Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Read online

  stared back, horrified.

  The cell door clanged shut behind them.

  TWO

  1

  Until this moment life had been extremely good to Ross Perot.

  On the morning of December 28, 1978, he sat at the breakfast table in his

  mountain cabin at Vail, Colorado, and was served breakfast by Holly, the

  cook.

  Perched on the mountainside and half-hidden in the aspen forest, the "log

  cabin" had six bedroorns, five bathrooms, a thirty-foot living room, and an

  apr6s-ski "recuperation room" with a Jacuzzi pool in front of the

  fireplace. It was just a holiday home.

  Ross Perot was rich.

  He had started EDS with a thousand dollars, and now the shares in the

  company-more than half of which he still owned personally-were worth

  several hundred million dollars. He was the sole owner of the Petrus Oil

  and Gas Company, which had reserves worth hundreds of millions. He also had

  an awful lot of Dallas real estate. It was difficult to figure out exactly

  how much money he had-a lot depended on just how you counted it-but it was

  certainly more than five hundred million dollars and probably less than a

  billion.

  . In novels, fantastically rich people were portrayed as greedy, power-mad,

  neurotic, hated, and unhappy-always unhappy. Perot did not read many novels.

  He was happy.

  He did not think it was the money that made him happy. He believed in

  money-making, in business and profits, because that was what made America

  tick; and he enjoyed a few of the toys money could buy--the cabin cruiser,

  the speedboats, the helicopter; but rolling around in hundred-dollar bills

  had never been one of his daydreams. He had dreamed of building a

  successful business that would employ thousands of people; but his greatest

  45

  46 Ken Follen

  dream-come-true was right hem in front of his eyes. Running around in

  thermal underwear, getting ready to go skiing, was his family. Here was Ross

  Junior, twenty years old, and if there was a finer young man in the state of

  Texas, Perot had yet to meet him. Here were four-count 'em, four--daughters:

  Nancy-, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine. They were all healthy, smart, and

  lovable. Perot had sometimes told interviewers that he would measure his

  success in life by how his children turned out. If they grew into good

  citizens with a deep concern for other people, he would consider his life

  worthwhile. (The interviewers would say: "Hell, I believe you, but if I put

  stuff like that in the article the readers will think I've been bought off!"

  And Perot would just say: "I don't care. I'll tell you the truth-you write

  whatever you like.") And the children had turned out just exactly how he had

  wished, so far. Being brought up in circumstances of great wealth and

  privilege had not spoiled them at all. It was almost miraculous.

  Running around after the children with ski-lift tickets, wool socks, and

  sunscreen lotion was the person responsible for this miracle, Margot Perot.

  She was beautiful, loving, intelligent, classy, and a perfect mother. She

  could, if she had wanted to, have married a John Kennedy, a Paul Newman, a

  Prince Ranier, or a Rockefeller. Instead, she had fallen in love with Ross

  Perot from Texarkana, Texas; five feet seven with a broken nose and nothing

  in his pocket but hopes. All his life Perot had believed he was lucky. Now,

  at the age of forty-eight, he could look back and see that the luckiest

  thing that ever happened to him was Margot.

  He was a happy man with a happy family, but a shadow had fallen over them

  this Christmas. Perot's mother was dying. She had bone cancer. On Christmas

  Eve she had fallen at home: it was not a heavy fall, but because the cancer

  had weakened her bones, she had broken her hip and had to be rushed to

  Baylor Hospital in downtown Dallas.

  Perot's sister, Bette, spent that night with their mother, then, on

  Christmas Day, Perot and Margot and the five children loaded the presents

  into the station wagon and drove to the hospital. Grandmother was in such

  good spirits that they all thoroughly enjoyed their day. However, she did

  not want to see them the following day: she knew they had planned to go

  skiing, and she insisted they go, despite her illness. Margot and the

  children left for Vail on December 26, but Perot stayed behind.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 47

  There followed a battle of wills such as Perot had fought with his mother

  in childhood. Lulu May Perot was only an inch or two, over five feet, and

  slight, but she was no more fi-ail than a sergeant in the marines. She told

  him he worked hard and he needed the holiday. He replied that he did not

  want to leave her. Eventually the doctors intervened, and told him he was

  doing her no good by staying against her will. The next day he joined his

  family in Vail. She had won, as she always had when he was a boy.

  One of their battles had been fought over a Boy Scout trip. There had been

  flooding in Texarkana, and the Scouts were planning to camp near the

  disaster area for three days and help with relief work. Young Perot was

  determined to go, but his mother knew that he was too young-he would only

  be a burden to the scoutmaster. Young Ross kept on and on at her, and she

  just smiled sweetly and said no.

