Oppo War 1992 exploded into the open with a series of news stories that portrayed Perot as a billionaire busybody, eager to ferret out damaging information about business competitors, employees and political foes. The incendiary charge was leveled by The Washington Post. It reported that Perot, in 1986, had “launched” investigations against the then Vice President Bush. The motive: Bush was not a partner in Perot’s own crusade to find American MIAs in Asia. According to the Post, Perot had even passed to the then veep rumors that two Bush sons may have been engaged in “improper activities”–a nice gesture with an ominous overtone.
Not since “Dallas” have two rich Texans engaged in such cutthroat sanctimony. Bush claimed to be shocked at the stories-though he is a former CIA director and the beneficiary of a state-of-the-art, Oppo-driven campaign in 1988. Perot’s reported actions, he declared, were not “particularly American”–though he had penned Perot a warm note in 1986 thanking him for passing on the rumors about his sons. Perot in turn claimed to be just as shocked by the focus on his own investigative zeal–though he traffics in intelligence data and hired a master of Oppo, Republican Ed Rollins, as his campaign co-manager.
Perot insists that he doesn’t have an “investigative personality.” But he exhibits a determined interest (chart) in information about those who threaten his goals or his family, and his denials beg numerous questions. He says he merely “passed on” rumors about Bush’s sons, but doesn’t say how he heard them. He says he merely forwarded to the FBI information about a Defense Department official, but doesn’t explain how he came to know and deal with the informant. He says he launched an inquiry into a land deal’s tax treatment–a deal he apparently thought may have involved Bush–but doesn’t explain why he gave information he developed to the Post instead of to the IRS.
Perot tries to wave away such questions with blame-shifting conspiracy theories. Forced to call his first press conference, he declared himself the target of a “90-day effort to redefine my personality by a group called ‘opposition research’ in the Republican Party. They’re generally known as the dirty-tricks crowd.” It was a classic attempt to demonize his foe-and a piece of on-the-record Oppo in and of itself.
But what’s the truth? Much modern Oppo, sadly, is accepted practice. The GOP’s “opposition research department” is a prosaic enough affair: a collection of self-described nerds who comb public records and clips –something Perot himself has hired people to do over the years. There’s also no doubt that the Bush team has a plan to openly paint Perot as another Hoover–as in J. Edgar. Bush’s “surrogates,” following faxed “talking points,” branded Perot a would-be gumshoe in chief. Vice President Dan Quayle called him a “temperamental tycoon who has contempt for the Constitution of the United States.” Drug czar Bob Martinez called him a “secretive computer salesman with a penchant for skulduggery.” And so on.
But there’s a more controversial covert game as well: feeding or goading the media with leads, rumors and the fear that they’re about to be scooped by the competition. Also, an administration has unique Oppo resources: the government itself. There’s at least some evidence to support the Perotians’ charge that they’re facing an underground Oppo campaign. After Perot criticized Bush’s policies during the prelude to the gulf war, Perot said in a recent interview with NEWSWEEK, the IRS ordered an agent to take up residence at Perot’s business office. The IRS quickly withdrew the agent when Perot complained to the IRS commissioner. His aides note that the Resolution Trust Corporation recently asked its Texas offices to turn over any information they had about Perot’s business dealings in the state. And some recent stories, the aides contend, could only have hit print so rapidly and simultaneously with administration assistance. They point to reports developed from obscure Nixon White House files in the National Archives and from a Customs dispatch that needed decoding to be linked to Perot.
Bush learned last week that he is facing an Oppo artist as adept as he. At Perot’s press conference, aides placed a copy of Bush’s handwritten thank-you note on every reporter’s chair. Resorting to his favorite forum, “Larry King Live,” Perot pulled from his pocket a copy of another friendly Bush thank-you letter, this one for Perot’s willingness to help rebuild Panama City after the invasion that captured Manuel Noriega. When Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond, fuming with anger, called the CNN program to demand specifics about the GOP “dirty tricks,” Perot’s response was a dodge and a threat of a new round in the Oppo war: he would answer, he said, “on my terms when I think it best serves my purposes.”
The only outright beneficiary of last week’s Oppo skirmish was Bill Clinton, who unveiled a revamped economic plan and studied his short-list of vice presidential picks while his two opponents slugged it out. But, shellshocked by the Perot battle, the GOP plans to retarget its Oppo machine on the Democrat: this week Quayle will travel to Little Rock, Ark., to attack Clinton as a tax-and-spend liberal. Clinton’s own Oppo staffers have temporarily quit in a power struggle. Judging from the results of the battle last week, he may be better off if they never come back.
Pennzoil, headed by a friend of George Bush, in 1986 received a $48 million tax credit for donating one fifth of a large piece of land to the government. Perot says the entire parcel was worth less than the tax credit.
Perot had the case investigated, then alerted reporters to embarrass Bush.
Worried taxpayers had been defrauded; reporters came to him. ..CN.-Vietnam Memorial Tantrum?
Perot gave $200,000 for Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but didn’t like the design.
That he hired lawyers (notably, Roy Cohn) to dig up dirt on officials handling the memorial in order to discredit it.
Claims no underhanded motives: he had concerns about the fund’s business actions, and acted on behalf of the many vets who did not like the memorial. ..CN.-Business Backlash?
Onetime Perot legal adviser Richard Salwen filed a $250,000 lawsuit claiming Perot reneged on a business arrangement.
That Perot tried to intimidate Salwen and, through an associate, spread rumors Salwen had extramarital affairs.
Perot’s spokesman says Perot never used personal information to intimidate Salwen. ..CN.-Armitage Vendetta?
Perot believed Reagan Defense Department–Asst. Sec. Richard Armitage in particular–wasn’t doing enough to find MIAs.
Tried to discredit Armitage by suggesting friendship with Vietnamese-American woman ethically compromised him.
Received unsolicited file and photos of Armitage and simply passed them along to FBI. Admits keeping copies.
