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Ross Perot, the wiry Texas gadfly who made a fortune in computer services, amazed the nation with audacious paramilitary missions to Vietnam and Iran, and ran for president in 1992 and 1996 with populist talk of restoring Norman Rockwell’s America, died on Tuesday at his home in Dallas. He was 89.
The cause was leukemia, a family spokesman, James Fuller, said.
They called him the man from Texarkana, but he really came out of an era — the Great Depression, World War II and the exuberant postwar years — when boys had paper routes, folks tuned in to the radio and patriots rolled up their sleeves for Uncle Sam and built innovative companies and a powerful nation.
“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success,” Mr. Perot liked to say. “They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”
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He was no quitter: an Eagle Scout, a Navy officer out of Annapolis, a top I.B.M. salesman, the founder of wildly successful data processing enterprises, a crusader for education and against drugs, a billionaire philanthropist. In 1969, he became a kind of folk hero with a quixotic attempt to fly medicine and food to American prisoners of war in North Vietnam.
Image
Mr. Perot during an appearance on the Sunday morning CBS News program “Face the Nation” in April 1992. At the time, he was discussing a possible run for the presidency as an independent candidate.CreditScott Applewhite/Associated Press
In 1979 he staged a commando raid that he asserted had freed two of his employees, and thousands of criminals and political prisoners, from captivity in revolutionary Iran.
And in 1992 he became one of the most unlikely candidates ever to run for president. He had never held public office, and he seemed all wrong, like a cartoon character sprung to life: an elfin 5 feet 6 inches and 144 pounds, with a 1950s crew cut; a squeaky, nasal country-boy twang; and ears that stuck out like Alfred E. Neuman’s on a Mad magazine cover. Stiff-necked, cantankerous, impetuous, often sentimental, he was given to homespun epigrams: “If you see a snake, just kill it. Don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”
Under the banner “United We Stand America,” he spent $65 million of his billions in a campaign that featured innovative half-hour infomercials about himself and his ideas. They were popular, with ratings that sometimes surpassed those of prime-time sitcoms. Ignoring negative newspaper and magazine articles, he laid siege to radio and television talk shows. Switchboards lit up with calls from people wanting to volunteer.
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Before long, millions were responding to his calls to cut government deficits, red tape and waste, to begin rebuilding the crumbling cities and to restore his vision of America: the small-town life idealized in Rockwell’s homey portraits of ballpark patriotism, barbershop wisdom and flag-draped Main Street, a world away from corrupt Washington.
Image
Mr. Perot, running as an independent, sparred with President George Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas on Oct. 13, 1992, in a presidential debate broadcast from the University of Richmond in Virginia.CreditAssociated Press
While Mr. Perot had done business with every administration since Lyndon B. Johnson’s, the federal government was one of his favorite targets. Washington, he told its own denizens, “has become a town with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don’t ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city.”
He’s Up, He’s Out, He’s Back In
Improbably, he surged in the polls while the Republican incumbent, George Bush, and the Democrat, Bill Clinton, trained their fire on each other. Polls showed that Mr. Perot’s support came from across the spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, mostly from the middle class. Citizen drives got him on the ballot in all 50 states. He was on the cover of Time magazine.
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But at the peak of his popularity, he unexpectedly dropped out of the race. Months later, he jumped back in, saying his withdrawal had been prompted by Republican “dirty tricks” to sabotage his daughter’s wedding with faked compromising photographs.
He did surprisingly well in three presidential debates, often mocking the “gridlock” in Washington. “It’s not the Republicans’ fault, of course, and it’s not the Democrats’ fault,” he said in the second round. “Somewhere out there there’s an extraterrestrial that’s doing this to us, I guess.”
The cause was leukemia, a family spokesman, James Fuller, said.
They called him the man from Texarkana, but he really came out of an era — the Great Depression, World War II and the exuberant postwar years — when boys had paper routes, folks tuned in to the radio and patriots rolled up their sleeves for Uncle Sam and built innovative companies and a powerful nation.
“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success,” Mr. Perot liked to say. “They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”
ADVERTISEMENT
He was no quitter: an Eagle Scout, a Navy officer out of Annapolis, a top I.B.M. salesman, the founder of wildly successful data processing enterprises, a crusader for education and against drugs, a billionaire philanthropist. In 1969, he became a kind of folk hero with a quixotic attempt to fly medicine and food to American prisoners of war in North Vietnam.
Image
Mr. Perot during an appearance on the Sunday morning CBS News program “Face the Nation” in April 1992. At the time, he was discussing a possible run for the presidency as an independent candidate.CreditScott Applewhite/Associated Press
In 1979 he staged a commando raid that he asserted had freed two of his employees, and thousands of criminals and political prisoners, from captivity in revolutionary Iran.
And in 1992 he became one of the most unlikely candidates ever to run for president. He had never held public office, and he seemed all wrong, like a cartoon character sprung to life: an elfin 5 feet 6 inches and 144 pounds, with a 1950s crew cut; a squeaky, nasal country-boy twang; and ears that stuck out like Alfred E. Neuman’s on a Mad magazine cover. Stiff-necked, cantankerous, impetuous, often sentimental, he was given to homespun epigrams: “If you see a snake, just kill it. Don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”
Under the banner “United We Stand America,” he spent $65 million of his billions in a campaign that featured innovative half-hour infomercials about himself and his ideas. They were popular, with ratings that sometimes surpassed those of prime-time sitcoms. Ignoring negative newspaper and magazine articles, he laid siege to radio and television talk shows. Switchboards lit up with calls from people wanting to volunteer.
ADVERTISEMENT
Before long, millions were responding to his calls to cut government deficits, red tape and waste, to begin rebuilding the crumbling cities and to restore his vision of America: the small-town life idealized in Rockwell’s homey portraits of ballpark patriotism, barbershop wisdom and flag-draped Main Street, a world away from corrupt Washington.
Image
Mr. Perot, running as an independent, sparred with President George Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas on Oct. 13, 1992, in a presidential debate broadcast from the University of Richmond in Virginia.CreditAssociated Press
While Mr. Perot had done business with every administration since Lyndon B. Johnson’s, the federal government was one of his favorite targets. Washington, he told its own denizens, “has become a town with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don’t ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city.”
He’s Up, He’s Out, He’s Back In
Improbably, he surged in the polls while the Republican incumbent, George Bush, and the Democrat, Bill Clinton, trained their fire on each other. Polls showed that Mr. Perot’s support came from across the spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, mostly from the middle class. Citizen drives got him on the ballot in all 50 states. He was on the cover of Time magazine.
ADVERTISEMENT
But at the peak of his popularity, he unexpectedly dropped out of the race. Months later, he jumped back in, saying his withdrawal had been prompted by Republican “dirty tricks” to sabotage his daughter’s wedding with faked compromising photographs.
He did surprisingly well in three presidential debates, often mocking the “gridlock” in Washington. “It’s not the Republicans’ fault, of course, and it’s not the Democrats’ fault,” he said in the second round. “Somewhere out there there’s an extraterrestrial that’s doing this to us, I guess.”
