Ross Perot Press Conference
Ross Perot Press Conference
TLS press conference, cam in back of room. MSs Texas businessman ROSS PEROT speaking into microphone. MS placard titled, "Please send a letter to Hanoi!" with photo of American POW in Vietnamese cell. Head-on TLS unmoving audience of Caucasians, including one USAF airman looking particularly button-lipped. MS/CUs Ross Perot addressing audience, telling them to write to 1970 political congressional candidates and demand that they make the release of American POWs a plank of their campaign platforms. Perot, " the candidates for Congress and the Senate this year, urging them to make the immediate release of the prisoners, part of their written campaign platform. Now, from your point of view that s not too significant, maybe, but from the North Vietnamese point of view, that s the definition of what an issue is. It s a part of the campaign platforms of most of the Senators and Congressmen that are running in 1970. That s a classic definition of an issue, from their point of view. I think that every Senator and Congressmen running, without regard to how they feel about the war, will take a strong written position, get it into print, talk about it. Then I want you to do one other thing, after you get them to do that, get a copy of their written platform; mail it to Hanoi. Get a copy of their speeches as they are made and the statements, clip those out. Always address these letters in long hand, don t look real organized. It needs to look spontaneous because it is spontaneous. You saw it; you decided to do something. Send that to them. And as they see this, they are very statistically oriented. I just guarantee you, they ll have a group of elves over there, opening the mail and counting it and sorting it and saying we used to get 100 letters a day protesting prisoners treatment and now we re getting 50 thousand a day, what s happening?