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I'm sure there's list somewhere of what events changed the course of history. It might even be part of a test in some college course. Certainly the list could be divided into centuries and even countries, but again, you have to be almost of a certain age to realize that H. Ross Perot changed the course of history. He gave us the Clintons.
No, not because he was their father, or even their uncle. He was the third-party candidate in 1992 that upset the apple cart and kept George H.W. Bush from being reelected president.
Ross fittingly rated a front page, below-the-fold NYT obituary on Wednesday, written by the redoubtable Robert McFadden. It has already been noted in these postings that right now, anyone who passes away near, or over 90, it's pretty much a cinch that McFadden has pre-written your obit, waiting for the official pronouncement of your demise. The file is waiting to be dragged to the obits page. Perot was 89.
The Times gives Perot the full-Monty treatment. The page one obit jumps to a full two-page spread, with large photos, a News Analysis and a sort of appreciation column. The guy did change history.
In 1970 the company I had already worked two years for, Blue Shield of New York, or United Medical Service (UMS), decided to outsource the EDP department. It was EDP in those days, Electronic Data Processing, not IT, and noisy keypunch machines were very much in use. (Computers were also referred to as electronic adding machines, EAM.)
As you might expect, this created quite an uproar because people's jobs were eliminated, and the small EDP department was "re-badged" as employees of EDS, Perot's rapidly growing Electronic Data Services company.
In came Perot's boys, and everyone was male. Suits, ties and white shirts, their work uniform. And nearly everyone was ex-military, Naval Academy types. Perot had graduated from Annapolis, and the military was his pipeline.
We all heard the stories of his delivering newspapers on horseback in Texarkana. He had been a salesman for IBM, pushing mainframes computers into the workplace. Supposedly, has was so successful at meeting his IBM sales quotas that the stories went he was on the golf course by the end of January.
The EDS contract with UMS was to develop a new claim system for paying claims. Not that Perot's people knew exactly how to do this, or had a proven track record of doing it, but fly-by-the-seat-of- your-pants was the order of the day. They learned as much from us and we learned from them. I was part of a small group of people who tested their efforts before they went into production. And believe me, they were way behind in delivering the final system.
I distinctly remember the day Ross came into the office to meet some of his key people who were working in the office right behind me. As pointed out by Mcfadden, Ross was not tall, and I remember him going right past me, as tall as I was sitting down.
I guess the door was closed, because I didn't get to hear him. But if Alec Baldwin has made a living out of impersonation Donald Trump, Dana Carvey made a living impersonating Perot on 'Saturday Night Live.' Perot did have a high pitched, nasal voice, that had homespun qualities, a homily sound bite waiting to happen. His presence in the 1992 presidential debates is the stuff of legend.
Mentioned in the obit is Perot's effort at getting his employees out of Iraq as they were being held hostage. I worked with one of those people, Bill Gaylord, when he was assigned to UMS. Perot's business was built on government contracts—domestic and international governments. He knew how to do business with governments and their complex purchasing rules. Anyone who can master the U.S. Government's purchasing manual is destined to get rich.
And Perot certainly did. After completing the work on the private sector of the business UMS administered, Perot and the "whiz kids" went to work on the Medicare Part B side of the business, the contract with the government. A new system for that took way more time than expected as well. But when it was finished, EDS had a system they could promote to all the plans that did Medicare business. And that was lucrative.
On the heels of snaring the contract to do work with United Medical Service, Perot took on Wall Street, trying to modernize the back offices that were awash in paper.
I worked as a clerk at a Wall Street firm, Burnham & Co., and you wouldn't believe how much paper there was. Yes, there were some computers, but stock certificates had to be handled and delivered by hand through the network of "runners" between firms. The certificates themselves were kept in "Cashiers," a supposedly restricted area surrounded by what looked like chicken wire.
Perot was going to modernize the NYSE and bought a firm, dupont, Glore Forgan. This exposed the salty Texan to hard-bitten, cynical New Yorkers. It was not a good fit. Perot retreated from trying to modernize Wall Street, but not before losing a bundle and taking a parting shot and calling Wall Street a 'Red Light District.' Perot did not stand for what he perceived to be immorality, and Wall Street, to him, had plenty to go around. Still does.
Yes, Ken Follett's best-seller, 'On the Wings Eagles' did recount the hostage rescue in Iraq. Not mentioned in the obit is the 1983 movie 'Uncommon Valor' staring Gene Hackman, Robert Stack, and Patrick Swayze about rescuing prisoners held in Laos after the Vietnam War. The movie is a thinly veiled story about Perot's efforts to liberate POWs. In the movie, more rescuers die than those that get rescued, but it is an action film.
Did Perot have an effect on the 1992 Presidential election? Was he a precursor to the rise of Donald Trump and alleged Russian influence in 2016 through social media? The obit says no, even though he got 19% of the popular vote, he got no electoral votes.
But he did sway states that might have gone with their electoral votes to create a majority within the state for George Bush? Bill Clinton picked up electoral votes that George H.W. Bush would have won. Perot changed the course of history.
But why did he jump into the election? George H.W. Bush was asked if he knew why Perot jumped in and hurt his chances. Ever the diplomat, Bush demurred and basically said he didn't know.
But there were known factors at work. As vice president for Reagan, Bush had to confront Perot and scotch his efforts at going to Southeast Asia and trying to free POWs. Perot's mission got cancelled, and the feeling is he never forgave Bush for that, even if he was just the messenger.
The other factor at work is a little harder to pin down, but Texans do not like interlopers, those that come into the state and do well. And George H.W. Bush was a Connecticut Yankee who conquered part of the Texas oil business and became quite wealthy. The Bushes were not real Texans.
The newscaster, Dan Rather is from Texas, and he seemed to have a misguided mission to embarrass the son, George W. Bush, with a story about getting out of the Army and into the National Guard during the draft era surrounding the Vietnam War.
Dan Rather steadfastly used a document that clearly could not have been typed when it was said to have been written. A use of an ordinal number with a 'th" could not have come from the purported timeline. Rather kept at it, and eventually was booted from CBS News along with his producer, also from Texas. When your family is not from the from the Lone Star State, you are not a Texan. You can't say, "Remember the Alamo."
The 1992 debates were pure theater. Perot with his graphs, George H.W. looking at his watch, and Clinton being a country boy. It may never happen again; three left-handed people running for president at the same time.
Those were the days.
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