the Navy because of the propen-
sity of sailors to swear, drink, and
commit adultery. He bought his
suits off the rack.Just five feet five inches tall,
with distinctive jug ears and a na-
sal twang common to Texarkana,
where he was born in 1930, Perot
was widely and easily caricatured.
If you were sentient in the nineties,
you probably remember Dana Car-
vey’s frequent send-ups of Perot
on Saturday Night Live. Perot got
a kick out of the parodies, once de-
scribing himself as “a latter-day
P.T. Barnum with no elephants.”
After leaving the Navy in 1957
(his request for early release had
been denied), he went to work for
IBM as a computer salesman. He
reportedly sold so many comput-
ers that IBM capped commissions.
His superiors weren’t interested in
his ideas for selling services as well
as machines, so in 1962 Perot left
IBM and founded Electronic Data
Systems, in Dallas. EDS developed
outsourcing so that businesses and
government agencies didn’t have
to employ and constantly retrain
their own technology departments.
EDS made Perot a billionaire.
He once called money “the most
overrated thing in the world,”
which is easy to say if you’ve got it.
But those close to him agreed that
Perot loved the work of building a
company more than the personal
fortune it brought him.
His wealth and business acu-
men also earned him a seat at the
public policy table. In 1984 Perot
was appointed by then-governor
Mark White to chair a committee
to study improvements in public
education. He insisted on reforms
such as literacy testing for teach-
ers and adding prekindergarten to
Texas public schools. But perhaps
his most lasting, and controversial,
achievement was “no pass, no play,”
the rule that students must have
passing grades to participate in
extracurricular activities, includ-
ing football. “If the people of Texaswant Friday night entertainment
instead of education, let’s fi nd out
about it,” Perot declared, as he
fought opposition from football
coaches.
The 1992 presidential race
would be Perot’s biggest stage.
Perot had become disillusioned
with both major national political
parties, believing they represented
only the wealthiest Americans. The
national economy was in a crisis, he
said, promising to “git under the
hood” and fi x it.
What Perot could not fix was
his own campaign for president.
He entered the race as an inde-
pendent. He dropped out. He got
back in. The campaign seethed
with paranoia, and Perot became
more and more aloof. Bill Clinton
ended up winning, though Perot’s
18.9 percent was the best showing
by an independent or third-party
candidate since Teddy Roosevelt
ran under the Bull Moose banner
in 1912.
When Perot ran again, in 1996,
he did so under the banner of the
Reform Party, which he had found-
ed the year before. The supporters
I met in California were new age,
crystal-loving yuppies who seemed
to believe Perot was about to usher
in the Age of Aquarius. At the na-
tional party convention in Penn-
sylvania, the crowd was much moreAPPRECIATIONstraitlaced, with many costumed as
Betsy Ross, George Washington,
and Abraham Lincoln. In retro-
spect, these were the same kinds
of folks who would go on to form
the tea party.
After the Reform Party nominat-
ed nativist Pat Buchanan to run for
president in 2000, Perot turned his
back on the party he created and
went into a self-imposed political
exile that lasted for much of the
rest of his life.
Instead, he focused on good
deeds. The philanthropy that Perot
began in 1969 carried on through-
out the years, making Dallas a
better place. He gave millions of
dollars to the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center, the
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony
Center, the Dallas Museum of Art,
and the Perot Museum of Nature
and Science. In 2017 alone, the
Perot Foundation gave away $8.5
million to nonprofi ts and charities.
Perot died a rich man at a ripe old
age. That’s more than most accom-
plish. But he can also lay claim to
being one of the most Texan of Tex-
ans in the latter part of the twen-
tieth century. Unlike many Texas
men, he didn’t wear cowboy boots
to make himself taller, but he was
nonetheless a giant. TPerot shows
off the control
room of
Electronic Data
Systems’ newest
information
processing
center, in Auburn
Hills, Michigan,
on July 11, 1985.52 TEXAS MONTHLY
APPHOTO