukaga was taken to a hospital with a sprained ankle and five aides riding with him got bumps and cuts in the incident. It was not, however, revenge for Pearl Harbor. The same thing happened to then-Secretary of Defense William J. Perry a few years ago, and there have been other incidents.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said the Defense Protection Service, which does local security, the manufacturers and an outside security consultant are going to look into it and try to figure out why these barriers to good relations keep coming up. Forgotten but Not Gone

How quickly we forget. An invitation to attend a fund-raiser in Dallas next month for Rep. Martin Frost (D-Tex.) came by last week. The invite lists the eight co-chairs of the event, including Ross PIROT Jr., son of Texas business executive and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. Pepperdine's Loss Could Be . . .

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt has offered independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr a new job after the Clinton investigations are over: adviser on pornography.

"After a reading of the Starr report I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work," Flynt wrote Starr last week, according to Reuters. "The quality and quantity of material you have assembled in the Starr report contains more pornographic references than those provided by Hustler Online services this month." Flynt said this month's Hustler Online Magazine had 44 graphic references to genitalia, while the Starr report had 50.

"I congratulate you for having opened the doors of libraries and schools to pornographic literature," Flynt wrote. "Those of us at Hustler need your assistance in extending the parameters of pornography to a wider community of adults. You have opened a new era in promoting explicit sexual materials."

No salary figures were mentioned. Changes at Treasury, Race Initiative Office Michelle Andrews Smith, now director of public affairs at Treasury, moves up to be deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. Lydia Sermons, press secretary for the president's race initiative, which is about finished with its work, takes Smith's place as director of public affairs. Also, David Chai, deputy press secretary in the race initiative office, is moving to be deputy director of communications for Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D).

Race initiative executive director Judy Winston, who has the option of going back to the Department of Education as general counsel, is going to take some time off.