Duo Bring Personalities to Bear on O.C. Base Issue : Politics: Buck Johns is brash and George Argyros is private--but neither likes losing. Both want new airport.

William Buck Johns and George L. Argyros are in different leagues, but together they epitomize the social, political and business worlds of Newport Beach.

Johns, a native Arkansan with a high-pitched twang, once turned his tennis court into a reception hall for then-Vice President Dan Quayle. The event came to symbolize the maturation of his belief that business deals slide perfectly into the world of politics, like hand in glove.

Argyros, grandson of Greek immigrants who became a tycoon, considers former President Richard M. Nixon his good friend. The former owner of AirCal and the Seattle Mariners baseball team, he manages his numerous companies and investments while mastering the global issues of the day, sometimes by telephone from the deck of his 100-foot yacht as he sails the world.

One is wealthy, the other wealthier. One is a powerbroker, the other is power.

And neither likes to lose.

Now this combination of raw energy and political might has thrust itself on the Orange County political scene in an extraordinary way. Frustrated with how local politicians have handled the expected closure of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the two men--both key members of the politically influential Lincoln Club--are asking county voters to support a proposed November ballot initiative that would require that the base be converted into a commercial airport.

Some airport backers worry that the measure is premature and that a defeat at the polls could mean the end of their dream for a commercial airport at El Toro.

But Johns and Argyros are risk-takers. They call it leadership. And the thought of losing does not intimidate them.

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Imagine recent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot on a good day with a smile on his face and normal-sized ears and you are seeing and hearing Buck Johns. But don’t tell him that; he hates the comparison.

Johns walks fast, talks fast and is quick with the one-liners.

When his friends talk about him, they are likely to mimic his Southern accent: “Damn it Steiner, we’ll circle the wagons for you, but not for the Senate,” Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner recalls about the time Johns suggested he not seek a state Senate seat.

Steiner took the advice.

Attorney Dana Reed, however, did not. He stayed in the contest despite a similar warning from Johns. “You want to be senator and I want to be Pope,” Reed remembers Johns telling him. “But guess what? I’m not going to be Pope, and you’re not going to be senator.”

Said Reed, who lost the race to then-Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange): “He has a most disarming demeanor and he does everything with a smile and he does everything with a laugh. But he is brutally honest.”

Those who know Johns agree that if he thinks a cause is worth taking on, he gives it his fullest commitment.

“He is someone who says, ‘Let’s go do it!’ And he makes phone calls, he talks to people, he buttonholes them at events,” said Dick Cheshire, a Chapman University vice president who knows Johns through his work in the community, ranging from membership on the Orange County Fair Board to his boosterism of the Cal State Fullerton athletic program.

Johns, a former Eagle Scout, is respected for his charm, tenacity and ability to juggle multiple interests. One day he is strategizing on El Toro and dealing with a local Assembly race, and a few days later he is dining with David Hale, the former municipal court judge in Arkansas who has accused President Clinton of wrongdoing in the Whitewater controversy.

In Orange County, where most of the political influence and money lines up behind the Republican Party, Johns is in the tight circle of powerbrokers who decide which candidates should drop out of certain races.

It may offend some candidates, but Johns enjoys being right in the middle, making deals and would-be kings.

Politics, Johns said in a recent interview, is the “ultimate game.”

“It provides you access and transcends all the other kinds of barriers,” he said. “The Rockefellers, who have all the money in the world, where do they go? They go to politics.”

Politics is what drew Johns into the land development business.

He was born into a political family in Paris, Ark., 52 years ago. At one point while he was growing up, four of his relatives were on the same ballot seeking local political offices.

But it was not until the 1970s, when he began investing in real estate while heading the California operations for an air conditioning company, that his political acumen was tested.

Johns said he would make an investment and then be asked by a partner to talk to a local city councilman about a needed zoning change.

“So I would lean on the politician, and the value (of the land) would go way up,” Johns said. “And after watching that increase in value, I would say, ‘I think I’m going to do this. It marriages my avocation with a vocation.’ And that’s when I went into the developing business.”

He made his first million dollars as an air-conditioning executive and part-time real estate investor. But by 1980, he decided to strike out on his own.

Johns’ first major development project came together in 1983: a 10-acre parcel in Moreno Valley that was later sold to the local school district. “Hell of a deal,” Johns said, smiling as he remembered thinking that day, “I’m going to do this again.”