  The time he won a concession from her: he was allowed to go and help pitch

  tents the first day, but he had to come home in the evening. It wasn't much

  of a compromise. But he was quite incapable of defying her. He just had to

  imagine the scene when he would come home, and think of the words he would

  use to tell her that he had disobeyed her---and he knew he cotdd not do it.

  He was never spanked. He could not remember even being yelled at. She did

  not rule him by fear. With her fair hair, blue eyes, and sweet nature, she

  bound him-and his sister, Beft-in chains of love. She would just look you

  in the eye and ten you what to do, and you simply could not bring yourself

  to make her unhappy.

  Even at the age of twenty-three, when Ross had been around the world and

  come home again, she would say: "Who have you got a date with tonight?

  Where are you going? What time will you be back?" And when he came home he

  would always have to kiss her good night. But by this time their battles

  were few and far between, for her principles were so deeply embedded in him

  that they had become his own. She now ruled the family Ue a constitutional

  monarch, wearing the trappings of power and legitimizing the real

  decision-makers.

  He had inherited more than her principles. He also had her iron will. He,

  too, had a way of looking, people in the eye. He had married a woman who

  resembled his mother. Blond and

  48 Ken Follen

  blue-eyed, Margot also had the kind of sweet nature that Lulu May had. But

  Margot did not dominate Perot.

  Everybody's mother has to die, and Lulu May was now eighty-two, but Perot

  could not be stoical about it. She was still a big part of his life. She no

  longer gave him orders, but she did give him encouragement. She had

  encouraged him to start EDS, and she had been the com
pany's bookkeeper

  during the early years as well as a founding director. He could talk over

  problems with her. He had consulted her in December 1969, at the height of

  his campaign to publicize the plight of American prisoners of war in North

  Vietnam. He had been planning to fly to Hanoi, and his colleagues at EDS

  had pointed out that if he put his life in danger the price of EDS stock

  might fall. He was faced with a moral dilemma: Did he have the right to

  make shareholders suffer, even for the best of causes? He had put the

  question to his mother. Her answer had been unhesitating. "Let them sell

  their shares. " The prisoners were dying, and that was far more important

  than the price of EDS stock.

  It was the conclusion Perot would have come to on his own. He did not

  really need her to tell him what to do. Without her, he would be the same

  man and do the same things. He was going to miss her, that was all. He was

  going to miss her very badly indeed.

  But he was not a man to brood. He could do nothing for her today. Two years

  ago, when she had a stroke, he had turned Dallas upside down on a Sunday

  afternoon to find the best neurosurgeon in town and bring him to the

  hospital. He responded to a crisis with action. But if there was nothing to

  be done he was able to shut the problem out of his mind, forgetting the bad

  news and going on to the next task. He would not now spoil his family's

  holiday by walking around with a mournful face. He would enter into the fun

  and games, and enjoy the company of his wife and children.

  The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts, and he stepped into the kitchen

  to pick it up.

  :'Ross Perot," he said.

  'Ross, this is Bill Gayden."

  'Hi, Bill." Gayden was an EDS old-timer, having joined the company in 1967.

  In some ways he was the typical salesman. He was a jovial man, everyone's

  buddy. He liked a joke, a drink, a smoke, and a hand of poker. He was also

  a wizard financier, very good around acquisitions, mergers, and deals,

  which was

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 49

  why Perot had made lurn president of EDS World. Gayden's sense of humor was

  irrepressible--he would find something funny to say in the most serious

  situations-but now he sounded somber.

  "Ross, we got a problem."

  It was an EDS catchphrase: We got a problem. It meant bad news.

  Gayden went on: "It's Paul and Bill."

  Perot knew instantly what he was talking about. The way in which his two

  senior men in Iran had been, prevented from leaving the country was highly

  sinister, and it had never been far from his mind, even while his mother

  lay dying. "But they're supposed to be allowed out today.

  "They've been arrested."

  The anger began as a small, hard knot in the pit of Perot's stomach. "Now,

  Bill, I was assured that they would be allowed to leave Iran as soon as

  this interview was over. Now I want to know how this happened."

  "They just slung them in jail."

  "On what charges?"

  "They didn't specify charges."

  "Under what law did they jail them?"

  "They didn't say."

  "What are we doing to get them out?"

  "Ross, they set bail at ninety million tomans. That's twelve million, seven

  hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "Twelve million?"

  "That's right. -

  "Now how the devil has this happened?"

  "Ross, I've been on the phone with Lloyd Briggs for half an hour, trying to

  understand it, and the fact is that Lloyd doesn't understand it either. -

  Perot paused. EDS executives were supposed to give him answers, not

  questions. Gayden knew better than to call without briefing himself as

  thoroughly as possible. Perot was not going to get any more out of him

  right now; Gayden just didn't have the information.

  "Get Tom Luce into the office," Perot said. "Call the State Department in

  Washington. This takes priority over everything else. I don't want them to

  stay in that *1 another damn minute!

