Perot's Private Probes

By George J. Church Sunday, June 24, 2001
    • A cold rain was falling on Washington late one night about a month ago, when a knock sounded on the door of a retired U.S. intelligence agent. On the former spook's stoop stood a rail-thin, jug-eared man in a soaking-wet business suit. "Hello," said the visitor, thrusting out a hand. "I'm Ross Perot, and we have some things to talk about."

    Yes, it was the Texas billionaire, once more demonstrating his flair for melodrama. At times riding around the Washington area in a battered Volkswagen with drooping fenders (a "perfect disguise," he once chortled to the driver), at times relying on the reports of his investigators, H. Ross Perot has used his vast wealth (estimated at about $2.5 billion or so) to launch his own private probe into a network of former CIA agents and military officials. The normally blunt and outspoken Perot has been vague and secretive about his allegations. But he has doggedly pursued his probe, pressing his case in a way that is both puzzling and nettlesome to the Administration.

    The Texas superpatriot has become an almost legendary figure because of his flair for entrepreneurial triumphs and daring international intrigues. He made his first $350 million in 1968 by taking public the computer service company he founded, Electronic Data Systems. The following year he flew to Southeast Asia in an unsuccessful attempt to deliver food and Christmas gifts to Americans imprisoned in North Viet Nam. From then on, Perot's concern about American POWs and MIAs in Viet Nam has been close to an obsession. Among his other escapades was the 1979 rescue he organized of two EDS employees who had been jailed in Iran; the mission was later dramatized in the TV mini-series On Wings of Eagles. In business, Perot sold EDS to General Motors, then became such an outspoken critic of the car company's management that GM last year paid $700 million to buy out his interest and shut him up.

    Among the targets of Perot's current probe are some whose names have surfaced in connection with Iranscam. He has been looking into the alleged links between ex-CIA Agents Thomas Clines and Theodore Shackley, retired Generals Richard Secord and John Singlaub, Iranian-born Businessman Albert Hakim and other former and present Government officials going back to the early 1960s. "I think we'll conclude that Admiral Poindexter and Colonel North were bit players," he told the Washington Post two weeks ago, "and the major characters were people who were in the weapons business for years, some of whom had CIA connections."

    A far more curious target is Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, a man widely respected for his integrity and effectiveness. After his appointment in 1981, Armitage began working in Southeast Asia to track down reports of MIAs in Viet Nam; Perot suspected him of not doing enough. Last October, Perot met with Armitage at the Pentagon and bluntly demanded that he resign. Perot's stated reason was that Armitage had written, on Pentagon stationery, a glowing character reference for a Vietnamese woman refugee, Nguyet Thi O'Rourke, who had been convicted of running a gambling operation in Virginia. Armitage later conceded that using Pentagon stationery had been "dumb," but not illegal or improper. At the meeting, Armitage vigorously denied any implication that he had anything to do with an illicit arms or drug network.

    Perot then took his case to George Bush. The Vice President's office has confirmed that Perot raised "what he considered to be evidence of wrongdoing" by Armitage. Bush told Perot to go to the "proper authorities." So the billionaire called on FBI Director William Webster. Perot has also made at least one visit to the White House carrying a pile of documents. Yet he has received no support from the Reagan Administration. In fact, National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci in January called him in to ask him to stop pursuing Armitage, whom Carlucci regards as one of the most effective men in government. James Kelly, a staffer on the National Security Council, says the accusations being made against Armitage are "awful stuff" and "completely false."

    Lately, Perot and his investigators have been interviewing people who have also been questioned by the Christic Institute, a Washington public-interest law firm. Christic last year filed a suit in Miami against Clines, Shackley, Secord, Singlaub, Hakim and 24 others; Armitage is mentioned several times but is not a defendant. The suit charges that some of the defendants became involved in drug smuggling from Southeast Asia in the early 1960s and later in a series of shady weapons deals around the world, using the profits to finance covert anti-Communist activities.

    But the lawsuit's allegations, many of which are inaccurate or based on false assumptions, are a shaky foundation on which to base an investigation. Armitage calls the suit "malicious" and has a four-page list of factual refutations. For example, an affidavit filed by the Christic Institute's attorney claims that Armitage was in Bangkok setting up a company that allegedly served as a front for the movement of opium money during a period in the late 1970s; part of that time he was actually living in Washington and working as administrative assistant to Senator Robert Dole.

    Perot's interest in the MIA situation has brought him into yet another conflict with the Administration. Last week he revealed that he had secretly flown to Hanoi in March, at the invitation of the Vietnamese government, to discuss the MIA issue. He presented the Vietnamese with a proposal from Reagan to appoint retired Army General John Vessey as a presidential envoy to negotiate about missing Americans. The Vietnamese were receptive. But the State Department, Perot says, then jumped the timetable agreed upon for announcing Vessey's pending appointment. The Administration, he charged, was "taking a piece of fine china and smashing it on the sidewalk." Perot added that he would "do everything I can to put the pieces back together" although he would not say what he had in mind. But as he has abundantly proved, once his Eagle Scout sense of propriety has been aroused, he is not a man to give up on anything.