The day after he was born, when Coburn went to visit, Liz said Scott had not been brought in for his feeding that morning. At the time Coburn took no notice. A few minutes later a woman came in and said: 'Here are the pictures of your baby.'
'I don't remember any pictures being taken,' Liz said. The woman showed her the photographs. 'No, that's not my baby.'
The woman looked confused for a moment, then said: 'Oh! That's right, yours is the one that's got the problem.'
It was the first Coburn and Liz had heard of any problem.
Coburn went to see the day-old Scott, and had a terrible shock. The baby was in an oxygen tent, gasping for air, and as blue as a pair of jeans. The doctors were in consultation about him.
Liz became almost hysterical, and Coburn called their family doctor and asked him to come to the hospital. Then he waited.
Something wasn't stacking up right. What kind of a hospital was it where they didn't tell you your newborn baby was dying? Coburn became distraught.
He called Dallas and asked for his boss, Gary Griggs. 'Gary, I don't know why I'm calling you, but I don't know what to do.' And he explained.
'Hold the phone,' said Griggs.
A moment later there was an unfamiliar voice on the line. 'Jay?'
'Yes.'
'This is Ross Perot.'
Coburn had met Perot two or three times, but had never worked directly for him. Coburn wondered whether Perot even remembered what he looked like: EDS had more than a thousand employees at that time.
'Hello, Ross.'
'Now, Jay, I need some information.' Perot started asking questions: What was the address of the hospital? What were the doctors' names? What was their diagnosis? As he answered, Coburn was thinking bemusedly: does Perot even know who I am?
'Hold on a minute, Jay.' There was a short silence. 'I'm going to connect you with Dr. Urschel, a close friend of mine and a leading cardiac surgeon here in Dallas.' A moment later Coburn was answering more questions from the doctor.
'Don't you do a thing,' Urschel finished. 'I'm going to talk to the doctors on that staff. You just stay by the phone so we can get back in touch with you.'
'Yes, sir,' said Coburn dazedly.
Perot came back on the line. 'Did you get all that? How's Liz doing?'
Coburn thought: How the hell does he know my wife's name? 'Not too well,' Coburn answered. 'Her doctor's here and he's given her some sedation ...'
While Perot was soothing Coburn, Dr. Urschel was animating the hospital staff. He persuaded them to move Scott to New York University Medical Center. Minutes later, Scott and Coburn were in an ambulance on the way to the city.
They got stuck in a traffic jam in the Midtown Tunnel.
Coburn got out of the ambulance, ran more than a mile to the toll gate, and persuaded an official to hold up all lanes of traffic except the one the ambulance was in.
When they reached New York University Medical Center there were ten or fifteen people waiting outside for them. Among them was the leading cardiovascular surgeon on the East Coast, who had been flown in from Boston in the time it had taken the ambulance to reach Manhattan.
As baby Scott was rushed inside, Coburn handed over the envelope of X rays he had brought from the other hospital. A woman doctor glanced at them. 'Where are the rest?'
'That's all,' Coburn replied.
'That's all they
New X rays revealed that, as well as a hole in the heart, Scott had pneumonia. When the pneumonia was treated, the heart condition came under control.
And Scott survived. He turned into a soccer-playing, tree-climbing, creek-wading, thoroughly healthy little boy. And Coburn began to understand the way people felt about Ross Perot.
Perot's single-mindedness, his ability to focus narrowly on one thing and shut out distractions until he got the job done, had its disagreeable side. He could wound people. A day or two after Paul and Bill were arrested, he had walked into an office where Coburn was talking on the phone to Lloyd Briggs in Tehran. It had sounded to Perot as though Coburn was giving instructions, and Perot believed strongly that people in the head office should not give orders to those out there on the battlefield who knew the situation best. He had given Coburn a merciless telling-off in front of a room full of people.
Perot had other blind spots. When Coburn had worked in recruiting, each year the company had named someone 'Recruiter of the Year.' The names of the winners were engraved on a plaque. The list went back years, and in time some of the winners left the company. When that happened Perot wanted to erase their names from the plaque. Coburn thought that was weird. So the guy left the company--so what? He had been Recruiter of the Year, one year, and why try to change history? It was almost as if Perot took it as a personal insult that someone should want to work elsewhere.
Perot's faults were of a piece with his virtues. His peculiar attitude toward people who left the company was the obverse of his intense loyalty to his employees. His occasional unfeeling harshness was just part of the incredible energy and determination without which he would never have created EDS. Coburn found it easy to forgive Perot's shortcomings.
He had only to look at Scott.
'Mr. Perot?' Sally called. 'It's Henry Kissinger.'
Perot's heart missed a beat. Could Kissinger and Zahedi have done it in the last twenty-four hours? Or was he calling to say he had failed?
'Ross Perot.'
'Hold the line for Henry Kissinger, please.'
A moment later Perot heard the familiar guttural accent. 'Hello, Ross?'
'Yes.' Perot held his breath.
'I have been assured that your men will be released tomorrow at ten A.M., Tehran time.'
Perot let out his breath in a long sigh of relief. 'Dr. Kissinger, that's just about the best news I've heard since I don't know when. I can't thank you enough.'
'The details are to be finalized today by U.S. Embassy officials and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, but this is a formality: I have been advised that your men will be released.'
'It's just great. We sure appreciate your help.'
'You're welcome.'
It was nine-thirty in the morning in Tehran, midnight in Dallas. Perot sat in his office, waiting. Most of his colleagues had gone home, to sleep in a bed for a change, happy in the knowledge that by the time they woke up, Paul and Bill would be free. Perot was staying at the office to see it through to the end.
In Tehran, Lloyd Briggs was at the Bucharest office, and one of the Iranian employees was outside the jail. As soon as Paul and Bill appeared, the Iranian would call Bucharest and Briggs would call Perot.
Now that the crisis was almost over, Perot had time to wonder where he had gone wrong. One mistake occurred to him immediately. When he had decided, on December 4, to evacuate all his staff from Iran, he had not been determined enough and he had let others drag their feet and raise objections until it was too late.
But the big mistake had been doing business in Iran in the first place. With hindsight he could see that. At the time, he had agreed with his marketing people--and with many other American businessmen--that oil-rich, stable, Western-oriented Iran presented excellent opportunities. He had not perceived the strains beneath the surface, he knew nothing about the Ayatollah Khomeini, and he had not foreseen that one day there would be a President naive enough to try to impose American beliefs and standards on a Middle Eastern country.
He looked at his watch. It was half past midnight. Paul and Bill should be walking out of that jail right
