ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
AMONG ED ROLLINS' claims in "Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms" is that a president Ross Perot would have been a disaster for the country.
Ross Perot was the ``wrong man at the right time,'' whose quest to become president in 1992 was doomed by his ego and ``utter inability to think strategically,'' his former campaign manager says in a new book.
``The country, happily, is a better place for that,'' Republican strategist Ed Rollins, who had a brief and stormy stint as manager of Perot's 1992 campaign, writes in ``Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms.''
Excerpts will be published Monday in Time magazine.
The book also includes Rollins' impressions of other notables from his decades in national politics, including Republicans Arianna Huffington, Newt Gingrich, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, George Bush and New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman.
Rollins, who was criticized for leaving the GOP to help the Texas billionaire challenge Bush, says that although Perot had a legitimate shot at becoming president, he would have been a disaster.
Perot withdrew from the race in the summer of 1992, re-entered in the fall and finished in third place with 19 percent of the vote.
No one answered the phone Saturday at Perot's headquarters in Dallas.
``There's no doubt in my mind that until he tossed it away, Perot had a legitimate shot at being elected. The country was absolutely ready for an outsider, and his message had great resonance,'' Rollins writes.
``If he had been elected, however, his government would have been a managerial disaster,'' he adds. ``Perot is chemically incapable of delegating authority. He'd have been a little dictator, ruling over government in chaos.''
Rollins says he, Perot and the candidate's staff fought over the direction of the campaign, its message and budget. Perot refused to spend the $150 million Rollins said was necessary and slashed it in half.
Perot also despised the research staff and complained that they brought him ``big, thick books.'' The health care book had almost 600 pages. ``There's not any reason you can't get all the facts that are important on one page,'' Rollins quotes Perot as saying.
The staff was so disorganized that the deceased William French Smith, Reagan's first attorney general, was on a list of potential vice presidential candidates. Other choices included ABC News political commentator Cokie Roberts, who hails from a family of Democratic politicians, and longtime Republican Elizabeth Dole.
``We looked like fools,'' Rollins writes.
In July, a couple of months after he was recruited by the campaign, an aide told Rollins that Perot - who had already dug deeply into Rollins' background and knew details about his health and marriage - never trusted him.
The aide, Mort Meyerson, said Perot believed Rollins was part of a ``Republican dirty-tricks squad'' and was ``extremely paranoid ... that you've been sent down here to destroy this campaign,'' Rollins writes.
Rollins says Perot theorized that Bush, as a former head of the CIA, had put Rollins on a ``lifetime CIA retainer'' to cause trouble for Perot.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB