The facts are we have to fixette. There is an extra trest yell doing it to us i guess. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. That was ross perot during the second of three president ial debates talking about one of his favorite issues the u. S. Debt. In that election, the texas businessman won 19 of the popular vote. He ran a second president ial campaign in 1996 and tonight he is our focus on the contenders. Gooned good night and thanks for being with us. Were doing this series as a way to look at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who failed in their quest for the white house but have an outside impact on American History. Ss perot is our final of 14 people that were proniling this series. Tonight joining us is Doug Brinkley. He is not politics as usual. He is less interested in money and politics than doing right for our country. I believe this comes out of his Naval Academy background. Looking for p. O. W. s and m. I. A. s during vietnam and constantly supporting our special force bus the clip you just ran tells you in 1992, it was the central issue of our upcoming president ial election, the National Debt. When he gave that clip, i think we were 3 trillion in debt. Today were at 15 trillion. When he was talking about the great sucking sound of jobs aving america due to nafta outsourcing, middle class mericans saw jobs go overseas. We often want to label people right, left. You have to say this about ross perot in 1992 and he put his money where his mouth was. He did it and it is extraordinary to get you know, about 19 of a vote. He seems to be right on a lot of the key issues including border problems. He had been on the National Stage for a while. The late 1980s. Speaking of these issues. Our first coverage was in 1987. Here he is speaking before the American Bankers Association that year. I think were old enough to take bad news. We have a 3 trillion debt by 1988. Funded by foreign nations at this point. The greatest nation in the history of man doesnt have the will to pass a national budget. We continue to pass continuing resolutions. That put us ever deeper into debt and we have given up trying to live within our means as a country. There is no correlation between taxes paid in and money spent. We are losing in International Business competition. Some of our banks have problems. Savings and loans have serious problems. Wall street is bouncing all over the place. Our personal spending habits of our people are as bleak as our federal spending habits. 24 years ago except for upping the numbers and that americans are now saving because of the 2008 crisis, it could be talked about in the same words today. We wonder why ross perot could give that speech. He was a genius. A speech in 1984 to General Motors and he got on the cover of fortune magazine. Really the importance of data collection. Companies even at one point invested in apple with steve jobs at one point. He wanted it to be the country of his great childhood. That can do spirit with just it fills him up and the fact that we were losing in the 1980s to japan a lot ont and of course today our problems competeing with china. The fact that so many people in congress seem to be bought and paid for. The lobbying in washington and getting rid of lobbyists and corrupt politicians was at the core of the pro message. In 1993, this book was published, perot and his people, distrusting the balance of power. Karen is joining us for the rest of her program in texas. She is in texas tonight. You knew him as a texas journalist long before Many Americans met him. Would you tell us about his roots and what shaped the man we newton National Stage . Onal s . Perot was from texarkana. He had an average texas childhood. Perot was from texarkana. He lived in a strong, stable middle class family. As a boy, boundless opportunities. The sky was the limit. He really sort of played into what was the texas mythology with texas politicians who were larger than life, very successful businessman who made a fortune here. They were risk takers, they were not afraid to fail. That was the sort of spirit he had at that i think got him into this thing. Noting that at the Naval Academy, he was president of his class the last couple of years. Early on he showed leadership traits have the ability to galvanize people under his leadership. That we would see later in his life. Just a quick overview of his business career, lets take a look he went into business he left the navy after four years and went into business and to ibm as a salesman where he became the top salesman for the company. That was in 1957. In 1962 he founded his own company which was Electronic Data Systems. He then sold it to General Motors for 2. 4 billion and stayed on the board. In 1988 he founded Perot Systems. In 2009 he sold that company to Dell Computers for 3. 9 billion. The source of his great wealth. He and his family are known as philanthropists. Can you talk about that side of him and his family . They have given a fortune to all sorts of charities here in dallas. Ross perot himself has made many anonymous contributions in small ways. He has helped individuals without people even knowing about it. There is a hospital here named for margot perot, his wife. He has given a lot of money to the boy scouts. It is amazing their philanthropy. You mentioned earlier his involvement with the vietnam pows. Can you tell us a little more what you know about his interest and that issue . How they created a divide between him and later president. We mentioned he graduated from the Naval Academy in annapolis as the president. That is a big deal. He was the sort of person in the navy who believe you are only as good as the guy left behind. He was a great leader. During those years when he was in the navy, he had sometimes had to go and get soldiers that were on leave