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Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt

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by On Wings of Eagles [lit]


  how we go about paying it. You can bet they won't take American Express."

  "Okay," Gayden said.

  A voice from behind said: "Hi, Ross!"

  Perot looked around and saw T. J. Marquez. "Hi, Tom." T.J, was a tall, slim

  man of forty with Spanish good looks: olive skin, short, curly black hair,

  and a big smile that showed lots of white teeth. The first employee Perot

  ever hired, he was living evidence that Perot had an uncanny knack of

  picking good men. T.J. was now a vice-president of EDS, and his personal

  shareholding in the company was worth millions of dollars. "The Lord has

  been good to us," T.J. would say. Perot knew that T.J.'s parents had really

  struggled to send him to college. Their sacrifices had been well rewarded.

  One of the best things about the meteoric success of EDS, for Perot, had

  been sharing the triumph with people like T.J.

  T.J. sat down and talked fast. "I called Claude."

  Perot nodded: Claude Chappelear was the company's in-house lawyer.

  "Claude's friendly with Matthew Nimetz, counselor to Secretary of State

  Vance. I thought Claude might get Nimetz to talk to Vance himself. Nimetz

  called personally a little later: he wants to help us. He's going to send

  a cable under Vance's name to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, telling them to

  get off their butts; and he's going to write a personal note to Vance about

  Paul and Bill."

  "Good."

  "We also called Admiral Moorer. He's up to speed on this whole thing

  because we consulted him about the passport problem. Moorer's going to talk

  to Ardeshir Zahedi. Now, Zahedi is not just the Iranian Ambassador in

  Washington but also the Shah's brother-in-law, and he's now back in

  Iran-running the country, some say. Moorer will ask Zahedi to vouch for

  Paul and Bill. Right now we're drafting a cable for Zahedi to send to the

  Ministry of Justice."

  "Who's drafting it?"

  "Tom Luce."

  "Good." Perot summed up: "We've got the Secretary of State, the head of the

  Iran Desk, the Embassy, and the Iranian

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 67

  Ambassador all working on the case. That's good. Now let's talk about what

  else we can do."

  T.J. said: "Tom Luce and Tom Walter have an appointment with Admiral Moorer

  in Washington tomorrow. Moorer also suggested we call Richard Helms-he used

  to be Ambassador to Iran after he quit the CIA."

  "I'll call Helms," Perot said. "And I'll call Al Haig and Henry Kissinger.

  I want you two to concentrate on getting all our people out of Iran."

  Gayden said: "Ross, I'm not sure that's necessary-"

  "I don't want a discussion, Bill," said Perot. "Let's get it done. Now,

  Lloyd Briggs has to stay there and deal with the problem-he's the boss,

  with Paul and Bill in jail. Everyone else comes home."

  "You can't make them come home if they don't want to," Gayden said.

  "Who'll want to stay?"

  "Rich Gallagher. His wife-"

  "I know. Okay, Briggs and Gallagher stay. Nobody else." Perot stood up.

  "I'll get started on those calls."

  He took the elevator to the seventh floor and walked through his

  secretary's office. Sally Walther was at her desk. She had been with him

  for years, and had been involved in the prisonersof-war campaign and the

  San Francisco party. (She had come back from that weekend with a Son Tay

  Raider in tow, and Captain Udo Walther was now her husband.) Perot said to

  her: "Call Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Richard Helms."

  He went through to his own office and sat at his desk. The office, with its

  paneled walls, costly carpet, and shelves of antiquarian books, looked more

  like a Victorian library in an English country house. He was surrounded by

  souvenirs and his favorite art. For the house Margot bought Impressionist

  paintings, but in his office Perot preferred American art: Norman Rockwell

  originals and the Wild West bronzes of Frederic Remington. Through the

  window he could see the slopes of the old golf course.

  Perot did not know where Henry Kissinger might be spending the holidays: it

  could take Sally a while to find him. There was time to think about what to

  say. Kissinger was not a close friend. It would need all his salesmanship

  to grab Kissinger's attention and, in the space of a short phone call, win

  his sympathy.

  68 Ken Follett

  The phone on his desk buzzed, and Sally called: "Henry Kissinger for you."

  Perot picked it up. "Ross Perot."

  "I have Henry Kissinger for you."

  Perot waited.

  Kissinger had once been called the most powerful man in the world. He knew

  the Shah personally. But how well would he remember Ross Perot? The

  prisoners-of-war campaign had been big, but Kissinger's projects had been

  bigger: peace in the Middle East, rapprochement between the U.S. and China,

  the ending of the Vietnam War ...

  "Kissinger here." It was the familiar deep voice, its accent a curious

  mixture of American vowels and German consonants.

  "Dr. Kissinger, this is Ross Perot. I'm a businessman in Dallas, Texas,

  and-"

  "Hell, Ross, I know who you are," said Kissinger.

  Perot's heart leaped. Kissinger's voice was warm, friendly, and informal.

