BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
When Ross Perot Calls…
The former presidential candidate blasts John McCain, and gets an education about Barack Obama's religion.
The phone rang and it was Ross Perot, who hasn't given an interview in years. Perot, who won 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, making him one of the strongest third-party candidates in American history, got straight to the point.
"Remember what you wrote about John McCain in the March 13, 2000, NEWSWEEK?"
"Sure," I lied.
"When McCain called Perot 'nuttier than a fruitcake'?"
The Texas billionaire, now 77, still has some scores to settle from the Vietnam era, and his timing is exquisite. Just days before the South Carolina GOP primary, he wants me to know that McCain "is the classic opportunist--he's always reaching for attention and glory. Other POWs won't even sit at the same table with him."
Mark Salter, McCain's longtime top aide, says the Arizona senator has plenty of veteran support and many close friendships among other former POWs.
The Perot-McCain relationship goes back to McCain's five and a half years of captivity in Hanoi. When McCain's then-wife Carol was in a serious car accident, McCain's mother called Perot for help. "She asked me to send my people to Philadelphia to take care of the family," Perot says. Afterwards, McCain was grateful. "We loved him [Perot] for it," McCain told me in 2000.
Perot doesn't remember it that way. "After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history."
Perot's real problem with McCain is that he believes the senator hushed up evidence that live POWs were left behind in Vietnam and even transferred to the Soviet Union for human experimentation, a charge Perot says he heard from a senior Vietnamese official in the 1980s. "There's evidence, evidence, evidence," Perot claims. "McCain was adamant about shutting down anything to do with recovering POWs."
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Member Comments
Posted By: Core Democrat in Texas @ 06/10/2008 10:39:36 PM
Comment: Jonathan is campaigning for Obama as always. Try as he many, looks as if he couldn't convince Perot to endorse Obama; however, he did choose a misleading title for his article in order to create a false impression that Perot backs Obama. Jonathan is intellectually dishonest.
Posted By: rgd53@hotmail.com @ 06/10/2008 9:58:13 PM
Comment: It is difficult for me to understand why men and women like Ross Perot our NOT leading us. In stead we elect men like George Bush whom sold the American People out. We now know whom will be the next President. I guess we can only hope and pray that he too turns from his wicked ways. I do not have allot of optimism. I love America but dislike America's Leaders.
Posted By: rgd53@hotmail.com @ 06/10/2008 9:54:26 PM
Comment: It's difficult for me to understand why men like Ross Perot are not our elected leaders. It pains me to see truly smart men and women not leading us. In stead we elect George Bush and are ruled by the elistests.
I believe we will come-out of this time but the dreams we once had for our country may not ever be realised again.