Perot Runs Biographical ‘Infomercial’ : Campaign: In 30 minutes, it sketches the Texas billionaire’s life, including efforts for POWs, Tehran raid and building of EDS company.

Ross Perot took his campaign to the airwaves Thursday with a 30-minute biographical ad sketching such career highlights as his work on behalf of POWs, his commando mission to rescue two employees in Iran and the building of his first company.

The ad, broadcast by the ABC network for $370,000, was produced in a one-on-one interview format that allowed the independent candidate full latitude to tell his story and offer his observations on life. “Money is the most overrated thing in the world,” the billionaire candidate tells the interviewer, campaign aide Murphy Martin.

As part of an “infomercial” blitz that will continue until Nov. 3, the campaign has bought addition time for a half-hour spot tonight, another Saturday night and three on election eve.

New campaign finance reports filed in Washington showed that Perot has spent more than $46 million of his own fortune on the campaign, including $30 million in the last six weeks.

Perot recalls how in Christmas, 1969, he chartered a plane for an airlift that he intended to reach Hanoi to bring food, medicine and gifts to U.S. prisoners of war. The flight never got through, but it generated worldwide publicity that Perot said brought a marked improvement in the treatment of the POWs. “They took a man out of a box who had been there for five years,” Perot said. “They started giving them proper nutrition. . . .”

Perot explains again how his own experience in Laos led him to believe that 350 GIs and other Americans were left behind when the United States pulled out of Southeast Asia.

“This breaks my heart to say it, but we left them in Laos,” says Perot, who has repeatedly criticized the conduct of current and former U.S. officials on the issue. “And the evidence is overwhelming.”

(In testimony before a Senate committee this summer, former officials in the Richard M. Nixon Administration confirmed that POWs may have been left in Laos.)

Perot insists that U.S. officials should push Laotian officials harder to try to clear up questions of what happened to U.S. soldiers.

“The way it should be approached to Laos specifically is, ‘Look, prove, prove--what did you do with them? We know you have them. You boasted about having them. If you killed them all, show us the mass graves like the Russians did on the Polish officers. Account for them.’ ”

Perot tells of how he organized a commando raid in Tehran in 1979 to rescue two employees of his computer services company who had been held against their will. Perot says he entered the country undetected, but then the Iranians were tipped off by a spy in the U.S. Embassy.

“They were tearing the town up for me because I was a better hostage,” says Perot, whose version of the story became writer Ken Follett’s book “On Wings of Eagles.”

The two employees, Perot and his team escaped after an Iranian employee of his company fomented a riot in the prison where the captives were held.

Again and again as he recounts these tales of his colorful career, Perot insists that the credit should go to others. In the Tehran raid and the POW trip, he credits his fellow adventurers and Col. Arthur (Bull) Simons. In describing the building of his company, Electronic Data Systems, he is modest.

“One common thing you see about people who built very successful businesses is they don’t have all the skills,” Perot says. “They are normally of average intelligence and they reach out and surround themselves with very talented people. All the credit for the success of EDS goes to those people.”

Critics might find fault with some details of Perot’s story. Speaking of his attitude toward diversity among his employees, Perot says: “I don’t care what race you are. I don’t care what sex you are.”

But some critics have noted that EDS under Perot had a very small share of women or minorities in top-level positions.

Perot also boasts that his employees had the same health care plans he did. But some news reports have alleged that during Perot’s leadership, EDS fired a man with AIDS and later paid him a large sum to settle a wrongful discharge suit.

The campaign’s commercial tonight will be shown on NBC at 8 PDT, and will deal with Perot’s family life. The Saturday night infomercial will be broadcast on CBS; aides wouldn’t disclose its subject on Thursday.