4 trillion in debt. Going into debt, an additional million in an hour and a half. Its not the republicans fault, of course, and its not the democrats fault, and what im looking for is who did it. Now, theyre the two folks involved, so maybe if you put them together, they did it. The facts are, we have to fix it. Somewhere out there there is an extraterrestrial doing this to us, i guess. Everybody said they will take responsibility. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. That was independent candidate ross perot during three separate debates in 1992 talking about one of his favorite issues, the u. S. Debt. In that election the texas businessman won 90 of the popular vote, the largest vote for an independent candidate sin since. Good night and thank you for being with us. Were doing this series as a way of looking at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who failed in the white house but had an influence on American History. Ross perot is one of 12 were featuring in this series. Joining us now, ross perots biographer don brinkley. As a person who has done biographies on history, what strikes you as ross perot. Hes more like gerald ford or thomas edison. Patriotism becomes kind of a cheap word. Ross perot is sort of a superpatriot. Hes less interested in money and politics than he is in doing whats right for our country. This comes, i believe, from his naval background, his Constant Service to our country, looking for pows and mias during vietnam and constantly supporting our special forces. But the clip you just ran tells you that in 1992, perot talked about the center issue of america, the National Debt. We were at 15 trillion. When he was talking about the sucking jobs leaving america due to nafta outsourcing, its probably on the left the issue that the most disturbed zone of middle class americans is that jobs had gone overseas and many towns in the midwest or south are languishing right now. So the histories ross perot talked about in his campaigns are being echoed today by the tea party on the right and on the left. Is that what youre saying . Hes a centrist. You cannot look at ross in the paradigm of typical politics. We often want to label people right, left. Hes something out of an older american fiber of the wagon trains out west or of the world war ii or created war heroes, soldiers, explorers, inventors. Thats what ross perot is really about. His entering the race was about public service. He put a considerable amount of money where his mouth was. He ran every season we have people flirting with thirdparty runs, but ross perot did it, and its quite extraordinary to get about 19 of a vote. Its kind of unprecedented, and it came from middle class people all over america. So its interesting to reflect now on this whole united we stand movement that ross perot ran in 92 and with the reform party in 96, and wondering, is there going to be a thirdparty person . Is there a ross perot that might enter the nixon 2012 . If you look at his platform in 92, he seems to be right on with the key issues including border problems, drugs, violence on the texas border, the need for public education. He has very controversial things such as putting a gasoline tax on. We look at ross perot and he echoes our current debate. In fact, he had been on the National Stage for a while. In the late 80s he began speaking about these issues he was concerned about. We looked at our Video Library and our first meeting with ross perot was in 1997. Here he was speaking to the Banking Association that year. Lets take a look at where we are and lets take the rosecolored glasses off. All these people are saying, the metals have been found. I think were tough enough to take bad news and i think its time we look at the facts. Weve got a 3 trillion debt by 1988. Our debt is being significantly funded by foreign nations at this point. The greatest nation in the history of man doesnt even have the will to pass a national budget. We continue to pass continuing resolutions that put us ever deeper into debt, and weve given up trying to live within our means as a country. There is no correlation between taxes paid in and money spent. We are losing an International Business competition. Some of our banks have problems, savings and loans have serious problems, wall street is bouncing all over the place. Our personal spending habits of our people are as bleak as our federal spending habits. Our people spend everything they make, all it can borrow and they have no savings. 1987, 24 years ago, and except for upping the numbers and the fact that americans are now saving because of the 2008 crisis, almost every one of these issues could be talked about with the same words today. Thats absolutely correct. Remember why ross perot could give that speech. He was a genius, really, at startup operations. He understood the corporate world. In 1962 he created Electronic Data Systems and ended up selling it a few years before that speech, i believe, in 1984 to General Motors and became arguably the richest person in texas and was getting on the cover of fortune magazine, so he knows what hes talking about how to take a startup business, and he understood the importance of Data Collection for companies. He even at one point invested in apple with steve jobs at one point. He worked, of course, for ibm when he was a young man. So he really wanted the United States in his adult life to be the great country it was of his childhood, the country that fdr brought us through in the Great Depression and world war ii, that cando spirit that just fills him up. And the fact that we were losing in the 80s to japan a lot, and of course today our problem is competing with china, and the fact that so many people in congress seemed to be bought and paid for, the lobbying in washington, in getting rid of lobbyists and corrupt politicians was