Top Perot Aide Accuses GOP of ‘Smears’ : Politics: Mailing sent to Republican leaders is characterized as full of distortions and criticized as ‘negative campaigning at its finest.’

Top aides to Ross Perot charged Sunday that a memo by Republican National Committee Chairman Richard N. Bond uses “smears” and “distortions” in an attempt to discredit Perot, the undeclared independent presidential candidate and front-runner in several opinion polls.

Flashing a copy of the “talking points” memo on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ed Rollins, co-manager of Perot’s campaign, said the document reflected fear among President Bush’s senior advisers.

“What I find rather amazing is that the chairman of the Republican Party, who should be out promoting the President’s programs, has chosen instead to go out and single out Ross Perot,” Rollins said.

“I think that they’re fearful that Perot is cutting into their base,” he added. “I think that they assume that they have to take him out at this point in time, that there’s really nothing they can move forward on the President’s agenda that’s going to get him back moving in the polls, and that they see us as a real threat.”

Republican rhetoric about Perot has intensified in the last few weeks: Vice President Dan Quayle, drug czar Bob Martinez and White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater have suggested that he is a conspiratorial zealot with a penchant for snooping on enemies, that he could not be trusted with the command of the CIA and the FBI, and that he is paranoid.

Last Wednesday, Perot held an hourlong news conference to respond; he blamed GOP dirty tricks for the recent spate of negative news stories and denied that he has routinely hired private detectives. He acknowledged doing so “on three or four occasions” to investigate possible illegal activities by employees or competitors.

On Sunday, Rollins held a copy of Bond’s June 16 memo--which was mailed to Republican Party leaders around the country--and said: “This is negative campaigning at its finest, begun very early, a lot of distortions.”

In a section headed “Ross Perot’s way vs. the American way,” the memo said: “But how does Perot get what he wants? Several cases indicate that he resorts to using private detectives, surveillance photos and tough tactics.”

Perot’s chief spokesman, James Squires, said in a telephone interview from Dallas: “I don’t know of any surveillance photos given to him under any circumstance. That is the kind of distortion we’re talking about.”

The memo also tries to link Perot with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. “That’s a smear,” Squires said.

Bond’s memo says: “Ross Perot hired former Vietnam Vet Col. Bo Gritz, former Green Beret and modern-day mercenary, in 1986. Gritz would later serve as David Duke’s vice presidential running mate in 1988.”

That is not true--Gritz was not Duke’s running mate. In 1988, Duke ran for President on the Populist Party ticket and, according to Congressional Quarterly’s “America Votes,” his running mate was Floyd C. Parker.

Gritz is running as the Populist Party’s presidential candidate this year. Duke unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination.

Squires said that Perot did not hire Gritz but only provided him money to return home after meeting with him in Dallas. Perot did so after refusing to back Gritz’s proposal to locate and rescue U.S. servicemen said to be held as prisoners in Southeast Asia, Squires said.

Gritz, who served in Vietnam, has made several unsuccessful trips to the area to try to recover prisoners of war. He believes, as does Perot, that some Americans were left behind when the United States pulled out and prisoners were repatriated in 1973.

Republican National Committee spokesman Gary R. Koops Jr. said Sunday that the Perot payment to Gritz was documented in a 1990 biography of Perot by Todd Mason and in a Los Angeles Times story from last May 15. But the Times story does not mention a payment in 1986. It says only that “in 1983, Perot gave what he has since described as a small sum to . . . Gritz for a fruitless expedition into the Laotian jungle to find proof of remaining POWs and MIAs. Perot said the gift was only to placate Gritz. . . .”

Mason’s book, “Perot,” says: “Gritz claimed Perot as a backer and produced photocopies of two checks to prove it. Perot says he gave Gritz money to placate him.”

Bond wrote that Perot “is assuming mythical proportions--not unlike the Great Wizard of Oz, who Dorothy discovered was no more than a manipulative man behind a curtain. But he’s running for President now, and he has a responsibility to tell the American public what--if anything--he stands for.”

Commenting on Perot’s stance on issues, the memo said: “When it comes to avoiding the issues and lacking substance, Ross Perot has been a bull-ionaire. He’s had four positions on taxes--let’s cut them, let’s study them, let’s raise them, and ‘I never said that.’ ”

Squires said the memo was typical for the Republican National Committee. “This is not a last resort. It’s a first resort for these guys. They have been doing this for a dozen years. It was the main tactic in the last two elections.”