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Subject: Charges Revisited Bitterly by Perot; Lack of Dirty Tricks Evidence
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 04:30:23 EST
Message-ID: <3.1992Oct27.043023@AmeriCast.com>

Charges Revisited Bitterly by Perot; Lack of Dirty Tricks Evi-
dence Acknowledged; White House, GOP Denials Accepted at Word<By
Michael Isikoff and John Mintz=Washington Post Staff Writers=

A day after claiming that Republican "dirty tricks" operatives
plotted to wiretap his office and disrupt his daughter's wedding,
Ross Perot acknowledged yesterday that he has no evidence to sup-
port the charges and said he accepted the word of White House and
Bush-Quayle campaign officials that they had not been involved in
any such effort.<

But interrupting a briefing being given by his aides in Dallas,
the independent presidential candidate did not retract the
charges, insisting that his concern for his daughter was what
prompted him to abandon his campaign in July and suggesting that
the fact that nobody from the White House has "personally" denied
the  charges to him meant they could be true.

Perot, at times bitter and vitriolic, also criticized the news
media for questioning his veracity, charged that Democratic nom-
inee  Bill Clinton wanted to move the country "toward socialism"
and acknowledged under questioning that he had installed a secret
taping system on his office telephone to record phone calls from
threatening and "irrational" people.

"I am sick and tired of you all questioning my integrity without
a basis for it," Perot told reporters. "I am sick and tired of
you ignoring the people who can confirm the articles when you
print or run your stories."

Both Clinton and President Bush  said little about the controver-
sy, as the Texas billionaire again dominated the presidential
campaign as it moves into its final week. But White House press
secretary Marlin Fitzwater compared Perot to someone who believes
in UFOs and said the news media are the "only ones left who can
investigate . . . and prevent us from electing a paranoid person
who has delusions."

At rallies on Sunday in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and on CBS's
"60 Minutes" Sunday night, Perot charged that three people told
him that top Republicans were planning to use an altered photo-
graph of his daughter, to humiliate her at her wedding, scheduled
for Aug. 23. He also said that after he quit the race, he learned
of supposed Republican attempts to wiretap his office and elec-
tronically manipulate his international business communications
to harm him financially so he could not rejoin the presidential
contest. White House officials were quoted as denying the
charges.

"I accept their word," Perot said yesterday.  But then he said,
"If you wanted the millions of people who supported (Perot for
president) to support you, wouldn't you at least call back and
say, 'We've looked into this, we didn't do it, we don't know any-
body that did it?' "

"As you run your bizarre stories and your twisted, slanted
stories," Perot told reporters, "just remember that . . . the
Republican Party had a chance to look me in the eye and say,
'Ross . . . there's not a word of truth to it.' Nobody ever
brought it up."

Perot for years has shown a penchant for what his critics charge
are stories alleging vast conspiracies arrayed against the coun-
try or him personally. His acquaintances describe a man who likes
to swap information with like-minded people, especially concern-
ing allegations that U.S. officials are suppressing evidence that
there are living Americans held as prisoners of war in Southeast
Asia.

One man with whom Perot has traded information for years,  Scott
Barnes, is a central figure in Perot's latest allegations against
the Republicans. Barnes, a former police officer who government
officials say has fabricated many stories about working as a
secret agent and being sent overseas to assassinate people.

Perot has refused to identify those who told him that top Repub-
licans were planning dirty tricks against him, but has said
Barnes was one of his main sources on both rumors about Republi-
can activities: that they planned to alter a photograph of Caro-
line Perot and to wiretap his office.

"Mr. Barnes, it seems, has been playing into Mr. Perot's worst
instincts and dark side and it's not a pretty picture," said
James Oberwetter, the chairman of the Bush-Quayle campaign in
Texas, who was the apparent target of an FBI sting attempt based
on Barnes's allegations the Republicans had hired Barnes to wire-
tap Perot last summer. "I think he's been kind of feeding this."

