|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Former Rep. Hendon Fighting for 'Forgotten' Soldiers NewsMax.com Wires Hundreds of American prisoners of war in North Vietnam and Laos were never freed by their captors – and many remain prisoners today.
That's the explosive report from former Congressman Bill Hendon, co-author with Elizabeth Stewart of the new book "An Enormous Crime – The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia."
The North Carolina Republican spent the last 25 years diligently digging into intelligence files in an effort to learn what really happened to those POWs.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, Hendon discussed what led him to devote much of his life to alerting his fellow Americans about the plight of these abandoned soldiers.
Story Continues Below
NewsMax: How did you get in involved in this matter? When the first plane landed [carrying returning POWs), my heart almost stopped when Adm. Jeremiah Denton was the first man off the plane. I called his son and told him I had seen his dad get off the plane and that I wanted to do something.
Then in 1980 I was elected to Congress with Ronald Reagan. [When Hendon met another newly elected Congressman, John LeBoutillier, he heard about a rescue mission that was planned in response to a message from imprisoned POWs seen from the air.]
LeBoutillier was on the Foreign Affairs Committee and when he heard about it he told me. We both joined the POW/MIA task force and we said, "Look, if these guys are really there we want to help."
[The rescue mission failed but it forced the two men to look deeper into the fate of American POWs in North Vietnam. That was the beginning, and Hendon recalled that from then on they never let up in trying to help the POWs still in North Vietnamese prisons.]
When we looked at the secret intelligence in the Pentagon – in addition to the rescue mission and all the satellite photography – we found out that this wasn't the only place where our guys were being held. They were all over the place over there, according to the intelligence. This was in 1981 and as we say at the end of the book, [reports are] continuing to pour in from Indochina.
I saw what was in our government files about missing prisoners and still-held prisoners, and if anybody saw what I saw they would have done the same thing I did.
NewsMax: You write with a sense of urgency and are convinced that there is a need for action. Do you believe that these men are still alive?
Hendon: We are convinced based on the intelligence and all that we have done over there that these guys are still alive and in prison. They're in underground prisons, caves. They are keeping these men alive. It's not like they are starving them to death – they are doing exactly the opposite.
These men have value. In one of the intelligence reports, the source said they were a living gold mine. And he went on to say that to lose one would be losing something of great value.
NewsMax: What is their value? Hendon: The $4.75 billion [for reconstruction of North Vietnam, what amounted to ransom for the POWs], which they have continually called on the U.S. to pay into the 21st century.
The 4.75 billion was a deal, called for in the Paris peace accords, Article 21. It was confirmed by Nixon's secret letter. It was confirmed to them personally in Hanoi when the Vietnamese demanded that Kissinger come there and confirm it. He did. There was no question in anybody's mind.
Then right at the end of Operation Homecoming, the men were released in groups and when the last group was ready to come out, Watergate crashed down on Nixon. That was the beginning of the end for Nixon and the beginning of the end for the unreturned prisoners.
The Vietnamese were going to release them once they got their money. We promised to pay that $4.75 billion. They gave us half of our guys back and when they didn't get the money they kept the other half. The money was never even appropriated by Congress.
NewsMax: Has anyone who saw these men ever emerged? Hendon: The repatriated deserter Garwood reported seeing POWs still held in North Vietnam. He said he saw a bunch of prisoners, about 80 or so at five different locations. At four of those locations we have corroborative intelligence where other sources independently reported American POWs. Garwood has to be a credible witness about that.
[According to Defense Department records, Robert R. Garwood disappeared from Da Nang, South Vietnam, in 1965. He was repatriated from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1979. In 1981 he was convicted of collaboration with the enemy. In December of 1984, Garwood reported live sightings of American POWs in Vietnam.]
We propose that President Bush appoint the highest level commission to go over there and try to make it right. We are firmly convinced and we believe readers will also be convinced, when they get through reading this book and the intelligence we are going to put on our Web site.
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2008 NewsMax.Com |