  This was great! Perot began to tell him about Paul and Bill: how they had

  gone voluntarily to see Dadgar, how the State Department had let them down.

  He assured Kissinger they were innocent, and pointed out that they had not

  been charged with any crime, nor had the Iranians produced an atom of

  evidence against them. "These are my men, I sent them there, and I have to

  get them back," he finished.

  "I'll see what I can do," Kissinger said.

  Perot was exultant. "I sure appreciate it!"

  "Send me a short briefing paper with all the details."

  "We'll get it to you today."

  "I'll get back to you, Ross."

  "Thank you, sir."

  The line went dead.

  Perot felt terrific. Kissinger had remembered him, had been friendly and

  willing to help. He wanted a briefing paper: EDS could send it today-

  Perot was struck by a thought. He had no idea where Kissinger had been

  speaking from-it might have been London, Monte Carlo, Mexico ...

  I 'Sally?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Did you find out where Kissinger is?"

  "Yes, sir."

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 69

  Kissinger was in New York, in his duplex at the exclusive River House

  apartment complex on East Fifty-second Street. From the window he could see

  the East River.

  Kissinger remembered Ross Perot clearly. Perot was a rough diamond. He

  helped causes with which Kissinger was sympathetic, usually causes having

  to do with prisoners. In the Vietnam War Perot's campaign had been

  courageous, even though he had sometimes harassed Kissinger beyond the

  point of what was doable. Now some of Perot's own people were prisoners.

  Kissinger could readily believe that they were innocent. Iran was on the

  brink of civil war: justice and due process meant little over there now. He

  wondered whether he could help. He wanted to: it was a good cause. He was

  no longer in office, but he still had friends, He
would call Ardeshir

  Zahedi, he decided, as soon as the briefing paper arrived from Dallas.

  Perot felt good about the conversation with Kissinger. HeU, Ross, I know who

  you are. That was worth more than money. The only advantage of being famous

  was that it sometimes helped get important things done.

  T.J. came in. "I have your passport," he said. "It already has a visa for

  Iran, but, Ross, I don't think you should go. All of us here can work on

  the problem, but you're the key man. The last thing we need is for you to

  be out of contact-in Tehran or just up in a plane sornewhere--at a moment

  when we have to make a crucial decision."

  Perot had forgotten all about going to Tehran. Everything he

  had heard in the last hour encouraged him to think it would not

  be necessary. "You might be right," he said to T.J. "We have

  so many things going in the area of negotiation --- only one of

  them has to work. I won't go to Tehran. Yet."

  4-

  Henry Precht was probably the most harassed man in Washington. A long-serving

  State Department official with a bent for art and philosophy and a wacky

  sense of humor, he had been making American policy on Iran more or less by

  himself for much of 1978, while his superiors---right up to President

  Carter-

  70 Ken Follett

  focused on the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel.

  Since early November, when things had really started to warm up in Iran,

  Precht had been working seven days a week from eight in the morning until

  nine at night. And those damn Texans seemed to think he had nothing else to

  do but talk to them on the phone.

  The trouble was, the crisis in Iran was not the only power struggle Precht

  had to worry about. There was another fight going on, in Washington,

  between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance--Precht's bos&-and Zbigniew

  Brzezinski, the President's National Security Advisor.

  Vance believed, like President Carter, that American foreign policy should

  reflect American morality. The American people believed in freedom,

  justice, and democracy, and they did not want to support tyrants. The Shah

  of Iran was a tyrant. Amnesty International had called Man's human-rights

  record the worst in the world, and the many reports of the Shah's

  systematic use of torture had been confirmed by the International

  Commission of Jurists. Since the CIA had put the Shah in power and the

  U.S.A. had kept him there, a President who talked a lot about human rights

  had to do something.

  In January 1977 Carter had hinted that tyrants might be denied American

  aid. Carter was indecisive-later that year he visited Iran and lavished

  praise on the Shah-but Vance believed in the human-rights approach.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski did not. The National Security Advisor believed in

  power. The Shah was an ally of the United States, and should be supported.

  Sure, he should be encouraged to stop torturing peopl"ut not yet. His

  regime was under attack: this was no time to liberalize it.

  When would be the time? asked the Vance faction. The Shah had been strong

  for most of his twenty-five years of rule, but had never shown much

  inclination toward moderate government. Brzezinski replied: "Name one

  single moderate government in that region of the world."

  There were those in the Carter administration who thought that if America

  did not stand for freedom and democracy there was no point in having a

  foreign policy at all; but that was a somewhat extreme view, so they fell

  back on a pragmatic argument: the Iranian people had had enough of the

  Shah, and they were going to get rid of him regardless of what Washington

  thought.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 71

  Rubbish, said Brzezinski. Read history. Revolutions succeed when rulers

  make concessions, and fail when those in power crush the rebels with an

  iron fist. The Iranian Army, four hundred thousand strong, can easily put

  down any revolt.

  The Vance faction--4ricluding'Henry Precht-
  Brzezinski Theory of Revolutions: threatened tyrants make concessions

  because the rebels are strong, not the other way around, they said. More

  importantly, they did not believe that the Iranian Army was four hundred

  thousand strong. Figures were hard to get, but soldiers were deserting at

  a rate that fluctuated around 8 percent per month, and there were whole

  units that would go over to the revolutionaries intact in the event of

  all-out civil war.

  The two Washington factions were getting their information f1rom different

  sources. Brzezinski was listening to Ardeshir Zahedi, the Shah's

  brother-in-law and the most powerful proShah figure in Iran. Vance was

  listening to Ambassador Sullivan. Sullivan's cables were not as consistent

  as Washington could have wished--perhaps because the situation in Iran was

  sometimes confusing-but, since September, the general trend of his reports

  had been to say that the Shah was doomed.

  Brzezinski said Sullivan was running around with his head cut off and could

  not be trusted. Vance's supporters said that Brzezinski dealt with bad news

  by shooting the messenger.

  The upshot was that the United States did nothing. One time the State

  Department drafted a cable to Ambassador Sullivan, instructing him to urge

  the Shah to form a broad-based civilian coalition government: Brzezinski

  killed the cable. Another time Brzezinski phoned the Shah and assured him

  that he had the support of President Carter; the Shah asked for a

  confirming cable; the State Department did not send the cable. In their

  frustration both sides leaked information to the newspapers, so that the

  whole world knew that Washington's policy on Iran was paralyzed by

  infighting.

  With all that going on, the last thing Precht needed was a gang of Texans

  on his tail thinking they were the only people in the world with a problem.

  Besides, he knew, he thought, exactly why EDS was in trouble. On asking

  whether EDS was represented by an agent in h-an, he was told: Yes--t&.

  Abolfath Mahvi. That explained everything. Mahvi was a well-known Tehran

  middleman, nicknamed "the king of the five percenters" for his dealings in

  72 Ken Follett

  military contracts. Despite his high-level contacts the Shah had put him on

  a blacklist of people banned from doing business in Iran. This was why EDS

  was suspected of corruption.

  Precht would do what he could. He would get the Embassy in Tehran to look

  into the case, and perhaps Ambassador Sullivan might be able to put

  pressure on the Iranians to release Chiapparone and Gaylord. But there was

  no way the United States government was going to put all other Iranian

  questions on the back burner. They were attempting to support the existing

  regime, and this was no time to unbalance that regime further by

  threatening a break in diplomatic relations over two jailed businessmen,

  especially when there were another twelve thousand U.S. citizens in Iran,

  all of whom the State Department was supposed to look after. It was

  unfortunate, but Chiapparone and Gaylord would just have to sweat it out.

 
Henry Precht meant well. However, early in his involvement with Paul and

  Bill, he-like Lou Goelz--made a mistake that at first wrongly colored his

  attitude to the problem and later made him defensive in all his dealings

  with EDS. Precht acted as if the investigation in which Paul and Bin were

  supposed to be witnesses were a legitimate judicial inquiry into allegations

  of corruption, rather than a barefaced act of blackmail. Goelz, on this

  assumption, decided to cooperate with General Biglari. Precht, making the

  same mistake, refused to treat Paul and Bill as criminally kidnapped

  Americans.

  Whether Abolfath Mahvi was corrupt or not, the fact was that he had not

  made a penny out of EDS's contract with the Ministry. Indeed, EDS had got

  into trouble in its early days for refusing to give Mahvi a piece of the

  action.

  It happened like this. Mahvi helped EDS get its first, small contract in

  Iran, creating a document-control system for the Iranian Navy. EDS, advised

  that by law they had to have a local partner, promised Mahvi a third of the

  profit. When the contract was completed, two years later, EDS duly paid

  Mahvi four hundred thousand dollars.

  But while the Ministry contract was being negotiated, Mahvi was on the

  blacklist. Nevertheless, when the deal was about to be signed, Mahvin-who

  by this time was off the blacklist againdemanded that the contract be given

  to a joint company owned by lum. and EDS.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 73

  EDS refused. While Mahvi had earned his share of the navy contract, he had

  done nothing for the Ministry deal.

  Mahvi claimed that EDS's association with him had smoothed the way for the

  Ministry contract through the twenty-four different government bodies that

  had to approve it. Furthermore, he said, he had helped obtain a tax ruling

  favorable to EDS that was written into the contract: EDS only got the

  ruling because Mahvi had spent time with the Minister of Finance in Monte

  Carlo.

  EDS had not asked for his help, and did not believe that he had given it.

  Furthermore, Ross Perot did not like the kind of "help" that takes place in

  Monte Carlo.

  EDS's Iranian attorney complained to the Prime Minister, and Mahvi was

  carpeted for demanding bribes. Nevertheless, his influence was so great

 

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