at the core of the pro message. This is a callin program, and you make it very interesting. We will, in a few minutes, put our phone numbers on the screen so you can be involved in the conversation about ross perot, the issues he was involved in then and the legacy today. In 1993, this book was published, perot and his people, disrupting the balance of people. Carolyn bartadjoi joins us from home in texas. Can you tell us about him and what shaped the man we knew on the National Stage . Well, perot was from texarkana. He had a very average texas childhood. He lived in a strong, stable middle class family. As a boy, he broke horses, he traded horses, he was an eagle scout. Even in later life, i think that he kept all the traits of the eagle scout. He would set objectives for himself, goals, and then try to pursue those goals. You know, he was very much in the texas tradition of the day, and as he grew, went to the Naval Academy and then started his own businesses, he wsort of rem represented, as doug said, the cando spirit of texas. His vision was big, the state was big, there was boundless opportunity here, the sky was the limit sort of thing. He really sort of played into what was sort of the texas mythology with texas politicians who were larger than life, very successful businessmen who made a fortune here. They were risk takers, they were not afraid to fail. And that was the sort of spirit that he had that i think got him into this thing. Its worth noting that at the Naval Academy, ross perot was president of his class the last two years, so early on showed leadership traits and the ability to galvanize people under his leadership that we would see later in life. Just a quick overview of his business career. Lets take a look at after the Naval Academy, he left the navy after four years and went to business, as we mentioned, into ibm as a salesman where he quickly became the top salesman of the company. That was by 1957. By 1962, he had founded his own company which is Electronic Data Systems. In 1984 he sold eds to General Motors for 2. 4 billion and then stayed on the board for a number of years afterwards. In 1988 he founded Perot Systems, and in 2009 sold that company to Dell Computers for 3. 9 billion, the source of his great wealth. But carolyn barbarta, he and hi family were philanthropists. Can you talk about that side of his family . Theyve given a fortune to all sorts of charities here in dallas, and mr. Perot himself has made many anonymous contributions in small ways, has helped individuals and without people even knowing about it. There is a hospital here named for margo perot, his wife. Hes given a whole lot of money to the boy scouts. Its just endless, their if i l philanthropy. Doug, you mentioned earlier his involvement with the p. O. W. S. Can you tell more about that issue and how it created a divide between him and a later president. We mentioned he graduated from the Naval Academy in annapolis as the president. That was a big deal. You were the sort of person that believed you were only as good as the guy left behind. He was a greater leader. During those years when he was in the navy, he sometimes would have to go and get soldiers that were on leave or got drunk in a foreign town and get them back on the ship. It became sort of a hallmark of his life. You never leave anybody behind. And he was very upset during the vietnam war, rightfully so, that the United States we didnt push the p. O. W. mia mission enough. He went to backchannel negotiations with vietnam to say we want every one of our guys back. And hes become, really, a hero of the u. S. Military veterans for his constant concern about our soldiers and our troops. Recently i gave a talk down in dallas for veterans day, and these were daughters of world war ii veterans. There were hundreds of world war ii vets there. I got to talk with ross perot over dinner one night, and one of the most Amazing Stories he told me was recently when our s. E. A. L. S team killed osama bin laden, they shipped him they thought so much of him or special forces that they staffed the walking cane of bill louden and he went to the s. E. A. L. S museum in florida, which everyone should visit, because i think our s. E. A. L. S should be time hero of the year. But he put the stick there to all the people in attendance of bin laden. Thats how conscientious he was about getting jobs for people in his companies, helping veterans whenever he can, and particularly with the special forces which he thinks represent the best of the best of the american spirit. We visited his boyhood home in texarkana. Were going to show you that. As were looking at that, i would like Carolyn Barta to talk about his involvement at the behest of texas governors, including the war on drugs and education reform in his home state. Well, he was appointed to a couple of task forces, one by former governor bill clements, and then another one by former governor mark white, so clements was a republican, white succeeded him as a democrat. They both tapped perot and asked him to serve. One was on education reform, and i think it just kind of points out how mr. Perot was always one to speak his mind. He was never afraid to say what he thought. And he thought that in the Public Schools there should be special classes for talented kids, and the brightest kids should go to better classes. Some of the parents, texas parents, thought, well, thats elitism and maybe we dont want that in our Public Schools. And so perot just very sarcastically said, okay, lets put all the fat girls on the drill team, lets put have everybody be the quarterback. It was just sort of an example of how he always spoke his mind. But he was never reluctant to take on a job if he was asked to do a job like that for a couple of governors that showed that the democrats and republicans both liked him. And for years