Perot Reports Plot to Kill Him for Opposing NAFTA

TAMPA, Fla. — Two days before his debate with Vice President Al Gore, political activist Ross Perot declared Sunday that he has been told he is the target of a “carefully planned plot” to assassinate him because of his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Appearing before an enthusiastic crowd of 2,500 supporters at a fairground complex near Tampa, Perot said that a police officer had informed him Sunday morning that the FBI had received allegations that “six Cubans” were planning to “take him out.”

The assassination was to be carried out either during Sunday’s rally in Tampa or during “the debate in Washington,” he told the shocked crowd. Perot is scheduled to debate NAFTA with Gore in Washington on CNN’s “Larry King Live” television program Tuesday night.

At another point, Perot said he had been told that the plot had been hatched by a “Mafia-like group in favor of a North American Free Trade Agreement because of the huge drug profits they could make shipping drugs from Mexico to the United States.”

At the end of the rally, Perot cited the threats again. “In the unlikely event something should happen . . . don’t spend a minute mourning,” he exhorted. “Just remember you own the country, redouble your efforts. . . . Step 1: Make sure you stop NAFTA, with or without me.”

A Justice Department official in Washington confirmed that the FBI office in Los Angeles had received an anonymous tip Saturday night. It was relayed by a man in Albuquerque, who said he was calling on behalf of another man who had just been released from a Mexican prison.

The unidentified caller said the released prisoner, who did not speak English, said he had heard other prisoners talk about a Perot assassination scheme that was to be carried out by a group of Cubans, according to the Justice Department official.

The FBI office in Los Angeles notified the Secret Service and FBI officials in Tampa and Dallas, who in turn alerted local police authorities.

“There’s no way of verifying these things; you can’t determine the authenticity,” said Oliver B. (Buck) Revell, special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office. “It could be totally legitimate. It could be a hoax. But on these things you have to notify proper authorities, and that’s what we did.”

An official at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department, which provided security at the rally, said that his office added security after being contacted by the FBI. There were no incidents at the rally that indicated any threat to Perot, spokesman Harvey Hunter said.

“It’s not unusual that the FBI or other agencies would share intelligence with us, but I can’t confirm that any such thing was relayed to us,” U.S. Secret Service spokesman Curtis Eldridge said.

Eldridge noted that Perot does not receive Secret Service protection. But experts said that threats against Perot may have been considered sufficiently important to relay to the Secret Service because of Perot’s upcoming debate with Gore. The assassination allegations are certain to stir yet another controversy around the billionaire populist Perot, whose public approval ratings have slipped as he has stepped up his campaign against the embattled free trade agreement.

During his bid for the presidency last year, Perot claimed to have been the target of plots over the years from a number of sources, ranging from Republican “dirty trick” squads to militant Black Panthers. In some instances, Perot was unable to provide evidence supporting his claims of plots involving either his campaign or his life.

Perot opened Sunday’s rally by walking through the audience from the rear of the cavernous, half-full auditorium. When he reached the stage, Perot said he had marched through the crowd because “I want to send the other side a message.”

After telling the crowd about the alleged plot, Perot asked all veterans in the audience to rise, explaining that he wanted to make a point to “any of those (Cuban) dudes if they’re around.”

During the rally, Perot recited his usual indictment of NAFTA, saying it would eliminate U.S. jobs, lock in Mexican poverty and threaten U.S. sovereignty. He repeatedly rained scorn on President Clinton, dismissing his arguments for the trade agreement. He mocked Clinton’s claim in a broadcast interview that he felt isolated from the public, and he belittled him for nominating Gore to debate Perot rather than doing so himself.

“How many people have you known in your life that talked a good game, then, when push came to shove, got someone else to do their dirty work for them?” Perot said at one point.

Perot characterized the debate over NAFTA as a stark contrast between ordinary Americans--”honest, hard-working, God-fearing people”--and an isolated economic and political elite contemptuous of them. Like former President George Bush during last year’s campaign, he frequently suggested that Clinton was unduly influenced by vaguely un-American ideas he picked up while a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University 20 years ago.

“We just taught you what capitalism is,” Perot said, as if speaking to Clinton, after asking small business owners in the audience to rise. “They didn’t teach you about that over in England. They taught you about the global economy; they taught you about one world.”

Earlier, Perot asked veterans to stand if they thought NAFTA represented a threat to American security. When several dozen did, Perot said that the White House “wouldn’t understand this (because) they all went to Canada and Europe during the war.”

Frequently addressing the White House “war room” that he said was watching the rally on C-SPAN, Perot said Clinton is off base in arguing that Americans fear the treaty because they feel “insecure” about their economic future.

“Listen to this, White House, the American people are made out of steel,” Perot said. “If the American people feel insecure, it’s because of all the corruption . . . in Washington.”

In contrast to his sharp words for Clinton, Perot described Gore as a “good, decent man.”

Although he saved his strongest invective for Clinton, Perot aimed populist missiles at a full spectrum of targets--from Washington lobbyists (“most of these guys, if they weren’t lobbying, couldn’t get a third-shift job in a fast-food restaurant”) to the press (“the masters of the universe . . . looking down their noses” at the American people.)

Brownstein reported from Tampa and Ostrow from Washington. Times staff writer John M. Broder in Washington also contributed to this story.