Johns usually teams up with a property owner, who puts up the land, and an investor to front the costs of carrying the project through the bureaucratic and legal entitlement process handled by Johns’ company, Inland Group Inc. All of his development projects have occurred in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

But the merger of his business with his politics has caused critics to question his motives on El Toro.

They point to his use of political influence to gain support for a high-speed rail line from Anaheim to the former George Air Force Base because it might benefit his 85-acre project in nearby Hesperia. He also has property interests in Riverside County, where March Air Force Base is scheduled for downsizing.

“He plays right on the edge. He’s a ballsy little guy,” one local business leader said privately, adding that, to Johns’ credit, he does not try to hide any self-interest.

Ask him about a project and he will tell you about it.

Johns said he doubts he will ever be involved in any development around El Toro Marine Corps Air Station because the Irvine Co. owns most of the land.

But he is unabashedly honest about his hope that George Air Force Base can still be developed, even though the project looks doomed because of local political infighting.

“Do I hope to make money in the interest? Yes, I hope to make money in every damn thing I do. I mean, I hope to eventually get paid for all my brilliance!” Johns said with a huge laugh.

“Buck will never be a wallflower,” businessman Gus Owen said recently of his friend.

Nor does Johns shy away from the limelight.

“I have been ambushed by Mike Wallace (of ’60 Minutes’), you know,” Johns said. “It was a fascinating deal. . . . It was pretty exciting stuff.”

At the time, he threatened a lawsuit because he thought the report about his former air-conditioning firm was unfair. But years later, he laughs it off.

Since the days of working on commission as an air-conditioning salesman, Johns has reached state and national political prominence. And he is “having a grand time,” he said, as he awaits the spring of 1996, when California will become an early presidential primary state.

“The first place a Republican checks in in California is Orange County, and the first organization they check in with is the Lincoln Club, and the person they check in with there is the program chairman,” he said. “And that’s me.”

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While Buck Johns revels on the stage of political theater, George Argyros flinches in the footlights of fame.

Not because he is uncomfortable with the majesty of power--he is increasing his public persona in national and international political affairs--but because he believes that business dealings are confidential and personal relationships are no one else’s business.

He will tell you that one of his better days was in the fall of 1992, when his name was dropped from Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 wealthiest men in the nation, after his net worth fell below $265 million. (His estimated net worth remains at least $250 million.)

“I would just as soon not get into it. I didn’t want to be on (the list),” Argyros said recently. “I would like my private life back, thank you.”

Business and political leaders place Argyros, 57, near the highest stratosphere, almost in the same league with Irvine Co. Chairman Donald L. Bren, the wealthiest man in Orange County.

But they also describe Argyros as a complex man--not flamboyant but subtle; a statesman rather than a hands-on powerbroker; conservative in his business dealings but a risk-taker; a shrewd negotiator with a generous heart; and a Republican who will not say he has never voted for a Democrat.

“A lot of people on the East Coast tend to type-cast Orange County businessmen as being right-wingers who haven’t had an original political thought since the Hoover Administration. It was very refreshing to meet Mr. Argyros,” said Richard Fairbanks, managing director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Argyros is a member of its International Counselors board.

Argyros’ story of rags to riches is well-known. Born in Detroit during the Great Depression, he grew up in Pasadena where he went to work at the age of 14 as a box boy at a grocery store.

He was unsure about his future when he graduated from Chapman College in Orange. So, he took out licenses in securities, insurance and real estate, and convinced a friend at a bank to lend him $1,200.

His venture in the residential real estate market ended after his first sale because he did not like it. Instead, he bought and sold commercial property and eventually developed shopping centers, office buildings and apartments.

At one time, he was considered one of the largest apartment builders in Orange County. But quantity was not what mattered to Argyros.

“We have never aspired to be large builders of anything,” he said. “We would rather be quality, profitable, small. We have never had a company brochure, as an example. I have a phobia about it, honestly.”

During the 1980s, in what Argyros calls his “midlife crisis,” he was a co-owner of AirCal, a regional airline that gave him a $10-million return on his investment when it was sold. He also owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team that also returned a huge profit, making the team far more successful on the ledger sheet than on the diamond.

Those familiar with his business success say Argyros watched the marketplace and was smart enough to diversify before the real estate recession hit Orange County.

Arnel and Affiliates, Argyros’ company, is now a collection of numerous financial holdings, including venture capitalism, international telecommunications and health care, with a total of about 15,000 employees. He is a businessman, he said, not a developer.

