Billionaire twice ran for president

H ROSS PEROT, the colourful, self-made Texas billionaire who rose from a childhood of Depression-era poverty and twice ran for president as a third-party candidate, has died, aged 89.

Mr Perot, whose 19 per cent of the vote in 1992 stands among the best showings by an independent candidate in the past century and is widely thought to have helped Bill Clinton defeat incumbent president George HW Bush, died in Dallas surrounded by his devoted family.

As a boy in Texarkana, Texas, Mr Perot delivered newspapers from the back of a pony.

He earned his billions in a more modern way, however.

After attending the US Naval Academy and becoming a salesman for IBM, he went his own way, creating and building Electronic Data Systems Corp, which helped other companies manage their computer networks.

Yet the most famous event in his career did not involve sales and earnings – he financed a private commando raid in 1979 to free two EDS employees who were being held in a prison in Iran.

Mr Perot first became known to Americans outside of business circles by claiming that the US government left behind hundreds of American soldiers who were missing or imprisoned at the end of the Vietnam War.

His wealth, fame and confident prescription for the nation’s economic ills propelled his 1992 campaign against Mr Bush and Mr Clinton.

His second campaign four years later was far less successful, achieving just eight per cent of the vote.