On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett Page B

War Simons had run Operation White Star. He went to Laos
        with 107 men and organized twelve battalions of Mao tribesmen to fight the
        Vietnamese. One of the battalions defected to the other side, taking as
        prisoners some of Simons's Green Berets. Simons took a helicopter and
        landed inside the stockade where the defecting battalion was. On seeing
        Simons, the Laotian colonel stepped forward, stood at attention, and
        saluted. Simons told him to produce the prisoners immediately, or he would
        call an air strike and destroy the entire battalion. The colonel produced
        the prisoners. Simons took them away, then called the air strike anyway.
        Simons had come back from Laos three years later with all his 107 men.
        Perot had never checked out this legend-he liked it the way it was.
        The second time Perot met Simons was after the war. Perot virtually took
        over a hotel in San Francisco and threw a weekend party for the returning
        prisoners of war to meet the Son Tay Raiders. It cost Perot a quarter of a
        million dollars, but it was a hell of a party. Nancy Reagan, Clint
        Eastwood, and John Wayne came. Perot would never forget the meeting between
        John Wayne and Bull Simons. Wayne shook Simons's hand with tears in his
        eyes and said: "You are the man I play in the movies."
        Before the ticker-tape parade Perot asked Simons to talk to his Raiders and
        wam them against reacting to demonstrators. "San Francisco has had more
        than its share of anti-war demonstrations, -Perot said. "You didn't pick
        your Raiders for their charm. If one of them gets irritated he might just
        snap some poor devil's neck and regret it later."
        Simons looked at Perot. It was Perot's first experience of The Simons Look.
        It made you feel as if you were the biggest fool in history. It made you
        wish you had not spoken. It made you wish the ground would swallow you up.
        "I've already talked to them," Simons said. "There won't be a problem. "
        That weekend and later, Perot got to know Simons better, and saw other
        sides of his personality. Simons could be very charming, when he chose to
        be. He enchanted Perot's wife, Margot, and the children thought he was
        wonderful. With his men he spoke soldiers' language, using a great deal of
        profanity, but he was surprisingly articulate when talking at a banquet or
        press conference. His college major had been journalism. Some of his
    58 Ken FoUett
     
    tastes were simple-he read westerns by the boxful, and enjoyed what his sons
    called "supermarket music"--but he also read a lot of nonfiction, and had a
    lively curiosity about all sorts of things. He could talk about antiques or
    history as easily as battles and weaponry.
        Perot and Simons, two willful, dominating personalities, got along by
        giving one another plenty of room. They did not become close friends. Perot
        never called Simons by his first name, Art (although Margot did). Like most
        people, Perot never knew what Simons was thinking unless Simons chose to
        tell him. Perot recalled their first meeting in Fort Bragg. Before getting
        up to make his speech, Perot had asked Simons's wife, Lucille: "What is
        Colonel Simons really like?" She had replied: "Oh, he's just a great big
        teddy bear." Perot repeated this in his speech. The Son Tay Raiders fell
        apart. Simons never cracked a smile.
        Perot did not know whether this impenetrable man would care to rescue two
        EDS executives from a Persian jail. Was Simons grateful for the San
        Francisco party? Perhaps. After that party Perot had financed Simons on a

    trip to Laos to search for MlAs-American soldiers missing in action-who had
        not come back with the