Nor does not consider himself a salesman, but concedes, “You sell yourself, you sell your ideas. Life is a sell in some ways.”

“He’s a tough negotiator, with high expectations and no nonsense,” said James L. Doti, president of Chapman University, where Argyros has served as board chairman since 1976. “He asks tough questions and he makes sure you have done your work well. If you are not prepared, you will pay the price.”

From food service contracts to legal issues, Argyros guides Doti through the finer points of negotiations, telling him what to demand and what to give up.

He’s a “maximizer” in financial dealings, Doti said of his mentor, but if a moral issue is involved, Argyros will fight for it even if there is a cost.

Argyros’ increasing public involvement has been at the expense of his privacy, Doti said, demonstrating Argyros’ commitment to the community.

“He’s very modest and he’s very private,” Doti said. “He’s not really confident in the setting of being right out in front. I think there’s a certain discomfort there. He’s not naturally a gregarious person. But he believes so positively on certain things that he fights to overcome that.”

Steiner said that Argyros, one of the supervisor’s campaign contributors, “gains respect because he paid his dues, he’s a self-made man and he’s a straight shooter.”

While most people see Argyros as a hard-driving, aggressive businessman, there is a “warm, gentle” side that is not as well-known, said Steiner, who first met Argyros 16 years ago through a charity.

Not only did George and Judie Argyros lead the Orangewood Children’s Foundation campaign for an $8-million home for abused and abandoned children (the couple contributed about $250,000), but they also have funded the education of 12 Orangewood graduates during the last decade, Steiner said. In one case, they paid a young woman’s tuition to UC Irvine and UC Berkeley law school, he added.

In recent years, Argyros has evolved from a doer to a thinker, engaging in public policy discussions through memberships on various boards. He is the fund-raising chairman for the Center for Peace and Freedom, a new think tank established by the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace; he recently sat on a state military base closure panel; and he is one of 40 world business leaders who are members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Last month, he traveled to Mexico with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and heard Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement. Last summer, he sailed the Mediterranean, learning about Greek antiquities and the start of Western civilization.

It is the global perspective that his friends say is now driving Argyros’ political decisions.

For example, he gave Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown--the archenemy of California Republicans--a $13,000 campaign contribution last year because Brown supported legislation that Argyros felt would help the state compete in the world economy.

It is also a long-term view, and not self-interest, that has caused the business leaders to push the El Toro airport initiative, Argyros argues.

Argyros and Marion Knott, of the Knott’s Berry Farm family, signed the formal petition for the ballot initiative, with Argyros contributing $25,000 and Knott donating $10,000 for the campaign, called Committee for 21,000 New Jobs.

Without an international airport in Orange County, the region will fail to capture the expected economic growth in the Pacific basin and as the result of NAFTA, Argyros said.

The argument has yet to win widespread support, but Argyros is convinced it will prevail.

And if they fail? “We will do it again,” he said.

What They Gave

Here are the political contributions made by developer George Argyros and William Buck Johns in state and local elections during 1992 and 1993:

GEORGE L. ARGYROS Committee: Amount 1992 United California Taxpayers (Proposition 165): $25,000 Pete Wilson Committee: $25,000 California Republican Party: $22,500 Limit Congress--A Project of Citizens for Term Limits (Proposition 164): $10,000 Opportunity ‘92: $5,000 Bob Dorr State Sen. Election Committee: $1,000 Tom Lutz for Santa Ana City Council: $500 Committee to Reelect Orange Mayor Gene Beyer: $500 Marian Bergeson Senate Committee: $500 Friends of Bill Steiner: $500 Friends of Supervisor Harriett Weider: $500 Joan Sparkman for Riverside County Supervisor: $250 Committee to elect Jim Winkler (Lake Elsinore City Council): $250 Committee to Reelect Yorba Linda Councilman Mark Schwing: $150 1992 TOTAL: $91,650 1993 California Republican Party: $35,000 Willie L. Brown for Assembly 1994: $13,000 Californians For Strong Law Enforcement (Proposition 172): $9,750 Friends of Bill Steiner (Supervisor): $1,500 Richard Riordan for Mayor (Los Angeles): $1,000 Gil Ferguson for Assembly: $1,000 Friends of Curt Pringle (Assembly): $600 Friends of Dan Young (Santa Ana mayor): $550 Marian Bergeson for Supervisor: $500 Frank Hill for State Senate: $250 1993 TOTAL: $63,150

WILLIAM BUCK JOHNS Committee: Amount 1992 Southern California Caucus: $18,000 Republican Party of California: $1,548 Friends of Curt Pringle: $1,500 Jo Ellen Allen for Assembly: $1,486 O.C. Committee for State & Local Candidates: $1,250 Republican Party of Orange County: $1,090.13 Joan E. Sparkman for Supervisor (Riverside): $1,074.35 Republican Associates of Orange County: $1,035.21 Marian Bergeson State Committee: $500 Ray Haynes for State Assembly (Temecula): $425.87 Debra Allen for Municipal Court Judge: $350 Kathleen M. Honeycutt for Assembly (Hesperia): $350 Jim Brulte Campaign Committee (Assembly, Rancho Cucamonga): $300 Doris Allen for Assembly 1992: $300 Committee to Reelect Gary Washburn (Lake Elsinore mayor): $297 Taxfighters for Steve Baldwin (El Cajon): $250 California State Fullerton Conservative College Republicans: $250 Roger Harvey for Oceanview School Board: $250 Dan Lungren for Attorney General 1994: $250 Committee to Reelect Dean McCormick (Orange School Board): $250 Woodruff for Assembly 1992 (Moreno Valley): $250 Friends of Cathie Wright (state Senate, Simi Valley): $250 Friends of Cynthia Crothers (Moreno Valley City Council): $245 Dave Haas for City Council (Murrieta): $245 Gary Smith for City Council (Murrieta): $245 Committee to Elect Fred Weishaupl (Murrieta City Council): $245 Friends of Brian Theriot (Costa Mesa City Council): $215.82 Friends of Mike Eggers (for mayor, Dana Point): $200 Ken Bruner for Irvine City Council: $180 Committee to Elect Mike Capizzi: $150 John Lewis for State Senate 1992: $150 B.T. Collins for Assembly (Citrus Heights): $100 Committee to Elect Marion Ashley (Perris Water Board): $100 Committee to Elect Jan Debay (Newport Beach): $100 Citizens for Sandy Genis (Costa Mesa): $100 Frank Hill for Senate 1992 (Whittier): $100 Charles House for City Council (Hacienda Heights): $100 Pat Nolan’s Capitol Roundtable (Glendale): $100 O.C. Citizens for Political & Fiscal Responsibility: $100 Dana Reed for State Senate: $100 Christine Shea for Irvine City Council: $100 Friends of Mike Spurgeon (Orange City Council): $100 1992 Total: $34,232.38 1993 Governor Pete Wilson Committee: $3,450 Dan Lungren for Attorney General: $2,784.68 Lincoln Club of Orange County: $2,500 Southern California Caucus: $2,500 Republican Party of Orange County: $1,689.02 Golden Circle of California: $1,500 California Republican Party: $1,096 Friends of Rob Hurtt (state Senate): $1,000 Kathleen M. Honeycutt for Assembly (Hesperia): $875 Friends of Pat Nolan (Assembly, Glendale): $792.58 Excellence Through Choice in Education League (Proposition 174): $564.25 Marian Bergeson for Supervisor: $550 Lou Barnett for Assembly (Carmichael): $500 Committee to Elect Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi: $500 Matt Fong for Treasurer: $500 The Ross Johnson Assembly Committee: $500 Richard Katz for Mayor of Los Angeles: $500 Friends of Supervisor Bill Steiner: $400 Californians for a Flat Tax: $391.77 Mayor Cynthia Crothers for Supervisor (Moreno Valley): $350 Jim Brulte Campaign Committee (Assembly, Rancho Cucamonga): $300 Jo Ellen Allen for Assembly, 69th District: $250 Mickey Conroy for Assembly: $250 Republican Associates of Orange County: $250 Gil Ferguson for Assembly 1994: $150 Friends of Curt Pringle (Assembly): $150 Committee for Jeff Thomas (Tustin City Council): $150 Friends of Mara Brandman (Orange Unified School District): $100 Ambassador Joe Ghougassian for State Senate (Chula Vista): $100 Martha House Campaign (Hacienda Heights school board): $100 Robert L. Richardson for Santa Ana City Council: $100 Barbara Riordan for Supervisor (San Bernardino County): $100 1993 Total: $24,943.30 Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters