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Subject: Now Perot Faces Credibility Questions; Candidate Has Made Contradictory
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 04:29:59 EST
Message-ID: <22.1992Oct29.042959@AmeriCast.com>

Now Perot Faces Credibility Questions; Candidate Has Made Con-
tradictory Assertions in Off-and-On Campaign<By John
Mintz<Washington Post Staff Writer= In a presidential election in
which personal credibility has become a key issue, Ross Perot now
finds himself subjected to some of the same charges of half-
truths and contradictory statements that have bedeviled his two
opponents for the White House.

Supporters of President Bush and Bill Clinton argue that Perot's
late entry into the race spared him the kind of scrutiny their
candidates have received - for example, Bush for his role in the
Iran-contra affair and other scandals, and Clinton for his draft
record and personal life.  When Perot has been asked about these
contradictions - as he was this week by reporters questioning his
account of an alleged death threat against him in 1970, he erupt-
ed in anger. His aides were just as adamant. "If Mr. Perot took
an oath that it's true, it's true," said spokeswoman Sharon Hol-
man. "End of story." Another longtime employee, Murphy Martin,
said it is "reprehensible" to question Perot's word.

But in the course of his off-again, on-again campaign, the Texas
billionaire's own words have sometimes been at odds:< Perot has
said repeatedly that the campaign should focus on issues, specif-
ically the deficit and the nation's economy, and that personal
charges and negative campaigning would have no place. But it was
Perot who nine days before the election went on national televi-
sion to charge the Republicans with "dirty tricks," and then ack-
nowledged the next day he had no proof the charges are true.<

Moreover, Perot's main source for the allegations that top Bush
aides planned to wiretap his telephone and to doctor a photograph
of his daughter is a former prison guard named Scott Barnes, whom
Perot knew to be the author of sometimes outrageous fabrications.
Using Barnes's scanty evidence, Perot helped persuade the FBI to
launch a "sting" operation against the Texas chairman of the
Bush-Quayle campaign, James Oberwetter, in which an undercover
agent offered Oberwetter information purportedly stolen from
Perot.  The sting failed.<

When Perot said in July he wasn't going to run for president, he
gave one set of reasons: that he realized he couldn't win, that
he feared a three-way electoral vote split would throw the elec-
tion into the House and that the Democratic Party "has revital-
ized itself."

When he formally entered the race Oct. 1, he said he had been
mistaken, and that the issues had not been adequately addressed
by Bush or Clinton. On Sunday he said the real reason he had
dropped out was that he feared the Republicans would disrupt the
wedding of his daughter Caroline.

Several key Perot aides said these explanations obscure the real
reasons he quit: that he hated being criticized by the press, and
that he didn't want to take part in what he thought were the pho-
ny exercises of politics, like giving speeches.

Perot has asserted on numerous occasions that he is "the servant"
of his campaign volunteers and that he would follow their will.
But he quit three months ago without consulting them, and reject-
ed their pleas at the time that he reconsider. Only after he'd
decided to return to the race did he take what he said was a poll
of his volunteers to determine whether they wanted him back in
the race. To nobody's surprise, they said yes.

Although Perot has presented his campaign as a grass roots ef-
fort, representing "the little people like me," he has relied on
television advertising more than any other candidate in history -
spending $24 million in the first two weeks of October and mil-
lions more since then. He has had little contact with his
volunteers and, until Sunday, declined to make any public appear-
ances.

Perot has said repeatedly that he would not "sound bite" his cam-
paign, yet during the three presidential debates he made little
effort to explain his positions and proved adept at expressing
himself in short, snappy bursts of words and quotable metaphors.
The contradictions in Perot's statements that have emerged in re-
cent months have reopened controversies from last spring over his
truthfulness in describing events from his past.

His denunciation of lobbyists as "these guys with their alligator
shoes," and his assertion that only he among the candidates is
not involved in the Washington power and influence game, are at
odds with the fact that since the 1960s he and his companies have
given hundreds of thousands of dollars to presidential and
congressional campaigns, and parlayed the gifts into access to
lobby for his commercial interests.  His assertion in an inter-
view in June that  "In my lifetime, I've hired investigators only
three or four times at a maximum" is contradicted by business as-
sociates who say  Perot has used investigators on countless as-
signments over the decades, trying to dig up dirt on business
rivals or perceived adversaries. The campaign even investigated
some of his volunteers, who now charge that Perot violated a
federal law limiting access to credit records.

Perot's critics, and some of his friends, say Perot sometimes has
a problem arriving at the truth and that the tendency is most
pronounced in his embrace of bizarre conspiracy theories.

Perot has told many people of his conviction that top federal of-
ficials conspired with rogue Central Intelligence Agency hit men
and international drug dealers to launder money and hide evidence
that there are Americans still held as prisoners of war in
Southeast Asia. But he has denied to reporters that he ever be-
lieved it or espoused it.

He has said for years that in 1970 the FBI told him the North
Vietnamese and the radical Black Panther party had targeted him
and his family for assassination because of his work on behalf of
prisoners of war. Perot said that one night in 1970, five armed
men sneaked onto his compound to kill him but were chased away by
a guard dog.

A number of former law enforcement and intelligence officials say
they find Perot's story incredible.

Perot didn't report the matter to the FBI or the Dallas police.
Dallas police files do show, though, that the Perots or their
security personnel did report 14 incidents at their home in 1970
and 1971, all "odds and ends," said police Sgt. Jim Chandler,
from reports of rocks thrown at the mailbox to cars speeding and
teenagers necking nearby.

"It did not happen," Paul McCaghren, chief of the department's
intelligence unit then, said to ABC News of the alleged attack.
The FBI said it has no record of any such plot.

 Bobby Ray Inman, former deputy director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, said that "from my relatively broad experience in
government in the 1960s and 1970s, I know of no evidence from any
source that the Vietnamese tried to (organize) assassination
teams in the U.S. . . . Mr. Perot would have been low on their
list, in any case."

When questioned by a reporter about any discrepancy, Perot fre-
quently dismisses him or her out of hand, suggesting the reporter
is in the pay of adversaries.

Perot complained when he rejoined the race Oct. 1 that in Wash-
ington "nobody takes responsibility even when they have direct
responsibility." But often when Perot makes an allegation, he
later denies he made it, acknowledging only that he was passing
on someone else's assertion and suggesting he didn't really be-
lieve it. On Monday, when a reporter asked about his charge the
previous day that the GOP planned to tap his phones, Perot said,
"I didn't make that allegation."

A number of Perot's friends and associates, including some still
fond of him, say that at times he comes to believe his own ver-
sion of the truth.

"Ross Perot sometimes cannot tell the difference between reality
and what he wants reality to be," said one man who is deeply loy-
al to Perot and with whom Perot has discussed many of these is-
sues.

"Ross has an amazing capacity," said another man who has worked
closely with Perot for many years and knows him well, "to take a
small fact, give it a twist, embellish it, completely turn it
into something else for his own purpose, and from that hour for-
ward, he'll believe it as deeply as anything a person can be-
lieve. He can rationalize virtually anything if it suits his
needs. At some point, it becomes real to him . . .and if you
disagree with him on that issue, you're the enemy."02:17 10-
29C9999-----

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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