Ross Perot compared Bob Dole's campaign to the intellectually challenged Forrest Gump, saying Dole and his team bungled their mission to get him to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Dole.

Perot said that while the GOP nominee's campaign manager Scott Reed flew to Dallas last week to meet Perot for what was supposed to be a secret entreaty, members of Dole's camp were leaking the story to the press."And then for the first time I had a sense of why they were coming because they leaked the whole thing. Forrest Gump should be smarter than that," Perot said in an interview taped Tuesday with David Frost.

"If you want to accomplish the mission, you don't create a situation where it can't be accomplished."

Last week, Perot publicly rejected Dole's entreaty to quit the race, calling it "weird and totally inconsequential."

View Comments

"This was supposed to be a private conversation. I only agreed to it with that absolute understanding," Perot said in the interview, to be aired Friday on PBS.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.