  50 Ken Folleu

  Margot pricked up her ears when she heard Ross say damn: it was most unusual

  for him to curse, especially in front of the children. He came in from the

  kitchen with his face set. His eyes were as blue as the Arctic Ocean, and as

  cold. She knew that look. It was not just anger: he was not the kind of man

  to dissipate his energy in a display of bad temper. It was a look of

  inflexible determination. It meant he had decided to do sornething and he

  would move heaven and earth to get it done. She had seen that determination,

  that strength, in him when she had first met him, at the Naval Academy in

  Annapolis ... could it really be twenty-five years ago? It was the quality

  that cut him out from the herd, made him different from the mass of men. Oh,

  he had other qualities-he was smart, he was funny, he could charm the birds

  out of the trees-but what made him excepdonal was his strength of will. When

  he got that look in his eyes you could no more stop him than you could stop

  a railway train on a downhill gradient.

  "The Iranians put Paul and Bill in jail," he said.

  Margot's thoughts flew at once to their wives. She had known them both for

  years. Ruthie Chiapparone was a small, placid, smiling girl with a shock of

  fair hair. She had a vulnerable look: men wanted to protect her. She would

  take it hard. Emily Gaylord was tougher, at least on the surface. A thin

  blond woman, Emily was vivacious and spirited: she would want to get on a

  plane and go spring Bill from jail herself. The difference in the two women

  showed in their clothes: Ruthie chose soft fabrics and gentle outlines;

  Emily went in for smart tailoring and bright colors. Emily would suffer on

  the inside.

  -I'm going back to Dallas," Ross said.

  "Mere's a blizzard out there," said Margot, looking out at the snowflakes

  swirling down the mountainside. She knew she was wasting her breath: snow

  and ice would not stop him now. She thought ahead: Ross would not be able

  to sit behind a desk in Dallas for very long while two of his men were in

  an Iranian jail. He's not going to Dallas, she thought; he's going to Iran.

  - I'll take the four-wheel drive," he said. "I can catch a plane in Denver.

  11

  Margot suppressed her fears and smiled brightly. "Drive carefully, won't

  you," she said.

  Perot sat hunched over the wheel of the GM Suburban, driving carefully. The

  road was icy. Snow built up along the bottom

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 51

  edge of the windshield, shortening the travel of the wipers. He peered at

  the road ahead. Denver was 106 miles from Vail. It gave him time to think.

  He was still furious.

  It was not just that Paul and Bill were in jail. They were in jail because

  they had gone to Iran, and they had gone to Iran because Perot had sent

  them there.

  He had been worried about Iran for months. One day, after lying awake at

  night thinking about it, he had gone into the office and said: "Let's

  evacuate. If we're wrong, all we've lost is the price of three or four

  hundred plane tickets. Do it today. -

  It had been one of
the rare occasions on which his orders were not carried

  out. Everyone had dragged their feet, in Dallas and in Tehran. Not that he

  could blame them. He had lacked determination. If he had been firm they

  would have evacuated that day; but he had not been firm, and the following

  day the passports had been called for.

  He owed Paul and Bill a lot anyway. He felt a special debt of loyalty to

  the men who had gambled their careers by joining EDS when it was a

  struggling young company. Many times he had found the right man,

  interviewed him, got him interested, and offered him the job, only to find

  that, on talking it over with his family, the man had decided that EDS was

  just too small, too new, too risky.

  Paul and Bill had not only taken the chance-they had worked their butts off

  to make sure their gamble paid. Bill had designed the basic computer system

  for the administration of Medicare and Medicaid programs that, used now in

  many American states, formed the foundation of EDS's business. He had

  worked long hours, spent weeks away from home, and moved his family all

  over the country in those days. Paul had been no less dedicated: when the

  company had too few men and very little cash, Paul had done the work of duw

  systems engineers. Perot could remember the company's first contract in New

  York, with Pepsico; and Paul walking from Manhattan across the Brooklyn

  Bridge in the snow, to sneak past a picket line-the plant was on strikeand

  go to work.

  Perot owed it to Paul and Bill to get them out.

  He owed it to them to get the government of the United States to bring the

  whole weight of its influence to bear on the hanians.

  America had asked for Perot's help, once; and he had given

  52 Ken Follett

  three years of his life-and a bunch of money-to the prisonersof-war

  campaign. Now he was going to ask for America's help.

  His mind went back to 1969, when the Vietnam War was at its height. Some of

  his friends from the Naval Academy had been killed or captured: Bill

  Leftwich, a wonderfully warm, strong, kind man, had been killed in battle

  at the age of thirty-nine; Bill Lawrence was a prisoner of the North

  Vietnamese. Perot found it hard to watch his country, the greatest country

  in the world, losing a war because of lack of will; and even harder to see