or got drunk in a foreign town and got them back on the ship. It became sort of a hallmark youd never leave anybody behind. He was very upset during the vietnam war that the United States we did not push the pow mia issue in that. Enough. Ross perot stepped into the fray and it did very dramatically went to back channel negotiations with vietnam to say that we want every one of our guys back. He has become really a hero of the u. S. Military veterans for his constant concern about our soldiers and our troops. It recently, i get a top for i gave a talk for veterans day in dallas. It was a good group called daughters of world war ii. There were hundreds of world war ii veterans there. I got to talk to ross perot at dinner one night. One of the Amazing Stories he told me was that recently when our seals team killed osama bin laden, they thought so much of him, our special forces they shipped him a staff. A walking cane of bin laden. He went to fort pierce, florida to the seal museum which people should definitely go visit if you are in town on holiday. I think our navy seals should be time people of the year. Perot had a stick their with all the seals in attendance, of bin laden. That was just a tribute to how conscientious he is about getting jobs, performance people and his companies, helping veterans whenever he can, particularly the special forces which he thinks represents the best of the best of the american spirit. We visited his boyhood home in texarkana. We will show you that. As we are looking at that, we want Carolyn Barta to talk about his interest with texas governors. He was appointed to a couple of task forces, one by former governor bill clements. Another one by former governor mark white. Clements was a republican, white succeeded him as a democrat. They both asked ross perot to serve. One was on education reform. I think it just points out how ross perot was always one to speak his mind. He was never afraid to say what he thought. He thought that in the Public Schools there should be special classes for talented kids. The brightest kids should go to better classes. Some of the parents texas parents thought that is elitism. Maybe we do not want that in our Public Schools. Ross perot very sarcastically said, ok. Lets put all the five girls on fat girls on the drill team. Lets have everybody be the quarterback. It was just sort of an example of how he always spoke his mind. He was never reluctant to take on the top if he was asked to do a job like that for a couple of governors that showed the democrats and republicans both liked him. For years his name had been mentioned as a potential candidates for something in texas because he was a leader. He was also in the tradition of oldtime texas politicians. People like going back to sam houston in the republic of texas. That kind of charismatic leader. Speaker sam rayburn, lbj, governor john connally, governor clements who was one to speak his mind, governor ann richards who was then a class by herself as well. He was so much like some of these older texans who would just tell it like it is. They did not mind doing the hard work. If he thought it would help the state or the country, he did not mind doing the hard work to do it. Let me chime in at that point. One more bit of the perot biography. We want to put this on the screen before we get to his campaign in 1992. A number of eds workers were held hostage. Ross perot was personally involved in the rescue of those, something that was later captured in a book. On wings of eagles. It became a National Best seller and later a movie on television. Can you talk about how he did this effectively . This is an amazing story. In 1979, jimmy carter was president. You had the beginnings of an iranian revolution. Two of his workers for his company for Electronic Data Systems had been held captive. He wanted them sprung free. He went and hired former special forces people to go in and find a way to get that list. Them loose. He ended up they ended up using a rally to spring not just his two employees, but about 10,000 Political Prisoners got released. They had a rendezvous and they got a very dangerous trip. Cloak and dagger type of story. They were eventually able to smuggle out through turkey. This was a highly successful extraction maneuver of getting in there and getting his guys back. He gets back to about the pows and mias. Ross perot works and he believes in loyalty first and foremost. If you work for him in your loyal to him and his company, whatever he is up to, he will do anything for you. If you listen to people that know him, that is the number one trade. Personal loyalty to people he believes in. We have a great photograph. It is of him and Richard Crenna who played him from the movie. It was shown nationally on network television. It is 1992, set the stage about the reelection of george h. W. Bush at how the public was feeling about him. Remember, he had quite an George Herbert walker bush had quite of impressive record of Foreign Affairs. He oversaw the berlin wall coming down, the breakup of the soviet union, the head of the cold war. In 1991, the gulf war which most people thought was a Great Success of ousting Saddam Hussein from kuwait. But the economy was stagnant. By 1992, pat buchanan was going after president bush as having a silver spoon in his mouth and was an elite out of touch there was a populist revolt within the Republican Party. Also, you had another resurgence of jerry brown coming in. Bill clinton gets the nomination. You have the new Democrat Bill clinton and George Herbert walker bush. Suddenly ross perot goes on cnn, larry king, and says i will run as an independent if i can be on the ballot in all 50 states. If i am drafted. I am not going to go out there and run the typical campaign. People want my ideas, the ones we talked debt the outset here, particularly