his name had been mentioned as a potential candidate for something in texas, because he was a leader. And he was also sort of in the tradition of oldtime texas politicians. You know, people like speaker sam rayburn well, even going back to sam houston, doug, in the republic of texas, that kind of charismatic leader. Speaker sam rayburn, lbj, governor john conley, governor clements who was certainly one to speak his mind, governor ann richards who was in a class by herself as well. He was so much like some of these older texans who would just tell it like it is and didnt mind doing the hard work to if he thought it would help the state or help the country, he didnt mind doing the hard work to do it. Carolyn, let me jump in at that point. One more bit of the pro biography building i want to put on the screen before we get to his campaign in 92. In iran, a number of eds workers were held hostage and mr. Perot was personally involved in the rescue of those, something that was later captured in a book by ken follett called on wings of eagles. It became a National Bestseller and later a movie on television. Can you talk about how this and youve watched a lot of politicians building the personal biography through the telling of stories like this and how he did it effectively. This was an amazing story. In 1979, jimmy carter was president. You had the beginnings of the iranian revolution, and two of his workers for his company, for Electronic Data Systems, had been held captive. He wanted them sprung free. He went and hired a former special forces people to go in and find a way to get them loose. He ended up they ended up using an anti an eayatollah khomenei rally were not just two of his employees were released, but about 10,000 Political Prisoners got released. They had a rendezvous and were later able to get smuggled out of turkey. This was a highly successful maneuver of getting in there and getting his guys back. It gets back earlier to what i said about the p. O. W. S and mias. Ross perot was loyal first and foremost. If you worked for him and you were loyal to his company, he would do anything for you. If you listened to people who knew him well, thats the number one trait, personal loyalty to people he believes in. We have a great photograph of that period of ross perot with Richard Crenna who played ross perot in a movie that was played nationally on local television. Set the stage about the ross perot bid for candidacy and how the public was feeling about him. We know George Walker bush, or president 41 as hes referred to now, he saw the wall coming down, the breakup of the soviet union, the end of the cold war. And in 1991, the gulf war, which most people thought was a Great Success of ousting Saddam Hussein from kuwait. In early 1992, pat buchanan was going after president bush as having a silver spoon in his mouth and was an elite, out of touch there was a powerful revolt within the Republican Party. Also that spring you had another insurgent, jerry brown, coming in and trying to reattract them, so you have the Democrat Bill clinton and George Herbert walker bush, and suddenly ross perot goes on larry king on cnn and says, look, im going to run as an independent if i can be on the ballot of all 50 states if im drafted. Im not going to run the typical campaign, the but the peop bu want my ideas. The ousting of jobs he was against, but he was also against the gulf war. He thought it would be a mistake and that special forces should have gone in and killed Saddam Hussein. He started soaring in the polls and became the darling in the summer of 92, and then well pick up the rest of the story in a little bit. Lets show that larry king live february 22, 1992 interview when ross perot shows his willingness to run. Lets go to grassroots, america where people are hurting and saying, why are we in this mess . First of all, look in the mirror. Were the owners of this country. We dont act like the owners. We act like white rabbits that get programmed by messages coming out of washington. We own this place. Is there any scenario in which you would run for president . Can you give me a scenario in which you would say, okay, im in . Number one, i dont want to. But is there a scenario . Number two, if youre that serious, you, the people, are that serious, you register me in 50 states. And if youre not willing to organize and do that, then this is all just talk. Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying im playing to the ordinary folks. If youre dead serious, i want to see some sweat. Why do i want to see some sweat . I said it earlier, i want you in the ring. Carolyn barta, let me ask you how much of a surprise that announcement was by the time it was made in february of 92. Well, i guess it surprised most people, but the truth of the matter was that he had been out making speeches for several years, and particularly leading up to the larry king live interview. In fact, just a couple weeks before that, he was in tennessee to speak to a Business Group and he was interviewed by a reporter there, and he told him virtually the same thing, that if he saw some skin in the game, if people got in the ring and put him on the ballot, he would think of doing it. It was published. Nothing much came of it, and perot was talking to a man in tennessee and another one in florida who were sort of activists and trying to draft him to run, and john j. Hooker in tennessee, sort of a flamboyant businessman, kept calling him, talking to him and trying to get him to run. And it got to the point where they started talking about, well, where would we where should i announce . And they considered conventional sources, New York Times, l. Times, wall street journal, and he liked larry king live. Throughout the campaign he liked going on talk shows where he could talk and get his message out. So, anyway, as i was told th