An Enormous Crime by Bill Hendon

An Enormous Crime by Bill Hendon

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An Enormous Crime is nothing less than shocking. Based on thousands of pages of public and previously classified documents, it makes an utterly convincing case that when the American government withdrew its forces from Vietnam, it knowingly abandoned hundreds of POWs to their fate.

The product of twenty-five years of research by former Congressman Bill Hendon and attorney Elizabeth A. Stewart, this book brilliantly reveals the reasons why these American soldiers and airmen were held back by the North Vietnamese at Operation Homecoming in 1973, what these brave men have endured, and how administration after administration of their own government has turned its back on them.

This authoritative exposé is based on open-source documents and reports, and thousands of declassified intelligence reports and satellite imagery, as well as author interviews and personal experience. An Enormous Crime is a singular work, telling a story unlike any other in our history: ugly, harrowing, and true.

Former U.S. Rep. Bill Hendon (R-NC) served two terms on the U.S. House POW/MIA Task Force (1981-1982 and 1985-1986), as a consultant on POW/MIA affairs with an office in the Pentagon (1983), and as a full-time intelligence investigator assigned to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs (1991-1992). He has traveled to South and Southeast Asia thirty-three times on behalf of America's POWs and MIAs. Hendon is considered the nation's foremost authority on intelligence relating to American POWs held after Operation Homecoming and is an expert on the Vietnamese and Laotian prison systems. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth A. Stewart's father, Col. Peter J. Stewart (USAF), is missing in action in North Vietnam. His name appears on Panel 6E, Line 12, of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She has spent more than two decades researching intelligence relating to American POWs and MIAs. Her efforts have taken her from Capitol Hill to Cambodia, from the South China Sea to the presidential palace in Hanoi, and to the most remote regions of northern Vietnam. An attorney, she lives in Winter Haven, Florida.