T.J. wouldargue until nightfall if you let him. "I'm not going to debate
with you," Perot said curtly. "I talked Paul and Bill into going over
there, and I'm going to get them out. -
He hung up the phone and headed for the departure gate. All in all, it had
been a rotten Christmas.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 59
T.J. was a little wounded. An old friend of Perot's as well as a
vice-president of EDS, he was not used to being talked to like the office
boy. This was a persistent failing of Perot's: when he was in high gear, he
trod on people's toes and never knew he had hurt them. He was a remarkable
man, but he was not a saint.
2
Ruthie Chiapparone also had a rotten Christmas.
She was staying at her parents' home, an eighty-five-year-old two-story
house on the southwest side of Chicago. In the rush of the evacuation ftom
Iran she had left behind most of the Christmas presents she had bought for
her daughters, Karen, eleven, and Ann Marie, five; but soon after arriving
in Chicago she had gone shopping with her brother Bill and bought some
more. Her family did their best to make Christmas Day happy. Her sister and
three brothers visited, and there were lots more toys for Karen and Ann
Marie; but everyone asked about Paul.
Ruthie needed Paul. A soft, dependent woman, five years younger than her
husband-she was thirty-four-she loved him partly because she could lean on
his broad shoulders and feel safe. She had always been looked after. As a
child, even when her mother was out at work-supplementing the wages of
Ruthie's father, a truck driver-Ruthie had two older brothers and an older
sister to take care of her.
When she first met Paul he had ignored her.
She was secretary to a colonel; Paul was working on data processing for the
army in the same building. Ruthie used to go down to the cafeteria to get
coffee for the colonel, some of her friends knew some of the young
officers, she sat down to talk with a group of them, and Paul was there and
he ignored her. So she ignored him for a while, then all of a sudden he
asked her for a date. They dated for a year and a half and then got
married.
Ruthie had not wanted to go to Iran. Unlike most of the EDS wives, who had
found the prospect of moving to a new country exciting, Ruthie had been
highly anxious. She had never been outside the United States-Hawaii was the
farthest she had ever traveled-and the Middle East seemed a weird and
frightening place. Paul took her to Iran for a week in June of 1977, hoping
60 Ken Follett
she would like it, but she was not reassured. Finally she agreed to go, but
only because the job was so important to him.
However, she ended up liking it. The Iranians were nice to her, the
American community there was close-knit and sociable, and Ruthie's serene
nature enabled her to deal calmly with the daily frustrations of living in
a primitive country, like the lack of supermarkets and the difficulty of
getting a washing machine repaired in less than about six weeks.
Leaving had been strange. The airport had been crammed, just an
unbelievable number of people in there. She had recognized many of the
Americans, but most of the people were fleeing Iranians. She had thought:
I don't want to leave like this--why are you pushing us out? What are you
doing? She had traveled with Bill Gaylord's wife, Emily. They went via
Copenhagen, where they spent a freezing cold night in a hotel where the
windows would not close: the children had to sleep in their clothes. When
she got back to the States, Ross Perot had called her and talked about the
passport problem, but Ruthie had not really understood what was happening.
During that depressing Christmas Day-so unnatural to have Christmas with
the children and no Daddy-Paul had called from Tehran. "I've got a present
for you," he had said.
:'Your airline ticket?" she said hopefully.
'No. I bought you a mg."
"That's nice."
He had spent the day with Pat and Mary Sculley, he told her. Someone else's
wife had cooked his Christmas dinner, and he had watched someone else's
children open their presents.
Two days later she heard that Paul and Bill had an appointment, the
following day, to see the man who was making them stay in Iran. After the
meeting they would be let go.
The meeting was today, December 28. By midday Ruthie was wondering why
nobody from Dallas had called her yet. Tehran was eight and a half hours
ahead of Chicago: surely the meeting was over? By now Paul should be
packing his suitcase to come home.
She calledDallas and spoke to Jim Nyfeler, an EDS man who had left Tehran
last June. "How did the meeting work out?" she asked him.
"It didn't go too well, Ruthie .
"What do you mean, it didn't go too well?"
I 'They were arrested."
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 61
"They were arrested? You're kidding!"
"Ruthie, Bill Gayden wants to talk to you."
Ruthie held the line, Paul arrested? Why? For what? By whom?
Gayden, the president of EDS World and Paul's boss, came on the line.
"Hello, Ruthie."
"Bill, what is all this?"
"We don't understand it," Gayden said. "The Embassy over there set up this
meeting, and it was supposed to be routine, they weren't accused of any
crime ... Then, around six-thirty their time, Paul called Lloyd Briggs and
told him they were going to jail. "
"Paul's in jail?"