Barnes could not be reached for comment yesterday. His business
and home telephones had been disconnected.  After announcing that
he would not run, Perot said yesterday, Bush called him to ask
for his support, and they agreed on an Aug. 4 meeting. Perot said
he then told an intermediary that at the meeting "one thing
that's going right at the top of the agenda" was "this plan to
smear my daughter at her wedding." Perot said the White House
then canceled the meeting. White House officials have said it was
postponed.

Later, in the weeks before rejoining the race, Perot twice visit-
ed White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III at home, and
Perot said he "made it crystal clear . . . that this was one
bridge that the president and I had to cross. I never heard
back."

Margaret Tutwiler, Baker's top political aide, said yesterday
that in one of his two talks with Baker, Perot brought up in gen-
eral the issue of Republican dirty tricks against his campaign.
"He did not ask Baker to do anything," she said. "Mr.  Baker's
immediate reaction was it seemed far-fetched."

When Bush called Perot, the billionaire made "no mention whatso-
ever" of dirty tricks, Tutwiler said.

Perot's account of learning of a doctored photograph of his
daughter is one version of a rumor that was circulating among his
campaign aides last July when he suddenly abandoned his presiden-
tial bid, saying at the time that he did not want to disrupt the
country by possibly throwing the election into the House of
Representatives.

Some former Perot campaign aides said yesterday they heard dif-
ferent versions of the story at the time.

"There were a lot of stories floating around," said Sal Russo,
one of Perot's former media advisers. "It was your typical nut-
case kind of deal that comes up in presidential campaigns and no-
body pays any attention to. But Perot is not used to political
campaigns. . . . I could see how this kind of thing could have
mushroomed in his mind."

Referring to the the report about the photo, Perot said yester-
day: "I could not prove that this occurred, but I had these mul-
tiple reports, and it was a risk (of disrupting her wedding) I
could not take."

Perot said he was first tipped off by "a prominent Republican"
who told him that early in the summer, when Perot was surging in
the polls, others in his party discussed how to harm Perot, and
they agreed "he adores his family."

Then Barnes told him GOP leaders were going to leak the photo to
tabloids to ruin Caroline's wedding. Later another Republican
mentioned the same story, Perot said.

It was Barnes who apparently convinced Perot of the other part of
the alleged Republican plot - a supposed plan to wiretap his of-
fice telephone. According to Republican campaign officials,
Barnes began calling the Bush-Quayle campaign repeatedly last
summer, offering them secret documents and other material that he
claimed would embarrass the Texas businessman.

At the same time, Barnes was calling Perot and contacting news
organizations, claiming he had been hired by the Bush-Quayle "op-
position research" unit to wiretap Perot. The FBI initiated an
investigation in August and even sent an undercover agent posing
as a colleague of Barnes to offer Oberwetter a tape of Perot,
which Oberwetter refused.

In a rare public statement on an ongoing investigation, FBI
Director William S. Sessions yesterday said the allegation of
conspiracy to wiretap Perot's telephone "was investigated and no
evidence of criminality has been found."

 Oberwetter said he had rebuffed four efforts this year - three
by Barnes and one by the undercover FBI agent - to feed him
damaging information on Perot: "I believe I'm owed an apology by
the FBI."

 Perot also said at yesterday's  news conference that Clinton and
the Democrats  "want to go toward socialism. That won't work, ei-
ther."

 Asked later what he meant, Perot said: "I don't want to over-
state that. I'm just saying they're moving toward more and more
and more and more government, and the world's experience has been
that that is not effective, too."

At Perot headquarters, campaign aides reported  that a vast ma-
jority of about 15,000 voters who called the campaign telephone
bank denounced the news media for the controversy.

 "The people think that type of story doesn't have anything to do
with our campaign," said Tommy Attaway, director of the Perot
telephone operations.<

Staff writer David Maraniss in Dallas contributed to this re-
port.<02:04 10-27C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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