SOME PEOPLE THINK H. ROSS PEROT, the bantam-size Texas billionaire, has a savior complex. They say he likes to do the impossible. Lord knows, he tries. In 1969 he spent $1.5 million of his own money in a failed plan to bring food and medical supplies to American POWs held captive in North Vietnam. Ten years later he organized and paid a commando team to rescue two of his computer-company employees from an Iranian prison. Now the self-styled corporate cowboy wants to clean out the Augean stables of the republic. If volunteers using petitions can get him on the ballot in all 50 states, he recently announced, he would run as a third-party presidential candidate and dedicate himself to a populist overhaul of the American political system. "The framers of the Constitution meant for this to be a government by and for the people," he says. "And that's what's going on. The owners are going to reclaim the country."
In the world of politics there are gadflies, and then there are gadflies worth $3 billion. That's why Perot, 61, who has never held public office, isn't likely to get himself laughed off the front pages. But what really got the attention of political establishmentarians in both parties was the instantaneous public response. The day after Perot appeared on Donahue to discuss his possible presidential bid, supporters say the toll-free phone banks he had set up were swamped by some 500,000 callers inquiring how they could help circulate ballot petitions.
Like Pat Buchanan and Jerry Brown, the other mavericks of this dizzying political season, Perot brings an evangelical zeal to his enterprise. He says that if indeed he does run, he will not accept federal funds—meaning that he will be unencumbered by any spending limits—and is prepared to shell out as much as $100 million of his own money on the campaign. (The Republican and Democratic candidates, meanwhile, will each receive a $55 million federal grant for their campaigns.)
It's not yet clear which party Perot, a longtime independent, would hurt more if he did run on a third-party ticket. (Last week he named James Stockdale, a retired Navy admiral and former POW in North Vietnam, as his interim running mate.) His own political views—at least the few he has articulated over the years—span the spectrum. On the one hand he is outspokenly prochoice on abortion and a supporter of gun control. Despite his reputation as a superpatriot, he also opposed last year's Gulf War. He says he would consider ending Social Security and Medicare payments to the affluent elderly, though he also favors changes in the capital-gains tax and the formation of an alliance between government and business to implement industrial policy. But his main proposal is to create a kind of electronic town hall. As Perot envisions it, in his administration he would describe policy alternatives in speeches to voters who would then register their choice through the use of interactive cable television and telephone voting, thereby putting pressure on Congress to go along. Using such a system, says Perot, "the White House and the Congress can understand what the owners want. From that point forward, it's execute, execute, execute. Right now it's talk, talk, talk."
To his critics, Perot's ideas seem hopelessly naive. "Politics is the art of compromise, not dictatorship, and his experience is as the boss," says Democratic consultant Robert Squier. "We don't hire a man as President to boss us around." Even sometime admirers like Molly Ivins, the iconoclastic columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, tend to agree. "He's far from being a standard Dallas right-wing billionaire. He's a genuinely valuable public citizen," she says. "But the skills that make one good in business aren't necessarily the same skills needed to successfully run a government." But when it comes to selling anything—most of all himself—it may be a mistake to underestimate Perot. He was born and raised in humble circumstances in Texarkana, Tex., and while not poor, he, his sister Bette, now 63, mother Lulu and father Gabriel, who worked as a cotton broker, had to scrape to get by. As a schoolboy he launched a letter-writing campaign to Congressmen and—though he'd never seen the sea—managed to get himself an appointment to Annapolis. "When I got to the Naval Academy, they issued me two pairs of shoes," he says. "I wondered what the other pair was for. This was my first example of government waste." While at Annapolis he met his future wife, college student Margot Birmingham, on a blind date. When his four years of active duty were up, Perot joined IBM and quickly became the company's top salesman five years in a row.
Believing that he could make even more money on his own, Perot and his wife put up $1,000 in 1962 and started a software company called Electronic Data Services, later known as EDS. Six years later, thanks to Perot's single-mindedness and diligence, the burgeoning business, which specialized in devising computer systems, went public; suddenly Perot was worth $220 million. Perot also earned a reputation as a boss who took care of those who worked for him. The saga of his efforts to free his two unit managers from a prison in Teheran became a best-selling thriller, On Wings of Eagles, by Ken Follett, and made Perot an instant folk hero. His wealth also increased when General Motors bought EDS for $2.5 billion in 1984 and invited him to join its board. Perot bickered constantly with the GM brass over what he saw as the need to streamline operations; two years later the company paid him $742 million to go away quietly. Since then Perot has invested in real estate and other business ventures. He has already started to turn over some control of his empire to son Ross Jr., 34.
Despite all his wealth, Perot styles himself as a simple man. True, his office in downtown Dallas is almost breathtakingly lavish, filled with more than a dozen Western sculptures by Frederic Remington and a host of expensive paintings. And his heavily guarded 22-acre estate outside the city boasts a pool, tennis courts and a gymnasium. Yet by the standards of Texas plutocrats, he is fairly unaffected in his tastes and habits. He still drives himself around town in his '84 Oldsmobile. He keeps his 5'6" frame in trim by running four miles every other day. But aside from spending time with his wife, son, four daughters and grandchildren, his real delight is windsurfing at night off his vacation home at Lake Texoma. "On a pretty, star-filled night, that's as close to heaven as you can get," he says. "You're just out there, gliding along."
The path to a credible presidential campaign won't be nearly so smooth. Perot faces almost overwhelming obstacles to raising the number of signatures needed to get his name on the ballot in every state. Meantime, he will have the opportunity to bask in the limelight and air his views for voters who seem hungry for fresh ideas and faces. If nothing else, the experience will furnish yet another chapter in a remarkable life. "So many people spend their lives chasing money and end up as the richest men in the cemetery," Perot says. "I don't want to be like that."
BILL HEWITT
KENT DEMARET in Dallas and SARAH SKOLNIK in Washington. D.C.
- Contributors:
- Kent Demaret,
- Sarah Skolnik.
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