"Ruthie, try not to worry too much. We got a bunch of lawyers working on
it, we're getting the State Department on the case, and Ross is already on
his way back from Colorado. We're sure we can straighten this out in a
couple of days. It's just a matter of days, really."
"All right," said Ruthie. She was dazed. It didn't make sense. How could
her husband be in jail? She said goodbye to Gayden and hung up.
What was going on out there?
The last time Emily Gaylord had seen her husband Bill, she had thrown a
plate at him.
Sitting in her sister Dorothy's home in Washington, talking to Dorothy and
her husband Tim about how they might help to get Bill out of jail, she
could not forget that flying plate.
It had happened in their house in Tehran. One evening in early December
Bill came home and said that Emily and the children were to return to the
States the very next day. Bill and Emily had four children: Vicki, fifteen;
Jackie, twelve; Jenny, nine; and Chris, six. Emily agreed that they should
be sent back, but she wanted to stay. She might not be able to do anything
to help Bill, but at least he would have someone to talk to.
It,was out of the question, said Bill. She was leaving tomorrow. Ruthie
Chiapparone would be on the same plane. All the other EDS wives and
children would be evacuated a day or two later.
Emily did not want to hear about the other wives. She was going to stay
with her husband.
They argued. Emily got madder and madder until finally she
62 Ken Follett
could no longer express her frustration in w
ords, so she picked up a plate
and hurled it at him.
He would never forget it, she was sure: it was the only time in eighteen
years of marriage that she had exploded like that. She was highly strung,
spirited, excitable-but not violent.
Mild, gentle Bill, it was the last thing he deserved ...
When she first met him she was twelve, he was fourteen, and she hated him.
He was in love with her best friend, Cookie, a strikingly attractive girl,
and all he ever talked about was whom Cookie was dating and whether Cookie
might like to go out and was Cookie allowed to do this or that ... Emily's
sisters and brother really liked Bill. She could not get away from him, for
their families belonged to the same country club and her brother played
golf with Bill. It was her brother who finally talked Bill into asking
Emily for a date, long after he had forgotten Coolde; and, after years of
mutual indifference, they fell madly in love.
By then Bill was in college, studying aeronautical engineering 240 miles
away in Blacksburg, Virginia, and coming home for vacations and occasional
weekends. They could not bear to be so far apart, so, although Emily was
only eighteen, they decided to get married.
It was a good match. They came from similar backgrounds, affluent
Washington Catholic families, and Bill's personalitysensitive, calm,
logical-complemented Emily's nervous vivacity. They went through a lot
together over the next eighteen years. They lost a child with brain damage,
and Emily had major surgery duee times. Their troubles brought them closer
together.
And here was a new crisis: Bill was in jail.
Emily had not yet told her mother. Mother's brother, Emily's uncle Gus, had
died that day, and Mother was already terribly upset. Emily could not talk
to her about Bill yet. But she could talk to Dorothy and Tim.
Her brother-in-law Tim Reardon was a U.S. Attorney in the Justice
Department and had very good connections. Tim's father had been an
administrative assistant to President John F. Kennedy, and Tim had worked
for Ted Kennedy. Tim also knew personally the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, and Maryland Senator Charles
Mathias. He was familiar with the passport problem, for Emily had told him
about it as soon as she got back to Washington from Tehran, and he had
discussed it with Ross Perot.
A
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 63
"I could write a letter to 'President Carter, and ask Ted Kennedy to
deliver it personally," Tim was saying.
Emily nodded. It was hard for her to concentrate. She wondered what Bill
was doing right now.
Paul and Bill stood just inside Cell Number 9, cold, numb, and desperate to
know what would happen next.
Paul felt very vulnerable: a white American in a business suit, unable to
speak more than a few words of Farsi, faced by a crowd of what looked like
thugs and murderers. He suddenly remembered reading that men were
frequently raped in jail, and he wondered grimly how he would cope with
something like that.
Paul looked at Bill. His face was white with tension.
One of the ininates spoke to them in Farsi. Paul said: "Does anyone here
speak English?"
From another cell across the corridor a voice called: "I speak English.
There was a shouted conversation in rapid Farsi, then the interpreter
called: "What is your crime?"
"We haven't done anything," Paul said.
"What are you accused of?"
"Nothing. We're just ordinary American businessmen with wives and children,
and we don't know why we're in jail."
This was translated. There was more rapid Farsi, then the interpreter said:
"This one who is talking to me, he is the boss of your cell, because he is
there the longest.
"We understand," Paul said.
"He will tell you where to sleep."
