Perot Lashes Out at Bush Charges of Spying on Rivals

Ross Perot, clearly stung by a barrage of charges that he has repeatedly hired private eyes to spy on political and business rivals, launched a furious counterattack Wednesday.

In television and newspaper interviews and at an hourlong press conference, the likely independent candidate for President lashed out at George Bush for conducting “a carefully orchestrated plan to try to damage me” with false and spurious charges.

Perot acknowledged hiring private detectives “on three or four occasions” to investigate possible illegal activities by employees or competitors. But, he insisted, “I’m not running around like Sherlock Holmes trying to do anything. . . . I do not spend my time investigating other people.”

Perot was responding to attacks over the last week by Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle and Administration drug czar Bob Martinez alleging that Perot is a conspiratorial zealot with a penchant for snooping on enemies, Bush’s family members and even Perot’s own children. Bush surrogates have described Perot as a potential tyrant with a reckless disregard for the law and the Constitution.

The Texas billionaire also released a letter that Bush wrote to him seeming to undermine the charge that Perot had investigated Bush’s children. The letter thanked Perot for bringing rumors about Bush’s family to his attention. “I was very touched by your call(s) about my kids,” Bush wrote. “They are all straight arrows, uninvolved in intrigue, and yet the rumor mill links them. . . . You understood all this.”

Perot accused Bush of deliberately distorting the incident, saying he had passed on the rumors “father to father.”

The White House fusillade continued Wednesday, with chief spokesman Marlin Fitzwater calling Perot “paranoid” and depicting him as someone who could not be trusted with the vast power of the federal government.

The charges clearly have unsettled the Perot drive for the White House, which felt compelled to respond quickly and forcefully before the brush fire got out of control. Recent polls show that a growing number of Americans see the Texas billionaire in a negative light.

Perot’s appearances Wednesday marked a critical moment in his still-undeclared candidacy. He took great pains to restrain his natural instinct to hit back when cornered, but he also was determined not to let the blows go unanswered.

In the interviews and press conference, Perot appeared both testy and mournful that politics in America had degenerated to the level of personal mudslinging. At one point, he compared the White House campaign against him to the propaganda efforts of Adolf Hitler. But then he said, “I like and respect President Bush and I have no vendetta against him.”

At the press conference, where Perot mostly appeared relaxed and folksy, he denied that the controversy would drive him out of the presidential race. “You guys don’t understand what tough is,” he said. “This is Mickey Mouse tossed salad.” At another point, he called the charges “animal crackers.”

Perot charged that the White House campaign was deliberately timed to coincide with his 62nd birthday on June 27, when he had been expected to formally declare his candidacy for the presidency. Perot said he did not intend to announce on the 27th, but would wait until supporters had placed his name on the general election ballot in several more key states. Currently, he has qualified for the ballot or submitted enough signatures in more than 30 states.

The software tycoon was in Annapolis to thank volunteers for gathering signatures to put his name on the Maryland ballot in November. The Maryland Perot committee submitted 147,000 signatures to state election officials on Monday--more than double the number required.

Perot addressed a colorful Annapolis rally attended by several thousand supporters massed on the municipal boat docks. Perot, a 1953 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy here, arrived on a bunting-bedecked tour boat trailed by two dozen smaller boats representing Maryland counties.

At the rally, Perot gave his now-standard pep talk on the greatness of America and the need to restore the country’s industrial competitiveness. He saved his real fire for the press appearances, issuing a spirited defense of his character and a harsh attack on Bush and his campaign surrogates.

Perot called the Republican charges a “dirty tricks campaign” based on lies and half-truths spread by GOP operatives employed in the Bush campaign’s opposition research shop.

He acknowledged that the negative publicity had had a measurable effect on his popularity. “The Republicans have had a nonstop saturation bombing to recast my personality,” he said in one television interview. “That would naturally have some impact.”

Longtime Perot business associate and senior campaign adviser Morton H. Meyerson said in an interview that the campaign was not conducting a “counteroffensive,” but merely wished to respond to a series of false charges. After avoiding the media for two weeks, Perot appeared on NBC’s “Today” show for 40 minutes, held his first full-blown press conference and then appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” show.

“All we’re doing is setting the record straight,” Meyerson said. He added that callers to Perot’s headquarters were “enraged” by the GOP attacks and that offers to contribute to or help in the campaign continued to pour in.

Perot, citing an example of what he said was the work of the Bush-Quayle opposition research team, said that GOP operatives had been at the Dallas County courthouse recently trying to unearth the will of his late mother, Lulu Perot.

“Preposterous,” replied David Tell, director of research for the Bush campaign. “I have no interest in Mr. Perot’s mother. Nobody at this campaign has ever been asked to do anything like that or has ever suggested that we do anything like that.”

Torie Clarke, the Bush campaign’s chief spokeswoman, said of Perot: “He throws around these wild allegations. I think he ought to put up or shut up.”

Richard N. Bond, chairman of the Republican National Committee, challenged Perot during the call-in segment of the Larry King show to produce evidence of GOP dirty tricks. Bond denied that the national party was doing anything underhanded beyond pointing out Perot’s record. Perot responded that he had compiled an extensive list of such dirty tricks, but would release it on his own timetable.

While Bush and Perot lunge for each others’ throats like a pair of tethered gamecocks, the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Bill Clinton is sitting back enjoying the show.

Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers said Wednesday: “You’ve got a couple of Texas millionaires out there spitting at each other and we’re here talking about the details of our economic plan. I think that’s a pretty good position to be in.”

Anthony Podesta, a Democratic political consultant, said Perot “was clearly starting to bleed” from the recent attacks, but had carried off a “spirited defense” in his Wednesday appearances.

Times staff writers Robert Shogan, David Lauter and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

GOP VS. PEROT: Bush campaign and Republican National Committee help coordinate criticism. A18