European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 5, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday june 5, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary William Safir Perot s new Story on Navy raises questions Why after nearly four decades did Ross Perot feel he needed to present a new justification for leaving the . Navy and is Perot now telling the truth a or is he defaming the Man who was his commanding officer to cover up his original reason for seeking a hardship discharge in his anguished 1955 letter forwarded by his influential father to the most powerful politicians in Texas it. . Perot gave his reasons for seeking to leave the service Halfway through his four year Post Annapolis obligation a i have found the Navy to be a fairly godless organization a wrote the Young Man who had been Given a free four year education by the taxpayer. A i do not enjoy being subjected to Drunken tales of moral emptiness. Seeing promiscuity on the part of married men. Taking god s name in vain whether those reasons for Early discharge reflected hypersensitivity priggish Ness or the hypocrisy of an ambitious Young Man eager to get started on his civilian career they were not the sort that today a candidate wants made Public. So he recently set Forth a different reason that presents him in a More heroic Light. A i was in charge of the Crews recreation fund a Perot told Newsweek recently and turned on his former commander. A the ordered me to give him part of that Money to redo his Cabin. I do it. I was also in charge of narcotics and liquor. If we were at sea any length of time he wanted he probably assumed that nobody would Check out the new Story. But naval records show that during Perot a stay on the destroyer Sigourney Only two men served As Captain . Lienhard and Gerald j. Scott. I advertised for their whereabouts in this space last week. Lienhardt a son John called to say that his father who died three years ago considered Young Perot to be a this finest Junior Lienhard was succeeded As Captain of the Sigourney by cmdr. Scott in 1954, John Lienhard recalled. The following year Perot visited the Lienhard Home near Washington d.c., and said he had put the new Captain on report and was going to see the chief of naval personnel and Secretary of the Navy. Correspondence in the Lyndon Johnson Library confirms part of this. Perot a father a Cotton broker sought lbs a a influence and a senatorial staffer refers to a visit by adm. James Lemuel Holloway jr., then chief of naval personnel. Apparently it. . Perot had the political clout to get to the top. John Lienhard put me in touch with capt. Scotty Campbell who had been the division Commodore in 1954. Could he explain Perot a animus toward cmdr. Gerald Scott in 1955? a i done to think it was based on funds to decorate the captains Cabin a he said. A i heard a different he zipped his lip. Then Scott who retired from the Navy in 1902 after 20 years of service checked in from Sunnyvale calif., where he had just been interviewed by lbs news. A a it a absolutely totally untrue a he said flabbergasted by this attack from someone to whom he gave Good fitness reports and whose political petition he had just signed. A i never asked him about my Cabin. You done to do things like redecorating a Cabin on your own. Drugs booze gods name in vain a look sailors will cuss but it was of a minor nature. And As far As issuing narcotics and liquor a All that would have been audited by three was he put on report by his Junior officer a i never heard officially or unofficially about that a i guess he must have done it on the . But then i received a commendation for my performance As Captain of the Sigourney and after that i was assigned to the Polaris program under Admiral and then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Arthurw Radford a neither of which would have happened if there were any Shadow on my the Veteran naval officer cannot understand this personal assault from the billionaire candidate a you never want to make yourself look Good by throwing mud on somebody Perot is suddenly silent. A press agent perhaps on advice of counsel said the former lieutenant a never publicly identified by name the commander he now self serving by defames. C Tho now York Timos William f. Buckley n. Korea s nuclear dream must be squelched last month a Small detachment of North korean soldiers made their Way through the demilitarized zone that separates North from South Korea. Their Mission in the South presumably had something to do with the sophistication of the disguises that were found on them when they were detected and shot. The official reaction to the interdiction of this foray from Pyongyang North Korea was for those of us who live in the safer of the two hemispheres Well just like old times. Said the communist spokesman for 80-year-old Kim ii Sung a the South korean puppet government has committed a grave provocation seriously getting on our nerves by fabricating a false report after creating an aah that is How pravda sounded for about 70 years. Although Kim ii Sung has said this and that about his willingness to submit to nuclear sweeps somehow an effective Date for an exploration never gets put on the Calendar. This is a Good reason for South koreans to be nervous Given the record of the North. There was of course the rather blatant record to destroy the South which resulted in a bloody and noisy War ending with the cease fire of 1953. That was a Long time ago but every time Kim ii Sung gives off a conciliatory bleat unpleasant things tend to happen. In 1972, a South North dialogue got under Way during which it was discovered that the communists were busily engaged in digging infiltration tunnels under the Doz and boosting their armed forces by 200,000 men. In 1983, the North proposed tripartite talks Ami just after that they contrived the Slaughter of about one half of the Cabinet of South Korea by agents operating in Rangoon Burma. Still there is now talk of conciliation Anil there Are those who believe the situation has really changed. For one thing Kim u Sung travelled recently to Beijing and there he was told by Deng Xiaoping the wizened chinese tyrant who presided Over Tiana men Square lets face it Kim you had better do something about your deteriorating economic House. To reinforce his avuncular warning Deng All but closed Down those subsidies on which Kim happily lived for so Many years. Given that starting two years ago North Korea has had to do without soviet help the situation in the North has become grave and there Are those who say that Pyongyang has to do something. What begin with this figure North Korea with its population of just More than 20 million is the most militarized Power on Earth. And the estimate by Gen. Robert w. Riscassi who is the commander of our military in South Korea technically under the United nations has said publicly that he estimates the communists will have a nuclear bomb one to three years from now. Why do they want a nuclear weapon one does no to need to answer that question to prompt another namely what would the korean american military do in the South if it became convinced that such a bomb would materialize within of six months Riscassi for obvious reasons declines to speculate on such a contingency. But it is obvious that Northwest Asia could not survive the materialization of a nuclear sized North Korea. We would then be thinking in terms of a surgical strike. But North Korea then retaliate yes probably. What with Well it has like Iraq a lot of scud missiles. How Many civilians might the North kill if such missiles were put to lethal use answer you guess the figure. Bear in mind that Seoul is Only 50 Miles South of the Doz and there Are 10 million people living there. One Hundred thousand casualties Isnit a figure Only an alarmist would cite. It is in Short imperative both a that North Korea not be tolerated As a nuclear Power and b that its capacity to retaliate be reckoned with. What then is South koreans policy of obvious importance is the stability of the . Military presence a and the hard mobilization of pressures on Pyongyang to abandon any dream of Tak tag Over by exerting nuclear muscle. Japan a stake is of course critical. What kind of pressures that Haven to already been imposed Are there Well Japan has said that it is prepared to pay to the North koreans substantial reparations for the cruel occupation of the Peninsula for 35 years. That is an enticement that could prove critical to a nation in rags with Only just enough muscle to pursue the evanescent dream of a nuclear Power rising from tiie ashes of 50 years of communist Rule a it Nai p u jul