The tension eased as they talked. Paul took in his surroundings. The
concrete walls were painted what niight once have been orange but now just
looked dirty. There was some kind of thin carpet or matting covering most
of the concrete floor. Around the cell were six sets of bunks, stacked
three high: the lowest bunk was no more than a thin mattress on the floor.
The room was lit by a single dim bulb and ventilated by a grille in the
wall that let in the bitterly cold night air. The cell was very crowded.
After a while a guard came down, opened the door of Cell Number 9, and
motioned Paul and Bill to come out.
This is it, Paul thought; we'll be released now. Thank God I don't have to
spend a night in that awful cell.
64 Ken FoUett
They followed the guard upstairs and into a little room. He pointed at
their shoes.
They understood they were to take their shoes off.
The guard handed them each a pair of plastic slippers.
Paul realized with bitter disappointment that they were not about to be
released; he did have to spend a night in the cell. He thought with anger
of the Embassy staff they had arranged the meeting with Dadgar, they had
advised Paul against taking lawyers, they had said Dadgar was "favorably
disposed" . . . Ross Perot would say: "Some people can't organize a two-car
ftmeral." Mmt applied to the U.S. Embassy staff. They were simply
incompetent. Surely, Paul thought , after all the mistakes they have made,
they ought to come here tonight and try to get us out?
They put on the plastic slippers and followed the guard back downstairs.
The other prisoners were getting ready for sleep, lying on the bunks and
wrapping themselves in thin wool blankets. The cell boss, using sign
language, showed Paul and Bill where to he down: Bill was on the middle
bunk of a stack, Paul below him with just a thin mattress between his body
and the floor.
They lay down. The light stayed on, but it was so dim it hardly mattered.
After a while Paul no longer noticed the smell, but he did not get used to
the cold. With the concrete floor, the open vent, and no heating, it was
almost like sleeping out of doors. What a terrible fife criminals lead,
Paul thought, having to endure conditions such as these; I'm glad I'm not
a criminal. One night of this will be more than enough.
3
Ross Perot took a taxi from the Dallas/Fort Worth regional airport to EDS
corporate headquarters at 7171 Forest Lane. At the EDS gate he rolled down
the window to let the security guards see his face, then sat back again as
the car wound along the quarter-mile driveway through the park. The site had
once been a country club, and these grounds a golf course. EDS headquarters
loomed ahead, a seven-story office building, and
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 65
next to it a tomado-proof blockhouse containing the vast computers with
their thousands of miles of magnetic tape,
Perot paid the driver, walked into the office building, and took the
elevator to the fifth floor, where he went to Gayden's comer office.
Gayden was at his desk. Gayden always managed to look untidy, despite the
EDS dress code. He had taken his jacket off. His
tie was loosened, the
collar of his button-down shirt was open, his,Mr was mussed, and a
cigarette dangled from the comer of his mouth. He stood up when Perot
walked in.
"Ross, how's your mother?"
"She's in good spirits, thank you."
"That's good."
Perot sat down. "Now, where are we on Paul and Bill?"
Gayden picked up the phone, saying: "Lemme get T.J. in here." He punched T.
J. Marquez's number and said: "Ross is here . . . Yeah. My office." He hung
up and said: "He'll be right down. Uh ... I called the State Department.
The head of the Iran Desk is a man called Henry Precht. At first he
wouldn't return my call. In the end I told his secretary, I said: 'If he
doesn't call me within twenty minutes, I'm going to call CBS and ABC and
NBC, and in one hour's time Ross Perot is going to give a press conference
to say that we have two Americans-in trouble in Iran and our country won't
help them.' He called back five minutes later."
"What did he say?"
Gayden sighed. "Ross, their basic attitude up there is that if Paul and
Bill are in jail they must have done something wrong.
"But what are they going to do?"
"Contact the Embassy, look into it, blah blah blah."
"Well, we're going to have to put a firecracker under Precht's tail," Perot
said angrily. "Now, Tom Luce is the man to do that." Luce, an aggressive
young lawyer, was the founder of the Dallas firm of Hughes & Hill, which
handled most of EDS's legal business. Perot had retained him as EDS's
counsel years ago, mainly because Perot could relate to a young man who,
like himself, had left a big company to start his own business and was
struggling to pay the bills. Hughes & Hill, like EDS, had grown rapidly.
Perot had never regretted hiring Luce.
Gayden said: "Luce is right here in the office somewhere."
"How about Tom Walter?"
I 'He's here, too."
66 Ken Follett
Walter, a tall Alabaman with a voice like molasses, was EDS's chief
financial officer and probably the smartest man, in terms of sheer brains,
in the company. Perot said: "I want Walter to go to work on the bail. I
don't want to pay it, but I will if we have to. Walter should figure out
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