Perot-Noia

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.