balancing the budget and stopping of outsourcing of jobs. He was opposed to the war in iraq because he thought it was going to be a mistake. Special forces should have gone in and killed Saddam Hussein. He watched his amazing third party run and started soaring in the polls and became the darling of the summer of 1992. We will pick up the rest of the story in a little bit. Lets show that larry king live interview where ross perot announces his willingness to run. Lets go down to grassroots america were the people are hurting. People are saying, why are we in this mess . First of all, look in the mirror. We are the owners of this country. We do not act like the owners. We act like white rabbits to get programmers from messages coming out of washington. We own this place. Is there any scenario in which she would run . Did you give me a scenario where you would say, ok. I am in. If number one, i do not want to. I know that. If you are that serious, you the people are that serious, you register me in 50 states. If you are not willing to organize and do that, then this is all just talk. I am saying to ordinary folks, if you are dead serious i want to see some sweat. I want you in the ring. Let me ask you about how much of a surprise that announcement was by the time it was made in february of 1992. I guess it surprised most people. The truth of the matter is, he had been out on the making speeches for, you know, several years. In particularly, leading up to the larry king live interview, he had in fact just a couple of weeks before that, he was in tennessee to speak to a business group. He was interviewed from a reporter there. He told him virtually the same thing. He said if he saw some skin in the game. If people would get in the ring and get him on the ballot, he but think about doing it. Nothing much came of that. It was published. Nothing much came of it. Ross perot was talking to a man in tennessee and another one in florida who were activists in trying to draft him to run. John j. Hooker in tennessee, a flamboyant businessman kept calling in and talking to him trying to get him to run. It got to the point where they started talking about, where should i announce . The considered conventional sources like the New York Times, l. A. Times, wall street journal. He liked larry king live. Throughout the campaign, he liked going on talk shows where he could talk and get his message out. As i was told the story, he had John Seigenthaler of the tennessean, the Editor Publisher there formally call larry king live. I am not sure whether he set it up or just told them to ask the question. Ross perot said he was going on larry king live to talk about the economy. He made an impulsive statement. He never thought it would go anywhere. The truth of the matter is he had been thinking about this for quite a long time. Even three months before, he made a speech in tampa to a group called throw the hypocritical rascals out. A man down there was trying to do a draft campaign. There were signs draft perot. 2000 people listening to him speak down there. He was curious about it. How do you get on 50 ballots . In fact, he asked some of his staff people to do some research to see how you get on the ballot. Even mulling it over in his head for a good while, it was a surprise to most of the country. I think he had been doing it for a good while. But his challenge to his supporters to get him on the ballot became the subject of Carolyn Bartas book that she contends is all about the people who followed ross perot and how they were galvanized to move outside of the conventional two party system in support of issues. And this figure leading those issues. We will talk a lot more about that as the program continues. These are backtoback clips that give you a sense of flavor. We mentioned that ross perot was very critical of the george bushs gulf war. We will hear from that in an interview he gave to cspan in 1992. Immediately after that, also in the spring of 1992, you will hear a clip from a very well known texas journalist molly ivans who has now passed. Molly ivins, who is now past. She is very well known in texas politics. She was asked to talk about this texas politician she knew so well. They should understand why we are going to war. Lets take the example you gave me. It was four months before the white house could figure out why we were doing it. One time it was jobs in the next time it was oil. Finally they got it together and it was we had to get rid of Nuclear Systems and hussain. Guess what we have still got . We did not accomplish any objectives. If i knock on your door and say i would like to borrow your son for the middle east so that this guy can have his throne back, you would probably hit me right in the mouth. I was writing about that format they had during the thats stupid tax reform idea that they had during the reagan years. I was talking about why it was a bad idea. If you make more than 17,000 a year, you are now in the same tax bracket as h. R. Perot. I then added, comma, who makes more than 1 million a year. I made the fatal journalistic error, i did not check. The next day the guys at our business desk in dallas laughing and saying, ross perot makes 1 million a day. [laughter] then a phone rang and there was an operator saying ross perot calling collect for molly ivans. [laughter] it really is funny. I like the guy. I am sure he is politically incorrect to an extent it would make peoples teeth hurt around here. I do like ross perot. He is a hard guy to dislike. There is a lot to like their. The downside is that basically guys who have made a lot of money and business have a hard time working in a system of checks and balances. The other down side is that the man is slightly paranoid, which is like being slightly pregnant. Our guest here in washington d. C. Is douglas brinkley, pr