Perot Slips Into L.A., Focuses on Minority Issues

Ross Perot slipped secretively into Los Angeles Wednesday for a day of private meetings to learn about the problems of minority communities, and he declared afterward: “We are all here together and we are all equal and we’ll either win or lose together.”

Without any fanfare--and actually trying to avoid media attention all day long--the prospective presidential candidate visited a youth center in East Los Angeles, met with Asian-American leaders at a downtown hotel and conferred for more than two hours with black leaders and community representatives in the Mid-City area.

The Texas billionaire clearly made an impression.

Some of the black businessmen who attended the meeting at the riot-scorched headquarters of the black-owned Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co. went in as George Bush backers and emerged as Ross Perot supporters, said one attendee, Celes King. King is the California chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality and director of past GOP presidential campaigns in the black community.

King himself was not necessarily converted Wednesday, but he told reporters: “I think there is a very good opportunity here for him (Perot), especially looking at the situation today.”

The Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of the nearby First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a staunch supporter of Democrats, observed: “He says what is common-sensical, and if this nation is suffering from anything, it is the lack of common sense. So that is rewarding.”

Perot then went to one of his headquarters in a Latino neighborhood just south of downtown to thank volunteers for their efforts to gather the signatures needed to place him on the California ballot as an independent.

Perot also conferred with Mayor Tom Bradley later in the day at the Biltmore Hotel.

Candidates for President, or any elected office, usually do their best to promote such events in frenzied fashion. Perot not only did not announce his plans, but the news media were excluded.

Arriving at the blue building named “Ft. Perot” near the corner of 25th and Main about 4 p.m., Perot stopped briefly to talk with reporters for the first time and explained his stealthy visit: “I wanted to just try, really, to understand the issues here quietly. And that’s why I’m here, just so I can listen and visit and not be disruptive.”

“I asked them to really explain to me how to solve the problems that exist,” Perot said. “They have some really incredible ideas. I have learned a great deal.”

Perot’s unpublicized tour of Los Angeles--including areas devastated by the riots that followed the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case--contrasted with earlier high-visibility visits by Democratic candidate Bill Clinton and President Bush.

Clinton, the Arkansas governor who has enough delegates now to win the Democratic nomination, toured burned-out and looted areas while they literally were still smoking. Bush arrived a few days later with a large entourage and motorcade.

Perot came to Los Angeles with two or three aides. James Squires, Perot’s press spokesman, told the Associated Press in Dallas: “He was not planing to be discovered. All candidates have private schedules and that’s what he had.”

Perot’s official California tour starts today with scheduled rallies in Sacramento and Irvine, where Perot volunteers are to present him with petitions carrying far more than the nearly 135,000 signatures he needs to land a spot on the California ballot. Polls have indicated Perot has considerable support in California, which will cast 54 electoral votes following the November election, a fifth of the 270 needed to win the White House.

As he swept by reporters into a meeting with black leaders, Perot insisted that his Los Angeles visit had “positively nothing to do with politics.”

When he finally stopped to talk with reporters at “Ft. Perot,” Perot said he was being careful not to make promises of what he might do if elected President.

“We’ve got to figure out what to do, how to do it, to build consensus and do it,” he said. “The American people own this country. If the American people want me to lead the country, we’re not going to do anything till they fully understand it and we build a consensus to do it. But then we’re going to do it.

“We live in a world of talk, now. My only interest, if you want to live in a world of action and get things done, if you want to rebuild this country, if you want to make it work, I’ve got to go to the people.”

After the meeting with black leaders, AME Pastor Murray described Perot as “a person of some great simplicity. It’s like a person with a power tie and wingtip shoes and steer manure on the heels. And he’s folksy and believable. We’ll see.”

In the morning, Perot dropped by the Hollenbeck Youth Center in East Los Angeles, where he was given a half-hour tour, and later sat with center officials and talked about inner-city problems for an hour and 15 minutes.

A spokesman for the youth center described the stop as a “fact-finding trip” and said that the undeclared candidate made it clear that he did not want the visit to be a media event.

A TV news crew was kept outside the building during the nearly two-hour stop. Perot emerged from the center with several aides and climbed into a waiting van without stopping to be interviewed, said Mike McClure, the center’s field director.

“I would say he did more listening than talking, and I was impressed by that,” said McClure, a Republican who said he plans to vote for Bush.

Perot’s noon appearance at a luncheon with a group of Asian-Americans at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles was just as low-key as his visit to the youth center.

Even hotel officials had no advance knowledge that he would be there, and did not know he was in the building until an employee saw him walk through the main entrance.

Hotel spokeswoman Clare Getto said that Perot had lunch with about 20 people in a small banquet room and left without fanfare.

Another hotel employee, who asked not to be identified, said that hotel officials called Perot headquarters in Beverly Hills after hearing a rumor that the candidate was on the premises, and were told that he was not in California.

Times staff writer Ron Russell contributed to this story.

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