Word: perots
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...That Perot has a penchant for getting involved in secret activities seems undeniable. He put up the money for some of Oliver North's efforts to buy the freedom of American hostages in the Middle East (and lost at least $300,000 that was taken by middlemen who disappeared). In 1981 Perot agreed to a suggestion by agents of the U.S. Customs Service that he finance a drug sting in the Caribbean. The idea was to set up a landing strip on a foreign-owned island where agents would gather information on drug-carrying flights that would be induced...
...Perot's best-known and most extensive unofficial operations, of course, have been those involving U.S. prisoners of war, real or imagined, in Vietnam. The operations began with his shipment of a planeload of food and clothes to them at Christmas in 1969, an unexceptionable venture that made him a hero (even though the shipment did not get through). For a while after the peace accords of 1973, he became convinced that there were no more Americans being held prisoner in Vietnam, but later he became equally positive that there were and are -- why he has never made clear...
...Perot last week canceled a scheduled appearance before a Senate committee to tell his side of the story; the committee is now trying to decide whether to subpoena him. But Perot, a confirmed conspiracy theorist, has made it plain that he believes government officials have been engaged in a far-ranging plot to prevent an honest investigation into whether American POWS are still being held in Vietnam, for fear it would expose drug-smuggling operations they conducted to finance a secret war in Laos. Perot may have got that idea from Christic Institute, a leftish public-interest law firm that...
...special target of Perot's has been Richard Armitage, at the time an Assistant Secretary of Defense, now a State Department official. In 1986 Perot called on both Vice President Bush and President Reagan to urge them to fire Armitage. Just what Armitage did to arouse the Texan's wrath, other than blocking Perot, is not clear. He was named in the Christic suit but produced a factual refutation of several charges; among other things, he proved that he was in Washington at a time when Christic and Perot said he was in Bangkok arranging drug smuggling. Armitage did once...
Armitage is certainly not the only person subjected to the lash of Perot's righteous wrath. Perhaps the most frightening of Perot's characteristics is his tendency to use all his wealth and influence to conduct vendettas against those who cross him. Critics contend that on most occasions Perot is so convinced he is absolutely right that he believes those who oppose him are not just mistaken but evil, and feels perfectly justified in going after them hammer and tongs. Some examples...