Citizen Perot: His Life and Times

by Gerald Posner

Ross Perot, for all that has been said and written about him, remains something of an enigma. The images presented of his life are often in conflict. Is he a heroic businessman who risked his life to rescue two of his kidnapped workers from revolutionary Iran, or a callous executive who ran roughshod over his employees and investigated the company's senior officers? A brilliant strategist who built a multibillion-dollar empire with an innovative idea in computers, or someone cunning enough to take advantage of government programs and milk an unfair profit? A superpatriot who underwrote his own missions to Southeast Asia to help the plight of the POWs and MIAs, or a secretive billionaire who was engrossed in far-flung conspiracy theories about the CIA and the international narcotics trade?

The result of two years of meticulous research, and based on hundreds  of  new  interviews and documents Citizen Perot strips away the mythology and unmasks the real Ross Perot for the first time. This groundbreaking book discloses the inside story of how Perot made his fortune; uncovers the tremendous influence he wielded with different presidents; presents the complete saga of his rescue mission from Iran; exposes the private wars he waged against government officials and business competitors he considered corrupt; explains the secret battles that created animosity with George Bush; and, finally, reveals what was behind Perot's unusual charges of Republican dirty tricks in the 1992 campaign.

At the heart of this investigation is Perot himself. Based in part on Perot's own unprecedented cooperation with author Gerald Posner, this book narrates a life that is rich in detail and unique for what it has attempted and accomplished. Studying Perot from  his childhood  to his current effort to create a third political party, Posner delivers an exhaustive inspection that cuts through years of misinformation and distortions to lay bare Perot's accumulation and use of power. In the process, it answers the perplexing question of what motivates Perot. It also shows whether he has the temperament and personality to be an effective president. Citizen Perot is an absorbing examination of a man who has become an American icon.

Genres: Biography

400 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Gerald Posner is an award winning journalist, bestselling author and attorney. The Los Angeles Times dubs him "a classic-style investigative journalist." "His work is painstakingly honest journalism" concluded The Washington Post. The New York Times lauded his "exhaustive research techniques" and The Boston Globe talked of Posner's "thorough and hard-edge investigation." "A meticulous and serious researcher," said the New York Daily News.

Posner's first book, Mengele, a 1986 biography of the Nazi "Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, was the result of a pro-bono lawsuit Posner brought on behalf of surviving twins from Auschwitz. Since then he has written ten other books from the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Case Closed, to bestsellers on political assassinations, organized crime, national politics, and 9/11 and terrorism. His upcoming God’s Bankers has spanned nine years of research and received early critical praise.

ohn Martin of ABC News says "Gerald Posner is one of the most resourceful investigators I have encountered in thirty years of journalism." Garry Wills calls Posner "a superb investigative reporter. "Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, demolishes myths through a meticulous re-examination of the facts," reported the Chicago Tribune. "Meticulous research," Newsday.

Anthony Lewis in The New York Times: "With 'Killing the Dream, he has written a superb book: a model of investigation, meticulous in its discovery and presentation of evidence, unbiased in its exploration of every claim. And it is a wonderfully readable book, as gripping as a first-class detective story."

"What we need is a work of painstakingly honest journalism, a la Case Closed, Gerald Posner's landmark re-examination of the assassination of John F. Kennedy," concluded Joe Sharkey in The New York Times.

Gene Lyons, in Entertainment Weekly: "As thorough and incisive a job of reporting and critical thinking as you will ever read, Case Closed does more than buttress the much beleaguered Warren Commission's conclusion ….More than that, Posner's book is written in a penetrating, lucid style that makes it a joy to read. Even the footnotes, often briskly debunking one or another fanciful or imaginary scenario put forth by the conspiracy theorists, rarely fail to enthrall...Case Closed is a work of genuine patriotism and a monument to the astringent power of reason. 'A'"

Jeffrey Toobin in the Chicago Tribune: "Unlike many of the 2,000 other books that have been written about the Kennedy assassination, Posner's Case Closed is a resolutely sane piece of work. More importantly, 'Case Closed' is utterly convincing in its thesis, which seems, in light of all that has transpired over the past 30 years, almost revolutionary....I started Case Closed as a skeptic - and slightly put off by the presumptuous title. To my mind historical truth is always a slippery thing. The chances of knowing for sure what happened in any event - much less one as murky as the Kennedy assassination - seem remote. But this fascinating and important book won me over. Case closed, indeed."

Based in the mixed realms of politics, history, and true crime, his articles - from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Newsweek, Time and The Daily Beast - have prompted Argentina to open its hidden Nazi files to researchers; raised disturbing questions about clues the FBI missed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; sparked a reinvestigation of the Boston Strangler; and exposed Pete Rose's gambling addiction, which led to his ban from baseball.

Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A Political Science major, Posner was a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1975), where he was also a national debating champion, winner of the Meiklejohn Award. At Hastings Law School (1978), he was an Honors Graduate and served as the Associate Executive Editor for the Law Review. Of Counsel to Posner & Ferrar

Reviews

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Call him H. Ross Hypocrite, and an even bigger hypocrite than I realized.

Perot railed against federal budget deficits in particular, and the federal government in general, during his 1992 presidential run.

But, not only had he become a billionaire off EDS getting major Medicare processing contracts, which I knew, but Posner shows how he was actually working for Blue Cross at the time, a no-no, but was taking unacceptable profit margins, and also fought hard against revealing anything in those contracts.

That leads to H. Ross Hypocrite part 2. The man was no more a straight shooter than the mythical Schmuck Talk Express, John McCain, nor than more typical career politicians. Like Donald Trump, though, versus those politicians, he lied more bluntly and perhaps while batting even fewer eyelashes.

H. Ross Hypocrite part 3 is about his biography vs reality. This lover of all things military tried to get out of his mandatory naval service early because he was a moral prude to the point of being a prig. He then tried to cover up that attempted opt-out history.

H. Ross Hypocrite part 4 gets back to why he ran in 1992. Current (of then) and former EDS staff told the "pros" like Jordan and Rollins that this man who was attacking budget deficits didn't even understand budgets that well in the business world.

Beyond that, one other issue stands out more. That's Perot's being a sucker for a wide variety of conspiracy theories, and con men and grifters promoting them.

Beyond the scope of this book, could he have gotten elected in 1992 if he hadn't done his initial drop-out, or even with it, if he hadn't done his nutty "Bush is spying on me" late October 1992 interview?

Quite possibly. And, as an independent, not a party candidate, might have been even worse in some ways than Trump.

[Henry Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before his death in 2019, Ross Perot changed American politics and in many ways, previewed the issues and tactics used in American government today, especially in terms of digital communication and resistance to trade. Gerald Posner wrote his Perot biography in 1996, at the height of the Perot phenomenon. He does a good job at examining Perot’s life, personality, Navy service, business acumen, as well as his flaws and his political outlook. Sometimes the book becomes overly detailed when discussing Perot’s business career, but perhaps that cannot be helped given how important that is in telling the Perot story. The chapters on Perot’s time at Annapolis and in the Navy, his interactions with the Nixon and Reagan administrations, his brief time on the GM board, and the 1992 election and the post-1992 political scene are great. This is a good biography for understanding the politics of the 1990s, even though it is almost three decades old. Rating: 4/5

[Nicholas Maulucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. In-depth. Recommended for biography lovers. And Texans.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched.

Probably the best Perot biography out there as far as I can tell.

[Patrick Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent overview, but far too short. Several major parts of his life (EDS/GM business career, POW/MIA work and 1992 election) could have been expanded upon.