There is nothing illegal in this. But nobody can recall a would-be presidential candidate who asked his country to do so much for him, upfront, before he does anything Perot and his son, Ross Jr., have already gotten generous federal support for Alliance Airport, an airfield in Ft. Worth, Texas, that is, for all practical purposes, a Perot Group project. They are now coming back for still more federal largesse-specifically, $120 million to expand the airport, which is surrounded by land owned by the Perot Group. The Perots also want the U.S. Commerce Department to designate their land as a foreign-trade zone - the biggest foreign-trade zone in the country. And, finally, they’d like the federal government to open a customs office at the airport to handle the cornucopia of foreign trade they see ahead.

Perot told NEWSWEEK that he knows little or nothing about the ownership of the Perot Group and that his son runs Alliance Airport. “I’m really too busy to fool around with anything like that, " he said. “About all that I’ve done at the airport is show up for the ceremonies. " Ross Jr., 33, was somewhat more forthcoming. " Dad bought all that land from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, " he said. " I do all of the real estate and run the operations. " Within the Perot Group, he said, “we split ownership, and it varies project by project. " But the Alliance Airport, Ross Jr. said, is a father-and-son “combined project. "

Alliance Airport has been on the fast track since the mid-’80s. The Perots gave the city 431 acres for the airport itself but kept 4,369 acres that surround it, along with an additional 11,000 acres nearby. The city then appropriated $70 million for sewers , water and roads, and the Federal Aviation Administration spent $41 million on runways and taxiways and $3 million to $4 million on air-traffic-control systems. All this took place within a period of less than two years, which is blinding speed for airport projects. One reason, as FAA officials concede, is that Perot’s airport had the support of powerful people in Congress, including former House speaker Jim Wright. The Perots have long been lavish contributors to Congress. “We certainly didn’t make any contributions for this project, " says Ross Jr. Maybe so, but the Perots have given $146,550 to members of Congress in the past 15 years, mostly to congressional leaders like Wright and to other Texas lawmakers. Wright, who later resigned after an investigation of his finances, used his power as speaker to ram through a $25 million appropriation for the airport in late 1988. The next year Wright added language to a pending bill that required the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to station some of its patrol planes at Alliance. The FAA, not to be outdone, is moving its Southwest regional office from downtown Ft. Worth out to the airport.

Now the Perots want a $120 million FAA grant to extend the main runway by 3,400 feet. The cost-about $35,000 per runway foot-is anywhere from three to nine times the usual cost of runway construction, and some local critics say they know the reasons why. They say the runway extension will require a massive landfill and the relocation of existing roads and railroad lines. The plans also now call for a $15 million highway tunnel under the runway itself. Meanwhile, critics add, the FAA may have conveniently underestimated the landfill’s environmental impact on a nearby lowland and creek, just as it appears to be ignoring the fact that fully half of the projected cost will be spent on infrastructure that is not, strictly speaking, a federal responsibility. “They are ignoring the environment and common sense and their own mission to build runways, " says Pat Moffatt, city manager of the nearby town of Saginaw. " They’re providing industrial development for Ft. Worth and the Perot Group. "

But everyone involved, including FAA officials, says the expansion project is necessary and worthwhile-a prime example of government collaboration with the private sector for the ultimate public good. Ross Perot Jr., acknowledging that the family has sometimes made large campaign contributions to ranking politicians like Jim Wright, says none of those contributions-$133,600 since 1983-were connected to the airport project in any way. That leaves Moffatt, whose town stands to lose a railroad freight yard to the Perots’ ever-expanding airport, to put the issue into a different perspective. “I don’t know how this can square to Ross Perot’s political campaign, " he says. “At the same time he’s saying he wants to throw the Congress out for being wasteful, he’s saying, ‘If I need $120 million, that’s all right’. " Perot, for his part, thinks the critics have missed the point. “I never said I was against government, " he says, airily dismissing a reporter’s questions. “Only against waste. "