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                                                                                U.S. CAMPAIGN, Page 28

Perot-noia


Throughout the campaign, Perot complained that no one wanted
to talk about the issues. But often his judgment became the
issue.

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT/WASHINGTON -- With reporting by Richard
Woodbury with Perot


    Ross Perot likes to punctuate his crisp prescriptions for
complex problems by eyeballing the TV camera sternly and
intoning, "It's that simple." Yet little about Perot himself
matches that terse description. As his bizarre charges of
Republican dirty tricks detonated across the political landscape
last week, the dominant facet of Perot's makeup became
increasingly clear: he is an incurable conspiracy monger who
espies plotters in every thicket and easily persuades himself
that some of his wildest suspicions are true.

    Perot provided ample evidence of his eccentricities as he
approached the campaign's last days determined to make a good
showing and possibly overtake the adversary he heartily
dislikes: George Bush. His performance in the debates was
drawing back many early fans who had defected when Perot pulled
out of the contest on July 16. His rationale for withdrawal at
the time: the Democratic Party had "revitalized" itself, and he
feared his continued candidacy might cause an electoral-college
deadlock.

    On the eve of the election, however, he changed his story.
Appearing on CBS's 60 Minutes, Perot said he quit the race
because he feared Bush operatives planned to smear his daughter
Carolyn by publicizing a fraudulent photograph of her. While he
did not describe it, others said Perot believed the photo
depicted a lesbian act. He also suspected a plot to disrupt
somehow Carolyn's wedding ceremony in August. Nor was that all.
Even after he withdrew, he said he was told of plans to tap his
office phones, perhaps with a view toward sabotaging his
business dealings.

    Asked to substantiate the charges, he admitted, "I can't
prove any of it today." Yet he went on to claim that "this was
the Republican key people and their opposition research teams.
This was run at the top." Perot's ostensible sources were
unnamed Republican friends and one Scott Barnes, a notorious
conspiracy-theory peddler. Apparently Perot himself initially
believed the threat about wiretapping enough to go to the Dallas
police, offering technical assistance for an undercover
operation to catch the criminal. Despite his close ties to the
police, he was turned down. The Texan did, however, persuade the
FBI to launch a fruitless investigation.

    When his allegations caused a sensation, Perot backed off,
castigating reporters for what he called "your twisted,
distorted stories." Yet it was Perot himself who made the
disclosures and who talked up the CBS program at campaign stump
speeches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

    Striking back in an attempt to crumble Perot's support,
White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters
Perot was "a paranoid person who has delusions." That pop-psych
diagnosis was motivated by politics, of course, but it also
squared with Perot's long history of obsession with plots. In
one of his half-hour commercials, the Texan revived a claim that
he had been the target of five armed terrorists hired by North
Vietnamese to assassinate him 20 years ago. A single guard dog
ostensibly scared the gunmen off his property. Perot never
reported the incident to authorities, though he has frequently
complained about minor incursions on his heavily guarded estate.
He still refuses to identify the single witness who, he
maintains, unleashed the hound. The chief of his private
security force at the time says the incident never occurred.

    Then there was the alleged plot against his life by drug
lords. In a separate controversy, his long feud with Washington
over its handling of the MIA issue, Perot accused Richard
Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan
Administration, of a nefarious cover-up. In running his
successful computer empire, Perot occasionally subjected
employees to polygraph tests. Last week seven defectors from his
volunteer network charged that they had been targets of improper
credit investigations. This pattern is familiar to those who
worked with Perot long before he grew politically ambitious. "He
keeps so much in his head," says a former business associate of
Perot's. "You can never figure what he's up to. He says someone
called him [to supply intelligence], or that he saw somebody,
but there's no way of confirming half of it."

    As Perot rose in the polls last spring, the press stopped
treating him as a novelty and began to examine his record.
Perot's pat response, instead of addressing the critical stories
or shrugging them off, was to blame "the Republican Party
dirty-tricks committee." But Perot's real problem is with the
way America goes about electing its President, a rigorous (and
yes, sometimes punishing) process that tests the candidates'
ideas and mettle. Any candidate for high office, particularly
one who is new to politics, must expect his record and
statements to be scrutinized. Perot decided to circumvent part
of that route by skipping the primaries, but he still found the
inquiry intolerable, which may be the main reason why he left
the race last summer.

    Nonetheless, Perot retained a substantial following even
while his image as a can-do truth teller came into question. One
reason is a broad loss of confidence in both major parties. That
credibility gap has been growing for years, and the punching
match this season between Bush and Bill Clinton has widened it.
State Department officials did, after all, troll through
passport files on Clinton -- and his mother -- looking for
information to use against the Democrat. That the Republicans
undertook so mindless an excursion gave a trace of credibility
to Perot's latest charges.

    Still, the disclosures about Perot's foibles did not
disqualify him in the eyes of many voters who were disgusted
with politics as usual. With Bush and Clinton dancing around
some of the most difficult issues, Perot's mantra about being
the only serious reformer in the field got a hearing. And with
a fortune to spend on commercials, plus easy access to TV talk
shows, Perot never lacked a forum for his views.

    Before he dropped out in July, Perot liked to say he
"wouldn't give you 3 cents to go up there [to the White
House]." Yet at the same time, he was aiding his "volunteer"
movement with heavy subsidies. Even during his hiatus as a
noncandidate, Perot's cash kept the organization going. Because
he declines to accept federal money, the billionaire can use as
much of his own money as he wishes. In the 26 days after he
re-entered the race on Oct. 1, he spent $36.7 million, most of
it on TV commercials; though the final figures are not in, he
outspent both Bush and Clinton on advertising during October.

    That Perot could have as much impact as he did, disrupting
the rhythm of Campaign '92 virtually at will, is a grim
reminder to the major parties that they are vulnerable to
well-financed, independent challengers. In the future, a
third-party candidate with unlimited resources may not do the
Democrats and Republicans the favor of demonstrating to the
voters that he may be more fit to be Secretary of Conspiracy
Theories than to be President.